If you do not have a permanent, year-round teaching contract in Ontario, I am sure that you have considered alternative careers or income streams from time to time. We all have our own reasons for our professional situations whether they are extrinsic or intrinsic. As I see it, there are five paths forward for short-term, contract ESL instructors in our sector:
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Written by Reza Mazloom-Farzaghy, Accreditation Services Manager, TESL Ontario
Equipped with OCELT (Ontario Certified English Language Teacher) certification, job seekers have access to employment opportunities across a broad spectrum of teaching sectors in Ontario and beyond.
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Allison Keown is the Executive Director of TESL Ontario
TESL Ontario introduced certification for Ontario English language educators in March 2000. The introduction of this provincial certification helped advance the TESL profession and the TESL Ontario certification swiftly became the sector standard for the hiring of English language educators in Ontario.
2004 – Expanding Access to Language Instructor Certification through PLAR
At a time when language teaching was gaining traction as a valued profession worldwide, internationally trained individuals (ITIs) with significant experience were struggling to obtain certification in Ontario, because their education did not meet the certification standards that had been established. As a result, these qualified professionals were often having to repeat education that they already possessed, in order to become employable in Ontario.
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For the last 8 or 9 years I have been working in programs that deliver language instruction to adult newcomers who have language levels above CLB 7. These people have high levels of education and have been professionally trained. When I first started working with this demographic of students, I struggled with creating content that was relevant for my classes. I found their language skills to be quite good, and I wondered what else I could offer them.
Once I started to get to know them a little better, I came to understand that they were having difficulty obtaining employment. This fact seemed counter intuitive to me because I know that Canada relies on immigration to sustain its workforce. I had been taught that without immigration, Canada’s population would actually decline. So, what exactly prevents them from getting a job? Continue reading