I’m feeling the need for a dramatic career change, and buggering off to somewhere exotic to teach English very much appeals.

Any experiences? Advice? Recommendations / things to avoid?

Fanks 😀

Things to avoid……. Spain at the moment.

One of my friends has been doing this in Thailand for about 5 years. She loves it. Another recently set up her own ‘school’ in Berks for foreign folk. She also loves it.

EDIT: not much more I can say than that … other than I can put you in contact with them if you like …

i done the cambridge TEFL course a few years back in munich. the cambridge course is, along with trinity (i think, but certainly a manchester uni), one of the most highly regarded certificates you can get.

was an intense two weeks of work. your instructures may be right grammar nazis. you may have to “re-learn” your language – it wasn’t until i started learning german a few years before the course that i really understood what an adjective or noun was.

needless to say, i passed with and “A”!
with the cambridge cert. you fail, pass or pass with an A. don’t know how it works with other bodies.

i taught english privately for 14 months or so, but it was hard work continually looking for, travelling to and preparing for classes. the hourly rate you can charge in germany isn’t bad, 25-35€/hr, but you have to factor in all of the prep time for each lesson.

i took a job in italy only to find out once i was there that the conditions were a bit shitty. was told that you were garunteed 600€/month, but then found out that if i didn’t work enough hours one month i’d then end up owing the company. i looked at the books and i wouldd have had 15 hours work in the first three weeks, as opposed to the 35 hours i was told about on the phone.
on that basis i could have two months with 30 hours and if in the thrid month i worked 90 hours i’d still only recieve 600€ and still be in arreas with my money.

i told them to stuff it on my third day and went off and rode in the Appenine hills for a few days before leaving.

my cousin done a similar course and spent 6 months working in spain. she had a more positive experience. she enjoyed it as she got to experience a new country and learn a new language. although the money wasn’t great and she had to spend lots of time travelling to and from classes.
although she, too, says that she wouldn’t bother doing it again.

i have a friend who i met on my course. she also passed with top marks. she was working in munich for berlitz last time i saw her. putting in 13-14 hour days (not 13 hours of lessons, but long days as people want either a lesson early on or later in the day) and having to travel the length and breadth of the city. however, with berlitz they provide you with the lesson plans, but in lieu of the reduced workload you also recieve less money (12€/45 as opposed to the 20€ i recieved as a teacher at a private language school).

all in all, the money isn’t great but it can be a fun job.

i had heard that working in the far east pays more and tried looking for work there, but you won’t recieve a visa unless you have some form of university education, which i don’t have. seems a bit odd as you could have a degree in modern art but no teacher training and work there. but despite being trained and schooled in teaching they weren’t interested. shame as i really fancied going to northern japan.

I am about to start teaching English next week in São Paulo. Before coming to Brazil, I did some TEFL classes. As I was unemployed and Scottish, I was given a £200 voucher to contribute to the lessons.

I did the 120 hour course with these guys, which included a 2 day course in a hotel in Glasgow:

http://www.onlinetefl.com/tefl-course/

I am now working with a friend teaching corporate English to business executives at their offices (and I will probably have 2 or 3 private clients). Although I will not have a massive income, it is enough to get by on seeing as my partner is also working.

Much corporate English uses this set of books, called Market Leader:
http://www.market-leader.net/about.html

To be honest, although I did not need TEFL etc to get this job, I found it really helpful for learning about the teaching of language, and I will have one or two basic level students. Most corporate students are pre-intermediate or intermediate, and are looking to improve their English for work purposes.

oh, buy the book “learning teaching”. and there’s another one, but can’t remember the name of it. “teaching tenses” is also good. helps you get your head around all the various tenses that the english language throws up.

As Alpin says, ‘Learning Teaching’ by Jim Scrivener and/or ‘The Practice of English Language Teaching’ by Jeremy Harmer combined with Swan’s ‘Practical English Usage’ and Thornbury’s ‘About Language’ will get you most of the way through any course. Cambridge or Trinity are the ones to go for, the latter having slightly more of a focus on pronunciation.

If you were educated in the UK in the 70s and 80s there’s a whole world of grammar out there to catch you out. At first the students will know more than you, so “Good question, I’ll look into it and have an answer for you next lesson” becomes a standard response.

Actually, it still is. Why do we say “Spending dropped slightly to less than £10m” (verb + adverb) but “The concept of the joint family rarely exists” (adverb + verb)?

(gecko76 – teaching ESOL since 1995, on and off)

How worrying that Alpin starts a lengthy post about teaching English with, “I done…”! (Apologies, my auto-correct keyboard will not allow me to replicate the lower case I as icing on the cake…)

I do love it and have been teaching for the past 10 years and during the high points the money was excellent with no travelling between classes, pre crisis to the crap pay there is now during the crisis (about a 50% drop), the money can be quite good but now less so.
The variety of people you meet is incredible and the companies you can work in is equally interesting and you get to live in a sunny country with great riding and a great timetable.
Spain will be (very) difficult for the next couple years so I wouldn’t advise coming here, but that would depend on your age and circumstances, and I’m actually planning a return to the UK to do something else there.

I liked that (i done) 🙂

As for where to go, I’ve only done Thailand, China and Indonesia, and Thailand was by far my favourite. Middle East if you’re happy living the ex-pat life. Don’t know about South America but always fancied it.

That’s brilliant, some good food for thought there. I was thinking possibly Korea, but that’s by no means decided. A cursive google suggests that there are companies offering to do it all for you, as it were – are they any cop or to be avoided?

http://www.huntesl.com/index.shtml

They seem to be linked to

http://www.intesolinternational.com/index.shtml

Got neighbours who did TESOL in South Korea and really enjoyed it.

It’s worth checking out Dave’s ESL cafe for the latest state of play on schools, franchises and companies, specifically those to avoid.

My thoughts exactly Captn! 🙄

Why do we say “Spending dropped slightly to less than £10m” (verb + adverb) but “The concept of the joint family rarely exists” (adverb + verb)?

I’d try and get out of that one by saying adverbs of manner (slightly) usually go after the main verb, and adverbs of frequency (rarely) go before. And then change the subject before they started throwing exceptions at me 😉

(Genuinely interested, rather than trying to turn this into a TEFL w@nkfest!)

Wouldn’t advise TESOL as a career choice, but I’m in Spain and (touch wood) the money’s OK and I spend almost as much time riding as working…

I did a couple of years in Egypt, then came to Spain with the intention of doing another couple of years before moving on. That was nearly 15 years ago 🙄

Enjoyed it for a while, but found it limiting and somewhat dull by the end – I’m happier (although a lot more stressed!) in IT.

Not necessarily looking upon it as a long term career choice, just very much ready for a change and obviously relocating to a completely new country is a pretty big one!

Cheers for the link Gecko – that’s very handy, and now bookmarked.

Not necessarily looking upon it as a long term career choice, just very much ready for a change and obviously relocating to a completely new country is a pretty big one!

Sounds pretty like my take on it at the time, worked out that way too. One thing to consider is how it will affect your career, if you’re planning on returning to something you’re doing at the moment. 2/3/4 years out of your current work area may or may not be important, in IT development, for instance, it would be…

Current career isn’t much of an issue to be honest. I want to get away from working in front of a screen all day (currently do publicity for a high school) and into something more… Interesting. Which could mean trying to make money out of photography, which isn’t likely to be terribly affected, or could mean doing something completely different and as yet unspecified.

It’s not a career unless you are qualified at MA level or above.

Don’t get fooled into thinking that it’s all roses, its a tough industry and full of bullshit. If you are at a private school/academy/after school programme, then it’s a business and you tow the line. If you are in the main school of a government ran school then it’s all politics.

Thailand, ok place to live, spent 4 years or so there, bollocks wages and far too many knobbers.

Korea, ok place to live, but you have to forget your westernised beliefs, good wages, loads of American and Canadian knobbers, but wage affords a decent enough a lifestyle.

If you are after recognition of your qualification at a basic level then do a CELTA or Trinity ESOL, the other ones are crap and don’t really have the recongition the later two do.

Give it a go, be prepared to walk away, and remember it’s not home, your culture or how you like things to be, if you can accept that, and don’t spend your time complaining about how stupid the natives are and why do they do this and that, you will have a great time.