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[LinkH]

I used to teach ESL/EFL in Indonesia. The first gig I got was before 'Cris Mon' when the rupiah tanked along with several other Asian Currencies in the late 1990's and Soeharto stepped down. I was making $1200 a month.

Fortunately, I got a job at Yayasan LIA, which doesn't normally hire expats, paying about $1900 a month. That was a pretty good gig back then with the cheap prices. I should have bought an apartment back then. I got married and started having kids. I left the country, but had trouble finding stable work in the US. I went back to Indonesia and worked for a national plus school, but I could only teach kindergarten and preschool because I was not certified as a teacher in my home country, and the organization that did their certification was loose on kindergarten and preschool teacher requirements.

The problem was I had a bachelors in linguistics. I was not certified as a teacher in my home country. If I were, I could have gotten a decent paying job at a national plus or international school, one of the good ones.

That's the way to make a decent living in ESL. And it's better if you can teach something besides ESL/EFL, like regular English for native speakers in a primary or secondary school.

The problem for me was my degree wasn't even in English. It was in Linguistics. If I'd studied English, maybe I could have found a university back home that would certify me to teach English based on taking education classes and doing student teaching. I'd have to take classes in a major to do that.

I did consider some MAT programs for TESOL. I'd have to redo my last two years of a bachelors to teach anyway. Why not get a masters instead? A Masters of Arts in Teaching in some states can be followed by student teaching. You go for two more years, student teach, and you are a teacher.

I spent my last two years working for an international corporation as a corporate trainer teaching English. With bonuses, maybe it was about as good as LIA, but with longer hours. I decided to go back to school, but got an MBA at a second tier B-school and went straight into a management PhD program.

I figure if I'm going to teach, I might as well get paid well doing it, and I enjoy studying business. I'd thought of business as a major originally, and it kind of fits some of my pre-EFL background and corporate trainer background.

I found a lot of the ESL jobs in Indonesia to be incredibly low-paying. It's okay in your 20s when you don't have a family. But if you marry an Indonesian and have kids and want to send them to English-speaking school, that quickly exceed the typical ESL/EFL teacher pay. Some of the international and national plus school will give you a deal where they will school your kids as part of the package. Some of those are decent jobs long-term.

[chezal]

I increased my pay more than 3 fold by returning home and getting home certified. I'm now earning over $3000 a month. Admittedly I don't teach ESL any more but science as my original degree was a science degree not English.

Teaching in an international school you have many more benefits than just the pay. Many will cover up to 2 children's tuition in full or in part. Better housing allowance, health insurance some also include shipping and resigning bonuses etc. It's the way to go if you want stay in Indonesia and have a family here.

I don't always plan to stay teaching in international schools. I'd eventually like to go into NGO work in education development in South East Asia and plan to do a masters in international education development in the future.