How to become a Foreign Language Teacher

How to become a Foreign Language Teacher in the UK

In this recent podcast, we interviewed Aaron Omar, a foreign language secondary school teacher in south-east London. He teaches Spanish, German and French. We discover what the job entails and also the true realities of the role of a foreign language secondary school teacher, to give you a flavour of the career. Below is a summary of the interview, but you can also hear the or full podcast episode.

How did you get into teaching a foreign language?

From early in secondary school, I enjoyed helping other pupils in his classes, from Maths and science and English. I got good at helping them with exam questions and reflected about being a teacher. As school, I started to gain an interest in foreign languages rather than science, maths, and English. I spoke to my French teacher about being a foreign language teacher. I said to him “yes, that’s a good idea, something I could be good at. I am passionate about languages”.

What kind of courses do you need become a teacher?

For teaching foreign languages, a degree is a given. Either you’re a native speaker from another country and you could have a degree in economics, but you might want to go into teaching foreign languages. They’ll let you train on the course to do that. If you are English born, you have to learn French, German & Spanish as a second language as a degree.

If you have a foreign language degree

Option one –
You need to go back to university as a postgraduate student for one year. With university-led training you spend about a third of your time in academic learning and the rest in school placements. I did a one-year PGCE at the University of East London and then did a newly qualified teacher NQT year at my first ever job in 2016. In addition to Qualified Teacher Status, you’ll get a PGCE or PGDE (an academic qualification). Courses typically take one year but you may be able to study part-time.

Fees are usually around £9,250 but you can:

get funding that you do not have to pay back for certain subjects

apply for a student loan

Option two

Train as you teach at a school or group of schools On a ‘school direct (fee-funded)’ programme you spend less time learning about the theory of teaching than you would in university-led training.

Despite the focus on training as you teach, many courses give you a PGCE or PGDE (an academic qualification) in addition to QTS. Courses typically take one year but you may be able to study part-time

If you have a foreign language degree

You can get Qualified teacher status (QTS) as part of an undergraduate teacher degree (three years in duration). Courses typically cost £9,250 per year and can take up to 4 years but you can get funding. Qualifications vary depending on the course. For example, you could get QTS with a:

Bachelor of Arts (BA

Bachelor of Education (BEd)

Bachelor of Science (BSc)

How many years does it to take to become a teacher?

To be a fully-fledged teacher, you need a degree and two years of experience (PGCE course and the year as a newly qualified teacher). Once completed, you are fully fledged teacher.

Do you think teachers are getting a harder time now in the classroom?

Teaching has improved because teachers are under constant scrutiny and constant inspections and criticism ensure you keep getting better and better each and every week. Long story short, there’s no hiding.

What would you say the best thing about being a teacher is?

Long holidays are usually paid unless I am working with an agency or if you’re working with the school’s local council. (Aaron currently with an agency, so he is not getting paid for holidays). What’s good about teaching is if you really do enjoy your subjects, you get a sense of satisfaction. You feel you are in a proper profession, where you’re using your brain a hell of a lot, from planning for the lessons, providing feedback and the assessments, lots of variety. You get paid to learn yourself. My language skills have improved just by teaching,

What are the bad aspects of teaching?

There are a lot of challenging schools with a load of challenging pupils, boys, girls from all types of all kinds of backgrounds in London. This does depend on the catchment area you are in. Sometimes the behaviour of certain classes would ensure you can’t teach them, due to their behaviour. Adults can also be extremely difficult to deal with when you are a teacher. Heads of departments can apply lots of pressure on teachers.

What are the starting salaries of being a teacher?

According to recent statistics, salaries starting after being qualified at:

M1 £32,1657
M2 £33,658
M3 £35,226
M4 £36,886

The average UK salary is £27,000, so you get much more than the average & more holiday than that.

What kind of person should become a teacher and what one really shouldn't?

Firstly, if you hate kids, don’t do it. Secondary, if you don’t basically have a passion for teaching or empathy, don’t do it. You need to encourage younger people to do better, making them believe they’re able to do better within the subject or even another educational, vocational or social aspect of their lives. Also, if you can’t stand data entry and monotonous marking, don’t get into teaching.

If you don’t care about any of that, just want to do the job for holidays and the paycheck, you will likely quit. Also, if you hate the idea of monotonous, repetitive marketing of exams, avoid teaching. In terms of the skills for teaching a foreign language, of course, you need to be good at languages!

How do you control bad behaviour? Has it changed much?

Identify the behaviours, not the person. After a few chances, the student can be parked/removed from class. Sometimes, you do need to shout in the class. Be dynamic with how you respond to behaviour.

Were you a good kid at school? Do you feel that kids have lost to gain respect for teachers since your time as a student?

I suffered from ADHD and then that transcended into adulthood. In school, as a boy, I had issues with concentration and focus, zoning in and out and sometimes. Completing in sports, help level me out.

In terms of respect the pupils have towards teachers from our days of school compared to my career as a teacher in schools, it hasn’t really changed that much. Still the same types of pupils in the class with different attitudes. However, behaviour policies have changed, what teachers can and can’t do.

What would you say is the best way to learn a language online of any apps you recommend or YouTube channels?

YouTube is a great platform to learn languages. The subtitle language is both in English and the other language, so very useful. Duolingo is also recommended as a good App for learning basic phrases. Babble you can practice the sounds and pronunciation, along with the meaning. These are all great for on-the-go language learning.

Where would you recommend people find out about teaching as a foreign language?

Get into teaching government website is worth checking out.
Going down the PGCE route with university training? Go on the UCAS and search PGCE applications, then submit your application notes and wait for the response and

If you were to give advice to your younger self about becoming a teacher, what would your advice be?

My advice would be straight up, get some purposeful work experience on your CV. Get a reference point, get that done as soon as you get your degree done. Try not to leave university without any experience. Talk to the right people at the school and ask them questions (like this interview). If you do those two things, you get one foot in the door of being accepted onto the teacher training program.