English Teaching or Less Demanded Fields?

Hi Everyone,

If you are up to it, I wanted to have some discussion about fields to go into.

1. In my case, I got into English teaching because of demand versus supply.

Outside of a Western country, it seems like anyone willing to teach English can get a job.

Sometimes, as we have seen, pay and living conditions are as meager as they can get. At other extremes, like Saudi Aramco, housing can be sweet and pay can be $10K a month (tax-free).

2. Rather, the key debate seems to be:

a. Teach English, where there is always demand for someone. Alas, there is no real upward trajectory.
b. Try a subject field

3. In my own life, I am a very mediocre English teacher. Honestly, I give myself a C-, at best.

I have failed so many students in teaching and tutoring, no matter how much I love them.

4. However, there is some hope in my education and training:

a. When I have tutored students in history, social sciences, etc. they always seem quite satisfied.
b. Just this last May, I suddenly tutored some students for AP World History. After only a few sessions, one got a 4 and another got a 5. To be clear, this has very little to do with me and so much to do with their superb intelligence and work ethic. But, it proves I can get results with history, etc.

Other past examples include a sixteen-year-old student of mine getting a 5 on AP Geography, despite me not having any teaching experience. The list goes on and on with tutoring, and some classroom teaching.

c. With counseling, I seem to have done better. In my entire career, I have worked deeply with 200 students. 100 from other countries; 100 are from China. I can honestly say that I have gotten 100% of them to their top-choice schools.

I know Chinese love results, and want to hear "I want 100% guarantee I can get my kid into Harvard." But, even my mentors, who have been counseling 10,000+ students for 30+ years, can only get to 95 or 98% success.

5. Anybody want to give advice?

6. Right now, I am trying to take this school year to work less, but focus on:

a. Finishing a Moreland Teaching credential (to become a real state-licensed history teacher)
b. Finish a counseling degree (to become a state licensed counselor_
c. Apply for IECA membership (to be an independent consultant)

It sounds like ESL is a great fallback, but it does not give me the joy that history, social studies, and counseling does. Hence, stick with the latter, simply because I am more energized.

If you enjoy teaching other subjects more, then getting credentialled in those is a good idea.  Don't forget, there are International Schools in China that need good teachers.

strikes me as an easy decision to make. Follow what you are good at, what you enjoy doing. Nice to have a fallback if you need it, but you won't get to do and be who you want by staying at your fallback position.

Very good.

The problem is that people initially showed an interest in me being a counselor or history teacher, but they switched me to ESL.

What is worse, when they frame it as "you are doing me a favor by teaching ESL now," then my performance is poor. They do not want me later if my performance is poor.

1. I know I must get more credentials. I am trying to do it piece by piece.

2. Right now, it seems I am relying on ESL to pay my bills. I need to make my expectations clear to employers, and see what we can do.