Hi,

Is it a requirement to be a native speaker of English to be able to teach English in Switzerland?

I'm a non native speaker but have experience in training people for call centres in spoken english.

Just wanted to know there is a strong bias or if it is a desirable requirement.

Thanks.

Are you from the EU?

Hi,

I can't say for sure if it is a requirement, but I think it is favoured. When I interviewed the boss told me that if I approached other schools, to make sure that I highlight on my cv that I am a native speaker. It could be worth emailing some schools though. I think if your accent is superb and your ability high, that would likely speak for itself.

I can't tell for sure but training call center workers and teaching English in general here would be two different things.

It depends on your qualifications, appropriate teaching degrees, experience and how fluent you are. Aside of that, there are many non-anglophone English teachers, locals included. The teaching degree has to correspond with the school requirements. It just depends on what school you want to teach in, language agency, international/public school, etc.

Here in Switzerland, they tend to care about credentials more than experience or innate capability. So certainly, with adequate credentials a non-native speaker can teach English, and at lower levels (e.g. Gymi) it's commonplace. At higher levels, native speakers are the rule.

Yes, in my opinion it would be a requirement.
I remember a school hesitating about my teaching application (when I was at the university) because they felt an American accent would not be good enough.. they wanted their students to learn British English.

how entertaining....

yup.. I was thrilled to bits.
Minded my p's and q's after that
ta ta

strangely, my employers were very happy to finally have an american teacher. they said it was such a problem to find americans (or u.s americans ) with permission to work here. apparently now we are in demand !

in terms of hiring non-native english speakers, it never hurts to apply, but in my experience, employers at schools will hire the native speaker over the non-native (given the other credentials are the same). though, it does depend on which sector of education you will be teaching- kids, business english, etc.

That's the requirement, not the native speaker part.

None of my English teachers were native speaker, all the way up to the advanced course before Abitur. I'd expect the same to be true here - most English teacher will be Swiss, so non-native speakers.

yes.. well.. I was talking about the old medieval days when I was young!
You're a sweet young lady, different era

Have you already heard about the TESOL or Cambridge Proficiency qualifications? CELTA spontaneously rings a bell to me. I suppose as a non-native English speaking candidate employers look out for these sort of credits. You could probably narrow down first what public you'd want to teach to... there's certainly a difference in between 'Frühenglisch' at nursery school to young adults in a 'Berufsschule' taking bili-lessons, or business english courses. I'd be interested to know if it worked out for you.

Most languages teachers in Swiss schools are ... Swiss. At the local school none of them are native speakers of the languages they teach. In the UK I taught French, German and English - and only one was my native tongue, of course! And most of the languages teachers I taught with were British, and non-native of the languages they taught. (sadly some did not have a good command of those languages..). I do have a slightly bizarre accent (Ssout African- for some obscure reason) but I feel my command of English is adequate for the job, same in German.

I agree with this - in fact, saved me writing exactly the same thing.

I would also say, ask your friends if you make many mistakes when speaking English. Some people are just superb at English...