My M-level PCET PGCE in ESOL
I studied a Postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) specializing in English for speakers of other languages (ESOL) in 2002/03. It was a new set of criteria for further education teachers and included 120 hours of teaching practice at an inner city college, it was master’s level on the national qualifications framework, which is actually the same level as first degrees in medicine (although it’s less in amount) and covers both a master’s level qualification and the professional standards needed to teach in further education. In 2003 barely more than 5% of the adult population of the UK were postgraduate qualified in anything and only 15% of teachers in further education had a PGCE at the time, also it should be borne in mind that my course also needed occupational health screening and enhanced criminal record checks and was based on what was then new regulations from a body called FENTO that produced a 36 page document of criteria that was needed to be passed to be awarded the FENTO PGCE, my PGCE says FENTO in brackets.
For the ESOL component, as I mentioned I had the 120 hours of teaching practice teaching ESOL courses at an inner city college in London and several essays based on that experience but also most of my work was informed by the new adult ESOL core curriculum which had just been introduced which went from entry level 1 to level 2 on the national qualifications framework, ESOL (Level 2) is what the university website said on the course description for the PGCE even years later, which is interesting because level 2 in ESOL wasn’t considered qualified at the time and they didn’t even offer a top up course to qualify or mention anywhere that this was the case.
When I was just about to complete the course I was having a conversation with one of the lecturers and in that conversation she said you know you won’t be considered qualified to teach ESOL when you’ve passed this course. I was quite shocked and asked her what she meant, she said that they had brought in new regulations as they felt foreign learners were being treated unfairly so they had introduced minimum standards for would be ESOL teachers that they needed to be NQF level 4 in ESOL to be permitted to teach ESOL in further education and I would only be level 2 in ESOL but level 7 in teaching. I couldn’t believe it partly because I had written essays on traditionally how poor the education levels were in FE in general let alone ESOL and also because my qualification was supposed to be level 7 in teaching and even an A level in English would only be level 3, what they were asking for in effect was a university level qualification in English to teach ESOL when I had read that at the time something like 70% of physics teachers in further education didn’t have a degree in physics and 30% didn’t have an A level in physics but were those students to be considered unfairly treated? I don’t think so. The reason it’s interesting to think of a level 4 qualification in ESOL is some information I found from 2003 the year I graduated that showed that only 44% of the population had English at level 2 in that year let alone levels 3 or 4, in fact taking that 44% with a level 2 in English, it is likely that only a few percent of the population had English at level 4 at the time anyway.
I had gained a job based on my PGCE teaching at a college in West London but I had to come clean and tell them that I wouldn’t be considered fully qualified which I could see made them quite disappointed and I felt ashamed and annoyed as well, certainly given what I had felt were the low standards of many teachers in FE up to that point anyway. One course that did now offer ESOL to level four on the NQF was the certificate in teaching English to adults (the CELTA) I found I could do some professional development in college and I asked if I could do the CELTA as that was what I needed to get the level 4, I was told I could probably teach it so why not do the DELTA (diploma in English language teaching to adults) so I applied for the DELTA, I was working a full teaching week as a business communication teacher but I was given a few hours to study the DELTA. I found it was really difficult, about as difficult as the PGCE and was also level 7 (M-level) on the national qualifications framework which is written up as senior professional/senior manager level.
I attended for the first four weeks but I got disconcerted by the assessment criteria which was two 90 minute exams about 20,000 words in essays which was basically similar to the PGCE I’d just taken and a lot of work along with a full teaching load and no access to a descent library either. I could also add here that the DELTA isn’t on the framework for higher qualifications (FHEQ) like my PGCE and that CELTAs and DELTAs are taught at all sorts of places like small language centres with no access to a library but left to write 4,500 word essays which is a very difficult thing to do and actually around this world there are very few places where you find that length of essay even in the best universities. I could also say in my favour that the Greenwich University PGCE I did had the provenance of Garnett College which used to be one of the country’s few dedicated colleges for training to be a teacher of further education, and a thoroughly good university experience at the Old Royal Navel College in Greenwich which I would presume is far better than the experience you’d get in a language centre or a college of further education. What I’ve found though over long years is that no one has been remotely interested.
The CELTA was described as a level 5, 120 hour course with six hours of assessed teaching practice which met the criteria for what is now English for speakers of other languages at level 5 where as my PGCE was a level 7, 1,200 hours with 120 hours of assessed teaching which according to the rules only met the ESOL criteria at level 2. When I left my teaching position in 2005 I was about four levels up the lecturer scale at normally one year per level, a couple of years later I remember applying to a language centre in London they wrote back saying thank you for applying for the position as EFL teacher (English as a foreign language) but as we are accredited by the British Council you would need at least a CELTA qualification to teach here. I wrote back saying I had written in my resume that I had a PGCE specializing in ESOL which had 120 hours of assessed teaching practice compared to the 6 hours in the CELTA, she wrote back to me that 120 hours wasn’t much and maybe my qualification would be better suited to a college of further education, I then wrote a complaint to the British Council but they basically agreed with what she had said.
To cut a long story short I never found another good teaching job, I was offered two part time positions paying about £200 per week over the next two years but nothing since. A point to add about the CELTA/DELTA issue is that when you look at EFL teaching jobs advertised in other countries they often have a pay scale that says CELTA £15 per hour DELTA £16 per hour which is a mistake as the DELTA is far superior to the CELTA and basically the same level as the PGCE, the holder of the qualification has done much more work at a far higher level, as an employer I should know I would be using my money well by spending the extra £1 to get the DELTA qualified person but there again they simply don’t seem to realize this, as it was with my PGCE no one realized how good it was and I never had any sense of achievement from anyone.
Actually, I checked with lifelong learning UK (LLUK) in 2009 and they wrote back to me saying that I had been fully qualified the whole time which I think was quite uplifting but it didn’t help really and I’ve never found work in teaching since. I think in a way I deserved compensation for being told that I wasn’t qualified when actually I was, which had left me feeling ashamed and apologizing when really I was one of the most qualified people in the field at the time. Actually, something I also found out about teaching which is shocking when you think about it is that nearly 20% of teaching graduates quit the classroom in the first year and 40% quit within five years.
I taught key skills communication at level 2 and English at level 3 amongst other things including IELTS
