Teaching English

I used to work with teachers who come to China to teach English and travel. Do you know which countries you want to travel? At the moment, I am in a country called Botswana. It is a nice African county with pleasant weather and kind people. I love travelling too. Hope you will enjoy your journey.

I've thought about maybe going to China maybe Nepal as i've been working with the Gurkha's and find them nice people. I have teaching experince but not the sort for teaching English. Ive looked at a TEFL course running over the internet costing nearly a £1000 but dont want to comitt to this until i've heard from people if it's ok.

Spin the globe, point your finger and wherever it lands there ESL work there. Some places are more slack than others in terms of requirements. Some you need a degree, some you need a CELTA, some you just need to be white.

If you do plan on doing a course, then CELTA is the only one you should be looking at. While there is little to no difference between many of the courses, CELTA is the most recognized BY FAR. If you're going to drop $1,000 on a course, it should at least look good on your C.V.

Some training is always better than no training and not everyone can afford to take four weeks off work for a full TEFL course and the US$1000-2500++ they can cost.

In many countries no training is required at all, but it does help your CV/resume to show that you some some interest in how to do it right. Especially in these times when competition for TEFL type jobs is growing due to the high unemployment rates in the USA, UK, Ireland, etc.

While CELTA is certainly the most recognized name brand, there are certainly other acceptable brands. However - if you are going to teach in Europe then CELTA is the best known of the major brands. I think it would be difficult to find a CELTA course for less than US$1500 anywhere in the world (though I am happy to be found wrong!). The royalties that schools have to pay to CELTA to present the course tends to keep them as the highest price alternative.

Generally, most schools that require a four-week 100-120-hour type certification are fairly flexible about which brand they will accept. The exceptions are, usually, schools that also SELL a certain brand and then advertise they will accept only teachers with the brand they sell. Not uncommon and many schools do that - and the reason why is fairly obvious.

If you can't afford a four-week course, then there are much more modestly priced alternatives online (certainly for less than the 1000GBP you mention!). While those courses are not ideal - they can and often do give you a good introduction to method, fluff up the resume a bit and help you demonstrate an interest in learning how to do it right and will certainly help you teach better than someone with no training at all.

If you intend only to teach for a year or two, a simple online course is fine, but if you intend to make career of it, do get a full four-week course as soon as you can. If you are unsure about what you might do, try an online course just for an introduction, teach a little and if you find you enjoy it then get one of the Full-Monty type courses.

That is just my opinion -- and know that many people have very strong opinions on the training issue, often recommending something they took. My bottom line recommendation for training is to get an MATESOL - that's my bias as I have an M.Ed. and PGCE in TEFL and I think that is what everybody should get . . but really it isn't practical for everybody . . . :-) nor even necessary for most jobs.

Do your students a favor though and do get some training. They are often paying what for them is a LOT of money to be sitting in a classroom with you.

Try Helpx and Workaway websites. There are pleanty of oppurtunities for unpaid teaching work,many dont require qualifications,just a desire to teach basic English to people who really need it.In return you get acommodation and food,which is kind of the same as being paid and it gives you a chance to find out how you feel about teaching abroad etc.You can then later move on to qualifications etc.And along the way you'll probably make a few useful contacts too.
Looking at my speiling here,I could do with some tuition myself.
Good luck.

The Cambridge and the Trinity courses courses are similar in cost and content, both well moderated and, from personal experience, are equally respected by employers at both language schools and proper schools ( I mean children being educated) THese Certificate courses can both be followed up with a Dipolma level course if you get keen enough later. From there, there are several universities that offer a pathway into a degree course - at least in the UK. Course costs vary a bit between providers.

However, there are places where you will be able to pick up work, simply through being a speaker of English. THis is an industry where supply and demand really do make a difference to opportunities.

Personally, I would have been a dreadful teacher without having had the benefit of a course to give me a framework to work with . :-)

Yeah thanks for all the replies. damburgary the idea of maybe teaching unpaid for accomadation and food sounds good to me. Maybe i'll just take a basic course to start with and get a feel for how it works before commiting myself further. Once again thanks for the help.

1. The TEFL certificate is a joke. Biggest waste of money I ever dropped. Biggest scam in the education field.

2. Easier to pick a country first, then find a job.

3. To get experience, find a literacy organization where you live and start volunteering hours to teach the immigrants and refugees. You will learn a lot from them, a lot about English, and you'll get a good idea of what it's like to teach ESL. In addition, this is also helpful to your future paying students. The worst thing for a student is to have a teacher who doesn't like teaching or doesn't know HOW to teach.