major (?) declared

I (temporarily) declared my linguistics major today. I still haven't made my final decision, but at least now I can decide not to make a decision and still have a course laid out for me. ^^;
I'll write more about my appointment later, as I am currently using the Languages & Mathematics advising office's computer.

TESOL and Speech Impairment Bath

I wrote:
Dear Prof. Cohen,
My name is Nastassja Riemermann, and I have recently become interested in purusing TESOL, particularly TEFL, as a career. However, I was born with a cleft lip and palate, and because of this have somewhat impaired speech. I have received speech therapy in the past, and am planning to receive some more now that my final surgery is complete, but I am sure my speech will still be somewhat affected. My question is this: how much of a hinderance does impaired speech have in both the ability of a native speaker of English to teach the language, and how serious of a difficulty would it pose in actually being hired for such jobs? (I will note that my particular interests in terms of countries to teach in are Germany (as a dual German-U.S. citizen, I hold an E.U. passport) and Japan.) My thought was that perhaps I would want to avoid teaching beginning classes, but that if I were to teach higher levels most of the students will have already developed the pronounciation which that they will, and that they would have enough experience with the language that they wouldn't have too much trouble understanding me. Thank you very much for your time in replying to my inquiries.

Sincerely,
Nastassja Riemermann

Prof. Cohen's reply:
Interesting query, Nastassja. If you have a speech impediment, then it is most likely going to make it more challenging for nonnatives to understand you. On the other hand, that's part of life too! Not everyone they interact with will be easy for them to understand. They will be interacting with lots of nonnatives who don't speak so clearly. And yes, perhaps teaching more advanced learners would make it less "important" that your pronunciation be clear, since they presumably will have mastered the basics of English comprehension.
I can't tell you how this would affect your marketability. I just don't know. I've never been involved in hiring ESL/EFL teachers. I work in an MA program for teacher development for ESL/EFL. We don't actually teach English in our program. You would need to pose that question to those folks who are directly involved in the hiring of ESL/EFL teachers.
Good luck to you in your upcoming surgery and in your career plans. If you really want to teach EFL, go for it!

All best wishes,
Andrew Cohen

Well, I suppose the U hires ESL teachers... I could talk to whoever's responsible for hiring them.

( And now, a quiz: )