CELTA course trainee tracking report

What is TEFL like after a CELTA course? How easy is it to find a TEFL job? How useful is CELTA to the English language teaching jobs trainees find? What sort of jobs do they get? To answer these and many other questions, we carried out an online survey of CELTA course trainees from IH Barcelona...

Below, we present some of the findings. Read the full report on our main web site.

Objectives of the questionnaire

Primarily in order to improve the quality and accuracy of the careers advice we provide our CELTA trainees at IH Barcelona, we carried out an online survey of past trainees who were either 5-7 months or 23-25 months out from the course.

First phase results

The first phase of the survey was carried out in September and October 2004, with the second to take place in early 2005. Here, we present first phase results from the feedback obtained.

What countries do our trainees teach in?

Many naturally find work in Spain, with 20 out of the 41 trainees who went into ELT after the course teaching in Spain. The others went literally around the world, with the UK being the most popular destinations (5 trainees), followed by Japan (4) and the US (4). Anecdotal evidence suggests that the UK may head that list at least partly because, after their CELTA course, trainees find many openings at summer schools run by language schools in Britain.

While a lot stayed in Europe (including Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Switzerland and Turkey) others went further afield to such places as Australia, Ecuador, South Korea and New Zealand.

A number of our US trainees appear to have returned to the US after the course and found work there, some in other fields of the teaching profession.

William Wild, six months out, reported working "at six different schools, institutes and companies in two different countries (Switzerland and Germany)"!

What sort of organizations do they work for?

Most seem, at least initially, to work for private language schools. 9 out of 10 of those in teaching six months out are working for language schools, with 1 working in a state school. Only 2 out of 10 report supplementing their income through private classes. Perhaps wages in TEFL are not so bad after all!

Two years out, the 12 trainees still in ELT are working for a greater range of institutions. 7 (58%) are still with private language schools, 3 are at state schools and 3 at universities - the discrepancy being explained by the fact that one works in two places, a language school and a university. 3 out of the 12 are giving private classes.

Who do they teach?

9 out of 10 former trainees six months out find themselves teaching the adults a CELTA course is designed for them to teach. 8 out of the 10, however, also find themselves teaching teenagers, with 5 of these also doing very young learners (which our survey defined as being under-12s)...

Read the full report