Job Discussion Forums

hil1211 · Joined: 15 Nov 2005 Posts: 6

I want to teach in Latin America, probably Costa Rica next year. I'd start in Aug or Sept. I will be TEFL certified by then. I'd like to find a job before i get there if possible, how soon in advance would you recommend I start looking?

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

Anytime from now forward....though April/May is probably when you'll get more attention as people start considering staffing for fall.

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Fri Nov 18, 2005 4:18 pm Post subject:

Start your research now, and get communication started with schools as soon as you find some that are interesting to you. But don't be surprised when nothing becomes concrete until your dates get closer. (It's difficult to anticipate ANYTHING too far in advance in Latin America.)

Another note- you say you will be TEFL certified by then. There are a whole lot of different TEFL certificates on the market, and some of them are so crap that they may actually be worse than no certificate. When you write to schools, "TEFL certified" and "TEFL certificate" as information are next to meaningless. Unless you tell them which certificate you got, and from who, they won't know what to make of it.

I only mention this because I routinely get resumes that say "TEFL certificate" without any additional info. And I always wonder, if their cert is legit, why don't they want to tell me where they got it?

Good luck, and welcome aboard,

Justin

hil1211 · Joined: 15 Nov 2005 Posts: 6

Thank you for the info. I was looking at two different TEFL online courses. One is American TESOL http://www.americantesol.com/index.htm and the other is specifically for teaching to Spanish speakers and its TI Teachers Latin America http://www.innovative-english.com/. Do you know anything about either of these?