Teaching English with a TEFL

This info is easily available on the Northeast Asia branch. You should post this on that branch if you haven't done so already.

You cannot teach legally without a degree in Japan or Korea, period.

You can check the job announcements on international job forum or the Korean job forum at Dave's ESL Cafe to see what employers want. Keep in mind that the better you look on paper - degrees, experience, certificates the more competitive you'll be in the job market.

Serious employers ask for academic qualifications. Less serious employers don't. If you want to teach EFL long term, it might be worth looking at what you need to do to get a degree and a certificate so that you'll be competitive in the job market. If you're not sure you want to teach English long term, then get a certificate and try it out first before committing to a degree.

There is a search function at the top of this page.

Hey Menejike,

Thanks for the info. I'm looking at teaching long term and doing everything properly so I may well go and finish the last year of my photography HND (Higher National Diploma) and turn it into a BA. I was under the impression that a TEFL qualification was looked on favourably but that only seems to be the case when you have a degree behind it.

Thanks again.

The TEFL qualification is more relevant to teaching, unfortunately having a degree is a legal requirement in some countries. The degree doesn't have to be related to teaching at all (for example, my friend taught in Japan with a degree in fashion design and a TEFL certificate), it's more of a formality.

Hello Bigsam,

The more qualifications you have, the more opportunities you'll find and the higher your salary will be.

Academic qualifications don't guarantee quality teaching - I know people with master's degrees that I wouldn't let train dogs and high school dropouts who are amazing, but employers usually assume that if you have lots of papers you're a better teacher.

Korean has a reputation for being a hard place to teach: dishonest employers and indifferent students seem to be a common experience for teachers in Korea. I know that Japan also offers a lot of indifferent students. You might browse around on the Dave's ESL cafe job discussion forums and see what teachers say about the working conditions in different countries before you decide where you'd like to work.

Hey BigSam,

If this is a long term plan, get the BA and a Celta or Trinity- it will certainly open up more opportunities in more countries for you.

As stated previously, Immigration in Korea (and Japan and Taiwan, I think??) requires that you have a degree before they issue you with a visa to teach EFL- it has nothing to do with whether they think you will be a good teacher, just a legal requirement. Schools may or may not care about your TEFL qualifications, but as you gain experience you will have more bargaining power.

And Korea isn't all bad! ;-)

Christine

You will want to do CELTA course once you've finished your degree. More well recognised and a good course to do if you have zero teaching experience

Might be a good idea to teach somewhere like Thailand or Vietnam first to have something to put on your CV as well. Been looking into it myself and competition seems to be hotting up for teaching in S.Korea. Persistance and presentation seems to be the key from what I have read.

Many thanks for all the info guys.

Getting the BA does undoubtedly seem to be the best way forward and from there I’ll decide upon the most relevant English teaching qualification. I guess between now and 2009 things could change so, knowing now that teaching without it is out of the question, I’ll concentrate on the BA and decide which teaching qualification is most suitable nearer the time.

Thanks again.