xiongmao wrote:I did a CELTA, it was very hard work but it's a prestigious qualification (and can even lead to becoming a qualified teacher in the UK). A CELTA or MA TESOL would open a lot of doors. If you're seriously interested in teaching, then get a full teaching qualification (e.g. PGCE in the UK). In the UK you get paid to train if you can teach Math or other in demand subjects.
Another benefit of the CELTA is that I am much more self confident and I am now firmly in command at job interviews.
I too am finding age discrimination now (mid-40's), but if you're older then emphasise your business career (if you have one) and have the TEFL as an add-on. Of the 17 trainee teachers on my CELTA course only two of us had worked in business, the rest were mostly dropouts who couldn't find good jobs back in their own countries.
The best way to get teaching jobs overseas is to just go there and knock on doors. Pretty much all of my CELTA peers found jobs in Spain afterwards.
Stop making out your CELTA is 'prestigious' it's nothing of the sort, what it is, is a qualification for novice teachers to give them some idea of what to do when they enter the workforce, it's covering the basics - hence the length it takes to do the qualification - four weeks full time.
And to compare it to an MA in TESOL is a joke - in fact, a CELTA is worth ONE module on any decent MA TESOL course.
A PGCE or MA TESOL are good, solid qualifications - depends where you do your MA though, if you do it in Thailand, South Korea or Turkey (like a lot of American teachers do because they can't afford to pay the astronomical fees back home) then that closes a lot of doors as does online/distance MA's - so it is buyer beware in a lot of cases - if you want your MA TESOL to be accepted everywhere - go home (or to Australia or the UK and pay international fees) and do it on campus. It's the only real way.
Though I would advise on doing an MA TESOL at a Korean university if your plan was to stay in Korea long term - some Korean universities have really good, challenging programmes.
Going back to CELTA - it covers how to teach CLT - useless in Asia where there are classes of 60-100 people.