Teaching Abroad

fa123

I am a gap year student and go back to Uni in October. I have been looking at teaching English abroad for some time. I wanted to know whether anyone has done this and had any experience of teaching abroad? What sort of entry requirements I would be looking at? also issues like salary/accom/flights etc...

PinkLipgloss

I taught in a English conversation school for one year and an international school in Japan (4 years) and am currently teaching in an international school in Madrid.

My experience is that a lot of schools tend to be looking for qualified teachers, although some "conversation schools" in Asia will accept university graduates. You must have a certain type of degree in order to meet visa requirements (e.g. BSc). However, I believe conversation schools in Europe are easier to get into as they obviously do not have to meet visa criteria.

TEFL, in my experience, has been controversial. Employers I personally worked with thought they weren't worth the paper they were written on. However, I have seen it being a requirement for some jobs.

I'd advise you to think carefully about were you want to work and then look into that country specifically to check their requirements.

briona

There's no 'one size fits all' answer to this. Salary, accommodation, flights, requirements for the job and work visas all depend very much on where you want to teach.

Not having a degree (studying for one doesn't count) will limit you in terms of being able to legally teach in certain countries. Similarly, the TEFL qualification you choose will have some bearing on where you can teach. Online TEFL certificates are far cheaper than recognised four/five week intensive courses such as the CELTA or Trinity CertTESOL, but they open far fewer doors too. If you intend to make a career of this, I'd recommend a CELTA or similar. If all you want to do is teach in another country for a summer, or even a year, and you don't care what country, then an online TEFL will suffice.

If you could be more specific about when and where you want to teach, I could offer you some more targetted advice.