3. SECURE A JOB

While there are thousands of jobs, there are also thousands of applicants. Every day more and more people are jumping on this bandwagon, and while it's still a good market for teachers, it's much more competitive than it was even 5 years ago. There are two vantage points from which to approach the job search: if you're certified, or if you're not certified.

I'm certified! (or I want to be)
I'm not certified!

I'm certified! (or I want to be)

As we mentioned, a virtual prerequisite these days is a certificate in ELT/TEFL/EFL or any of the other dozens of interchangeable letters that mean you've taken a 100-120 hour course in Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Yes, it's possible to get a job without this teaching degree, but they tend to pay less and are at iffy schools - the sort of places that might send a letter to your house offering you a position, and then no longer exist once you've made it out to Egypt. Not so good.

Courses come in a dizzying array of options; in England, the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and Trinity College London both offer prestigious ones. The course is usually given in one-month intensive chunks and then you're certified; also, courses are offered part-time over several months (they'll set you back anywhere from $1000 - $4000). There are currently also courses available here in the U.S.; for a good, comprehensive list of certificate courses, see the book Teaching English Abroad by Susan Griffith, or follow some of the links at the bottom of this page.

Certificate courses are nice in fringe benefits as well as training. Most courses have some sort of system set up which will pair you with a school upon graduation, or at the very least, you'll get connected to a head-hunting firm (that's a good thing, ominous as it sounds). There are courses that don't offer any sort of help in finding work; these programs are usually cheaper, but might end up costing more money in the long run. If one course offers free set-up assistance (some offer this assistance for life), and another offers nothing, well, you might end up having to pay a head-hunter anywhere from $50-$250 to match you with a school. Plus, some programs include round-trip airfare to the teaching location, while with others you're on your own. The cost of a ticket can easily exceed $1000, so make sure you investigate your course of choice thoroughly before registering. Differences in prices usually can be accounted for by differences in services. Of course, it could never hurt to check out our article "SYW find cheap airline tickets?"

Once you get a certificate, you have the choice of finding work before you get to a country, or heading over first and then locating a job. In general, it's more secure to have your job in advance, but this is balanced by the increase in pay that often accompanies teaching positions that hire on site. In addition, teaching jobs obtained in advance can't be thoroughly investigated, whereas with work gotten while in the country, you can go around and kick the tires of your school (and they can do the same with you, hence the higher pay).

If you choose to find a school before leaving your home country, the best way is usually through head-hunting firms; a good list of places to start can again be found in Teaching English Abroad, as well as a list of reputable schools that accept applications and résumés from foreign locales. If you choose to go first, then go. Get a place, talk to Americans teaching in the area, look for notices, apply to many places, and cross your fingers.

I'm not certified!

There are many ways to teach abroad without a certificate:

  • Some schools often hire uncertified teachers when certified ones aren't available. It is much more difficult to get placed this way, but it is possible. Just don't count on it.

  • There is still the aforementioned Peace Corps, as well as missionary-style or volunteer programs. These programs realize that you probably just graduated from college, so they have few technical requirements, if any. They're just looking for cheap labor.

  • Still another option is a program specific to a school or government. If you went to college, chances are your university has at least one sister school in another country. There are often systems in place to get English speakers teaching abroad using these close ties, either at the sister school itself, or a nearby junior or high school.

  • Government programs, some feel, are the best option available. Usually, no certification is necessary, and pay is good. For instance: the Japanese government sponsors the Japanese Exchange and Teaching program (JET, 800-INFOJET), which offers positions as Assistant Language Teachers. These jobs entail helping a homeroom teacher with English lessons for junior and high school students. The pay is 3,600,000 yen (around $28,000), which doesn't go as far as you would think in Japan. But it IS Japan - the competition for acceptance into this program is perhaps the fiercest anywhere at the moment, and has a difficult admission process. JET is a very distinguished example, but there are many more like it; you need to investigate your chosen countries to find out what's available.

  • You don't necessarily need to work at a school to teach English; many business people want to be tutored in English, both privately and en masse. These jobs tend to be less consistent, but they also pay much better per hour compared with traditional work. There are also many night schools for adults that look for teachers.

The possibilities are nearly endless for an enterprising soul, which you are. Otherwise you wouldn't be working abroad, eh?

Here are those links that we promised you. These are but a small sample, but they'll definitely set you on the right direction, as well as inform you about some of the program-specific requirements.

www.goabroad.com
http://internationalcenter.umich.edu/
www.peacecorps.gov/index.cfm
www.teaching-abroad.co.uk
www.linguistic-funland.com/tesljob.html