Getting started teaching English abroad and how to progress

For those of you that have been with me since day one you probably already know that I don't have a very high opinion of this profession in general. I don't doubt how important it is for the students, it certainly is. It just wan't the right profession for me as for the most part i would rather do literally anything else for a living. However, for many people this could be a wonderful opportunity to travel the world and see new places.

image from International TEFL Academy

I know many people that this is the only job they have had for many years and they have moved on to much more rewarding positions that they can actually make a decent living in. Just like any other profession, you start at the bottom and work your way up. I never made it past the bottom because I determined that it was not the right job for me since I pretty much loathed all of it. This article and the others that follow it, are a guide (of sorts) for how you can move your way up to the higher ranks and actually make a real living in this field.

Number 1: Have real credentials

The days of being able to fake your CV / Resume are behind us. Sorry folks but it just isn't possible anymore. You will be required to have a university degree of some sort to qualify for a vast majority of the jobs available. There are exceptions, but in order to qualify for those you have to be in certain countries and even then you will likely need experience in order to get hired. This can still be accomplished by volunteer work but some countries' Ministries of Education don't leave it up to the individual schools and they can actually get in a lot of trouble for hiring you. A good rule of thumb is to have a degree. This is easier if coming from a country that has multiple tiers of diplomas but if coming from North America you will need a Bachelor's degree. This degree can be in literally anything but as you might expect, a degree in Education will open a lot more doors for you.

The TEFL certficate (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) is not necessary for more new hires, but to be honest the certification is not difficult to obtain and actually helps quite a lot in getting better positions. I took the lowest level one that was available and actually learned quite a lot. Basically this is optional at first but if you find that you like the profession and want to move "up in the ranks," it is very helpful to have one

Number 2: Be between 20-35 years old, or at least look like you are

This seems like a real jerk move by the schools but it is just a fact. They are unlikely to be interested in someone that is older than this unless they already have a lot of experience. If you are older than 35, get a haircut and a nice shirt and try to play it off. If you are friendly enough you can still get the job. It's not like it is a law or anything. For whatever reason schools just aren't interested in hiring older teachers unless they have a mountain of experience under their belt.

as unfair as it sounds / is, older people stand very little chance of being hired

Number 3: Be willing to take whatever at first

As i briefly mentioned before, this is not really different from changing into any other field in life. The best jobs are not (except in very rare situations) going to be awarded to anyone who is new to the industry. In Thailand, there are always jobs available - I see at least a couple of listings a week on our local FB page, and if you look at online agencies such as Ajarn.com there are just heaps of opportunities.

Number 4: Turn up with a nest egg

If you want the correct job, it is a much better to not need one right away. I only taught on and off for about 5 years and I don't know how many people took the job because they were broke, then worked for a couple of months then disappeared. This of course reflects very badly on the people that left without giving notice and of course they will be blacklisted, but it is incredibly unfair to the kids. They all of a sudden don't have a teacher and the school has to frantically search for another one. I had to fill in multiple times in the past because of "runners" and this was despite the fact that I had left the teaching profession many years prior.

Number 5: Don't get too bogged down in one area

This sounds crappy because a lot of it incorporates not getting invovled in long-term relationships because if you want to move up in the ranks, there is an extremely good chance that you will need to not just change cities, but also change countries.

The jobs in the "easier" countries like Thailand and Cambodia have long since been seen as "springboard" jobs where the teacher stays here long enough to get some experience on their resume / CV and then head off towards other, far-more-lucrative jobs in countries such as Korea, Japan, China, Vietnam, and Taiwan.

Number 6: If you hate being around kids - just forget it

I have met many people that state that they only want to teach adults and I am not saying these jobs don't exist, because they do, but they exist in much lower numbers than teaching kids. I have done both and I felt the same way at the beginning. However, after many years of teaching both kids and adults I actually prefer to teach kids. If you only want to teach adults I would say try to get employed by some sort of online agency that specializes in that sort of thing.

These jobs do exist and in my experience they are normally part of a hotel operation where your job is not just to educate the workers, but also to make sure that none of their signs / advertisements are nonsense. These jobs are extremely scarce and that is why I say it should NOT be what you are aiming for.

There are some school that cater to all ages but they will most likely not just have an adults only class as they will be willing to accept as many students as they possibly can in order to make money (you know? Like virtually every other business in the world.)

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In later parts of this series i will explain how these jobs can actually be very rewarding, both in the increased salaries, and also how much more it seems like an actual career rather than a playtime job.

I personally know many people working all over the world that make probably better money than the average office slave back in the west (after taxes, which we don't pay very much of over here.)

While I personally don't like the profession and will never do it again (I will take a dish-washing job at McDonalds before i teach again,) I do recognize that this is because of me being incompatible with the job - it isn't because the job sucks.
The people that i know that have been working in this field for as little as just a few years have many opportunities available to them all over the world and they also get to travel a LOT because of school holidays.

two months off a year, that probably appeals to everyone