Vietnam !

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Ollie23

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Hello, I have recently passed my CELTA course, and so i'm looking for work. Could anyone please offer advice as to what schools are good, and which are best avoided.

Thank you in advance !
 
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I'm With Stupid

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I'd make ILA or Apollo your top two choices. They're both CELTA training centres and so will effectively carry on your development pretty well. For what it's worth, you're probably more likely to get adult classes at Apollo, but you may have to teach in partnership schools (go into public schools and teach large classes of very low level students). I also worked for Language Link for a period, although they didn't have enough classes to offer full time positions (that may be different in Hanoi). I enjoyed working there, but they didn't have any of the same professional development focus as ILA or Apollo (again that may be different in Hanoi).

The best school with the best pay is probably RMIT or The British Council, although you'd be very lucky to get a job at either of those without at least a couple of years experience first.

VUS are a big chain and I've known people who've worked there, including a few people who worked for both them and ILA. The consensus seems to be that they're far less demanding than ILA or Apollo. The courses are taught in tandem with a Vietnamese teacher, who focuses on grammar and reading, while you focus on speaking and listening. Preparation demands are minimal, and pay is about the same, or possibly a tiny bit better. Put simply, if you're looking to make as much money as possible with as little effort as possible, then they're a good choice, but they're probably not going to help your development as a teacher, and they won't look as good on your CV should you eventually want to teach somewhere like RMIT or the British Council.

Cleverlearn is another big school. From what I hear, they don't have the best reputation or pay, but they are pretty successful and could probably offer a full time schedule fairly quickly.

There are plenty of smaller schools around the city too, but their quality and professionalism is massively varied.

If you did your CELTA at ILA btw, then they're the obvious choice, because you get a $750 relocation allowance.
 

Ollie23

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What a great reply! Thanks for your input, from what you've said, VUS doesn't sound like the place for me! I'm looking to learn as much as possible, but what I earn on top of that is secondary...providing i can live on it of course! I took the CELTA in london, at the Stanton School of English, great school...but they don't have links with Vietnam, or Apollo. Development is key, but with out the opportunity to practice what i've learnt it's redundant...having said that you've set me on the right track, with your informative post..so thanks a lot! Are you still out there?
 

Ollie23

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I'm concerned that I won't get offered a position at a reputable school such as ILA or Apollo, as I don't have a degree. Is this the case? Would it help if I had a pass B in my CELTA?
 

I'm With Stupid

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Yes that's the case. Immigration law requires you to have a degree. You can definitely still get work without one, but it may be dodgy. The more reputable schools won't touch you, sorry. I do know someone without a degree earning a pretty decent salary, but he is effectively at risk of being kicked out of the country at any time.

As for salaries (not much use to you now, I know, but others might be reading) at the time of writing, you'd be looking at a starting salary of about $19US an hour before tax. Tax varies with earnings, like most countries, but on full time hours I worked it out to be roughly 14-15% (if you work less than 6 months in Vietnam, you will get a flat tax rate of 20% on all earnings). Obviously for people earning more, this percentage will increase slightly. Full time in Vietnam generally means 20 contact hours, outside of which you are free to organise your time as you wish. The exception to this are the high-end jobs I mentioned earlier, such as RMIT and the British Council, where they will expect you to be in school for 40 hours a week and teach for about 24 (although from what I hear, they do pay close to $3000 a month). Any reasonable full time salary will dwarf your essential outgoings each month and leave a fair amount to play with. But for anyone looking at Vietnam, I would also warn them that wages are pretty stagnant and inflation is pretty high.
 
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