Teaching English

From MaxTravelz

This article is a travel topic.

One way to travel – or to pay for your travels – is to get a job overseas teaching English. If you want to spend several years in a destination, this may be the only way to do that unless you have enough money and knowledge to start a business or are inclined to marry a local.

Since the main job qualification is proficiency in English (you may not even need to be conversant in the local language), it's not necessarily as difficult to get these jobs as you might assume.

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Qualify

Qualifications vary from none at all to certificates to post-graduate degrees in specialized education.

In general the better jobs require qualifications and experience. However, especially in remote areas, anyone who looks foreign and speaks some English can get work.

Jargon

The field of work is usually call ESL (English as a Second Language) or EFL (English as a Foreign Language). Put a T in front of those to get TESL and TEFL for "Teaching English as a ... Language". To confuse things further, the largest professional association calls itself TESOL (Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages) and a well-known qualification is CELTA (Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults).

A recent trend in the field is to do a lot of ESP (English for Specific Purposes), designing custom courses depending on what the learners need to use the language for. One branch of this is EAP (English for Academic Purposes), preparing students for study abroad.

The widely-used English tests have their own acronyms:

  • TOEFL , for admission to US universities
  • TOEIC , a business English test from the TOEFL people
  • IETLS , for British, Australian and NZ universities
  • BULATS , a business English test from the IELTS people

Certificates

Anyone contemplating more than a bit of casual work in this field should seriously consider getting some training. Training can make it a good deal easier to survive in a classroom and a certificate will make it easier to get a job. Also, in some countries a degree is legally required to get a working visa; there is some hope of negotiating your way around this if you have a TEFL certificate, but almost none without it.

There are a number of different ESL/EFL teaching certificates available.

  • Many schools give their own courses to staff.
  • Various companies in Western countries offer programs, often including job placement help.
  • There are online courses.

Most programs include some classroom experience and can be completed in one to three months.

There is a difficulty with these courses. A few are worthless, and many are unknown. Managers are not generally much impressed with a certificate from some place they have never heard of, whether it is an English school in Volgograd or a training company in Vancouver.

One certificate that is very widely accepted is the Cambridge CELTA . Short of an MA, this is the best qualification to have. Courses for it are given under license by centers all over the world, 237 places as of April 2006. The CELTA course is generally both more difficult and more expensive than other courses, but of similar duration — anywhere from a very intensive four weeks to a year part-time. Trinity College London has a CertTESOL that is also taught in many places and widely accepted.

Quite a few universities also offer ESL/EFL training, often both a Certificate program and a Master's degree. A few offer a Master's program designed for teachers working overseas, with most work done by correspondence.

There are directories of courses at ESLonline and ESLbase . Neither is complete. Both sites also have job ads.

Teachers from other fields

If you have teaching qualification in your own country — but as, say a biology or history or even English literature teacher — then many English teaching jobs wiil happily accept you, but some will demand an ESL certificate as well.

With such qualifications, consider looking for work at International schools. These are for the children of expats. They generally demand the same qualifications as primary or secondary schools back home. Pay and conditions are often much better than language teachers get.

Employment

Paying positions — ones that at least can support you during the employment period and may even let you put away some savings — usually involve contracts for a year, or sometimes a 10-month school year or just one term. Often airfare costs make it uneconomical for employers to hire for shorter periods.

Destinations

Popular destinations for paying English teaching jobs include

For country-specific information, see the Work sections of country entries.

Government recruiting programs

A few countries have government-run programs for recruiting foreign teachers:

  • Japan's JET
  • Hong Kong's NET
  • South Korea: EPIK

These generally take new university graduates and do not require teacher training or experience.

Pay and conditions

The best pay for language teachers is in the Middle East.

Nearly all ESL jobs that hire from overseas include benefits like a free apartment and either annual airfare home or some money toward the cost. When teachers are hired locally, these benefits may or may not be available.

In lower income countries a language teacher's pay is generally enough to live well there, but not much by the standards of higher income places. For example, $500 US a month plus a free apartment lets you live very well in China, travel some in the holidays, even visit nearby low-cost countries like Vietnam. However it would be difficult to pay off debts back home, or to plan a trip to Japan, on that income.

There is some risk in taking any overseas job. The risk is generally higher for private language schools than for universities or highschools, especially in Asia. Some schools are greedy businesses exploiting both teachers and students; there are plenty of horror stories — horrible accomodation, large classes, unpaid overtime, broken contracts, etc. Of course there are lots of happy teachers in other schools, sometimes even in the same school. Check for web reviews of potential employers, and ask to talk to current foreign teachers, before signing a contract.

Looking for work

Many web sites offer English teaching jobs. The best known is Dave's ESL Cafe .

TESOL publishes journals (available in university libraries) which carry job ads, and provides an online job hunt service. Their annual conference includes a hiring fair. IATEFL are another professional organisation with similar services.

The British Council is the British government's educational and cultural department. Among other things, they are the largest English teaching organisation in the world, running schools in many places. They also handle recruiting for various foreign governments' English programs. Jobs can be searched on their web site or look for ads in the Guardian and the Times Education Supplement or Higher Ed. Supplement. Some, but by no means all, of their jobs are restricted to British citizens. Most interviews are in London. British Council schools may also hire locally wherever they are, but these jobs usually do not have benefits like airfare and housing that the London-hired ones do.

Volunteer

Volunteer positions are usually for a shorter term and may or may not include room and board. In many Developing Nations, resources are not available to even support a volunteer and you may need to pay for food and lodging.

Resources

  • Wikigogy - a wiki specifically for English teachers.


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