Thanks ever so much for your advice and for sharing
your experiences, Ruiying and Betty. I'm very new to
this field and it'll take me a little while to take
all the information in!
I was indeed trained as a Chinese teacher in a normal
college in China. I've just looked at the Overseas
Trained Teachers Programme as suggested and it looks
very interesting.
If anyone are on the OTTP with an employment based
initial teacher training provider (EBITT), or have got
a QTS via this route, I'd be really interested to hear
what it's like!
Best wishes,
Jane Wang
--- ruiying du <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
---------------------------------
Hi there,
PGCE will be better, otherwise you have to do another
course to get QTS.
If you don't mind me asking, were you trained as a
teacher in a normal university in China? Because, as
long as you have been trained as a teacher, you can
actually work in the UK for up to four years without
gaining QTS, as long as you can get a job, which is
not normally that easy, unless you do some supply
teaching first or if you just want to teach Chinese,
some voluntary work in a Chinese teaching school.
Basically, you don;t have to do another PGCE, if you
already got a Chinese teaching
qualification--degree/diploma from a normal university
or college. Voluntary work will give a insight of what
you want to do and it does not have to be that long.
It will give references, which really helps. If you
choose to do voluntary work, you have to actually
teach one or two lesson and try to do what the teacher
does towards the end, so the reference will be good
for future job hunting. Voluntary work might lead to
somewhere anyway. Knowing the right people is
important.
If you choose to teach without doing any course as I
have said, you will need to get QTS withing four years
of your teaching, which is not that hard at all. You
just need to hand in some evidences, and be observed.
The downside of this is that you might not be paid a
lot before you qualified as a teacher. PGCE is the
most straight forward way. From my understanding, the
SOAS course does not offer you a opportunity toward
QTS, which is essential if you want to teach in UK
maintained schools. If you want to teach in College
level or Private schools, you don't need to worry
about QTS and you will be paid more. So if there are
suitable private schools close to where you live,
doing some voluntary work there is the best start, I
personally think this.
I have just ranted on for so long. If you have any
other questions, please email me. I am currently
teaching in London as a primary teacher, but not
teaching Chinese. I have explored ways of gaining QTS,
but not so familiar with the Chinese teaching side of
it. The above is just my own opinion. I hope I did not
mislead you.
Best wishes with your career.
Regards,
Ruiying
--- On Thu, 10/4/08, WJH <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
From: WJH <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: qualifications
To: [log in to unmask]
Date: Thursday, 10 April, 2008, 5:41 AM
Dear All,IĄŻve just signed up for this forum and
thought that Iwould try and send this around. Hope
youĄŻll be ableto help me find the best way to become
a qualifiedChinese teacher. Very glad to join you!I
worked as a Chinese Teacher in a secondary school
inChina for two years after obtaining a BA in
ChineseLanguage and Literature Education. Although I
havebeen in UK for some 7 years, itĄŻs only recently
thatI thought seriously about entering the profession
ofTCFL. My 4-year-old son, who is in pre-school, is
speakingmore and more English despite our constant
effort ofspeaking only in Mandarin at home. We are so
concernedabout this that IĄŻve decided to give up my
currentjob so that I can teach him and another
child(daughter of our friends) Chinese after school
fromSeptember when heĄŻll go to the local school. Then
Ithought perhaps I could teach Chinese in a
schoolsetting one day?Having read through the
informative web pages aboutChinese professional
development on SAAT website, Istill have some
questions. IĄŻve browsed online theGoldsmiths PGCE
Secondary (flexible programme) andSOAS CTCFL course,
which are the two closest to Oxfordwhere I live. It
looks that for the PGCE course, one would
needlanguages skills in a third language (preferably
oneof the main European languages) in addition to
Englishand Chinese. Another drawback is that it
involves24-week school placement, with which I wonĄŻt
have anyproblems in two yearsĄŻ time as long as I
could beassigned to a local school. But at the moment
I alsohave a 2-year-old toddler to look after. Because
ofour ĄŽfailureĄŻ in making his elder brother a
nativeMandarin speaker, I would very much like to
withdrawhis nursery place from September. Hopefully in
thecrucial period of his language development, heĄŻll
getmore exposure of Chinese and therefore develop
Chineseas mother tongue.I know PGCE would be the best
way of gaining a QTS butthe requirement of a European
language puts my off. IĄŻm not confident that IĄŻll be
able to master Frenchin just two years, even if I
start now. Is itessential to meet this requirement?
As for the CTCFL course, it would suit me well interms
of time commitment because classes are onSaturdays.
However, itĄŻs more like an initialintroduction. Will
it serve as a good qualificationfor the purpose of
seeking employment? Or maybe it canhelp one find an
employer who agrees to sponsor theGPT? Sorry for the
length of this message. I would be verygrateful for
any information/advice/comments you mightbe able to
give me.Many thanksJane Wang
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