Job Discussion Forums

[teachinginhcmc]

Teaching in HCMC
I am a natural-born American citizen, and I am 100% Vietnamese ethnically. My parents were born in Vietnam. I have been to Vietnam numerous times recently to improve my Vietnamese and to visit family. I currently have a 5 year visa exemption. I have no criminal history.

I speak English as my native language, and I consider myself above-average in the Vietnamese language and am more than capable of communicating in Vietnamese. I have been learning how to read and write Vietnamese for the past couple of months.

I have a Bachelor's degree (BA) in Psychology at a state university in the USA. I enrolled in teacher's education at the same school after I got my BA, and have some experience in a classroom setting as a Teacher's Assistant (TA), but I stopped pursuing my teaching credentials due to unexpected life occurrences.

I want to teach English in Ho Chi Minh City. I want to teach primarily kids and teenagers (adults not preferred). Here are my questions:
1. What exactly are the educational requirements for teaching in Vietnam? I want to ask to be completely sure. I read online that only a BA in any subject is required, and that a TEFL is not required, but preferred if I have want to have more career opportunities in Vietnam.
2. Regarding the TEFL, I read there is also a TESOL and CELTA. Which of these two (or something else I did not mention) is recommended for me? And assuming I want to get accredited with the TEFL (or something else), I have these questions:
a. How long is the process?
b. Are there online courses available?
c. What is the price to get this certification?
d. Where do I look if I want to get my TEFL (or equivalent)? I don’t know where to look.
3. What is the average pay if I work there? I plan to start off working 20 hours/week.
4. How much of my income gets taxed in Vietnam? To my knowledge, I am not a Vietnamese citizen. Is it beneficial, tax wise, to get Vietnamese citizenship? I plan to keep my US citizenship.
5. How much of my income gets taxed by the US? I know that as a US citizen, my worldwide income is taxed by the IRS. But I also read that I can get my income exempt from US taxes if I meet certain requirements. I don’t know the exact requirements.
6. Assuming I met all of the educational requirements, what is the next step? Where exactly do I look for work? What do I do now?

I have more questions, regarding topics like obtaining a work permit, where to look for employers and something called “exchange rate”, and job security. But I will ask them later.

[Tigerstyleone]

All of your questions have been asked and answered before, about every week these same questions come up. RTFF !

[TRH]

[1st Sgt Welsh]

[toiyeuthitmeo]

You need a BA and you'd be foolish not to get a CELTA.

CELTA takes a month and is intense- 120 hours, with 6 hours of observed teaching practice, and several written assignments. You meet 5 days-a-week and each day lasts 5-8 hours, plus working after on lesson plans and assignments.

CELTA is run in Vietnam by Apollo and ILA. Look 'em up. It's a good idea to take it here in Vietnam. Think it runs between $1200-$1500 these days.

Online teaching certs are shunned world-wide by any serious school.

Universities in the US often have TESOL certificate programs and these are very good if the university's name is attached to the cert. Bonus is the courses often count towards an MA Tesol if you want to one later.

Any income under $90,000 earned abroad is not taxable in USA.

Avg pay for CELTA, BA newbie at 20 hrs / wk would be between $1000-$1400 / month.

Teacher salaries are meant to be taxed in VN. If you qualify as a "resident" which means meeting a mimimum amount of days in Vietnam in a calendar year, you get a sliding scale tax which usually avgs to between 12-15% of total monthly wages. If you don't qualify as resident you are taxed flat 20% of monthly wages.

Your next step is to get a teaching cert. CELTA is best for a number of reasons. Search ILA and Apollo online, they're eagerly awaiting your course fee (they seem to do a good job, though, with the training).

Your other next step is to make sure you've got enough money saved for

-Plane ticket AND plane ticket home if it doesn't work out
-Two-to-three months of living expenses in Vietnam ($1000 / month mimimum). (Though if you have family to live with for free, that changes this requirement)

Come to Vietnam with that money or family to stay with, get the CELTA, you'll find a job in Saigon or Hanoi, no problem. I'd aim to do the CELTA in April, then you'd be searching for jobs in May, just as the busy summer school season is about to kick off.

I also agree that all of these questions have been answered ad nauseum. Heck, I'll consider this my good deed for the day.

[RustyShackleford]

Going to just go through them briefly, without glamour.