This is probably the most popular way of making money while travelling. All over the world there are people that want to learn English and other languages. Depending on where you do it the pay can also be very good. If you look at www.tefl.com you will be able to see the wide variety of places that you can work in. Most countries do require that you have a degree, the degree can usually be in any subject. These are usually government requirements needed to process a work permit. If you don’t have a degree don’t despair as it is still possible although it will require a lot more work on your part looking for somewhere that will take you. Not having a degree will also leave you open to being scammed as some companies will claim they are able to process your work permit but never will. This will leave you stuck on a tourist visa working illegally and probably doing lots of border runs to get new visas. Immigration officials will get suspicious if you have too many tourist visas.
Pay can be very good depending on where you work. Asia has a big TEFL market (Teaching English
as a Foreign Language) and it is not that difficult to get a job. In Vietnam you can earn £1,500 a month. Given the cheap living costs you would be
able to save a lot of this money.
Thailand is also a popular destination for people teaching English but
you definitely need a degree to teach in Thailand. If you would like to work fewer hours China
is also an option with most contracts only requiring you to work 15 – 20 hours
a week. Your pay in China will depend on lots of
factors: where you work, what your qualifications are and also who you work
for.
Teaching can be very rewarding but it can also be very
tiring. My advice would be that unless
you really want to teach, think about it very carefully. If your heart is not in teaching it is a
difficult job and you will become disheartened very quickly. Teaching contracts also restrict your travel
for a period of time. Most schools will
want you to sign a contract that runs for at least a year so make sure you are
fully up to the challenge of finishing the contract. A year in the mountains of Tajikistan might
sound brilliant but it could get very boring, very quickly. I have lived and taught in small cities and 6
months is the most I could manage.
By teaching you will immerse yourself in the culture of the
country you are living in as you have to interact with natives. Teaching is definitely a great way to see the
world and experience other cultures however as I have said before it is an
option that you need to think about carefully as it is not always as easy as is
made out and often suits more outgoing personalities. If you are serious about it I would also
suggest you take a TEFL course and obtain a certificate. Contrary to popular belief you can’t just
walk in to a classroom and pull off amazing lessons, you need to have learnt
some things first. TEFL courses will at
least give you some idea of what it will be like and will also allow you to
have some preparation. If you find that
you really enjoy the teaching you can also gain higher level certificates such
as CELTA and DELTA and your pay will go up massively.
You will also have to consider who you want to teach. Teaching in kindergartens is a completely
different experience from teaching adults who want to go to English speaking
countries to work. Teaching middle
school children in Asia also usually means you have classes over 50 kids. Obviously this can be hard work but if you
manage to come up with a lesson that they enjoy it can do wonders for your
confidence.
Personally I never enjoyed teaching English, but I wouldn’t
dissuade people from doing it either. I
decided to teach after doing it voluntarily in India where I loved it. However the experience in India was much more
laid back and there was far less pressure.
In China, I found that they wanted the teacher to be very outgoing and
you were there for entertainment value more than to actually improve
English. I must stress that not every
school is like this, you just have to be careful when looking at places to
work. It was also naivety on my part,
teachers usually do need to be relatively outgoing and on occasions
extrovert. If you are going to take the
plunge it may be wise to look into doing it voluntarily for a few months and
seeing if you like it. This way you are
not signing a long contract for a job that you are not sure you will like.
I’ve tried to be as honest as I can in this post, many
people go abroad and teach English and find that it’s not for them and it can
ruin their experience. The links that I
have posted below are the sites that I have used before. There are thousands of websites offering jobs
so my advice is to just be careful and thoroughly research the place that you
want to go to, and also research the company that you want to get in contact
with. I’m not the Yoda of the TEFL world
and I am speaking from my own experiences so any other suggestions please let me
know! In a few days I will post the
experiences of people that have taught English abroad and what their experience
was like.
Below are some links that will help you in your job search:
www.tefl.com (There was
recently a job in North Korea on this site, if you are adventurous enough…!)
http://teflsearch.com/knowledgebase/what-tefl#acronyms
Useful guide to all the acronyms floating around in the English teaching world.
No comments:
Post a Comment