Job Discussion Forums

Smooth Operator · Joined: 29 Jan 2003 Posts: 140 Location: Japan

I have been in TEFL for over a decade now and pretty much all the DON'TS below apply to me. Even so, I have had a great time, travelled to many wonderful countries, saved lots of money and met many lovely people.

santi84 · Joined: 14 Mar 2008 Posts: 1317 Location: under da sea

It ain't perfect but it beats stocking shelves overnight at Wal-Mart Laughing

Glenski · Joined: 15 Jan 2003 Posts: 12844 Location: Hokkaido, JAPAN

Nexus11 · Joined: 18 Nov 2009 Posts: 38

Here is my rebuttal

1) You lost your job or hate your job
I was stressed out in my previous career as a financial advisor. Even during my free time, I felt like work always needed to be in the back on my mind. I only decided to teach overseas because it was a quick and easy escape. Now I love having a stress-free job that affords me a lot of free time.

2. Don't do it for the money
The author is partially correct. You won't become wealthy teaching overseas. However, I make enough to go out about two nights a week, order in a lot of takeout, and still save over $1000 a month. I will never be a millionaire, but I have a higher quality of life.

3. Culture Shock
Culture shock is exaggerated, especially if you live in a big city. Keep an open mind, never start a sentence with "Back in my country, its better because..." and you will be fine.

4. You won't travel as much as you think
I don't travel, but it hasn't been due to lack of opportunity. During vacation periods or at the end of your contract, you can easily travel if it is your desire. The author is right that this is not a vacation, but a job. However, being in another part of the world gives you the opportunity to see things you ordinarily wouldn't with no more than a weekend of free time.

5. It's harder than you think
No it isn't. If you want something easy, you can find a school that has premade lesson plans and a co-teacher who does the bulk of the grading. There are more serious jobs for people who want to be serious teachers, but for those who want easy jobs, they are out there. They pay less and the employers know you are expendable, but they are out there.

gaijinalways · Joined: 29 Nov 2005 Posts: 2279

1) 2) & 4) I liked my previous work, but to be honest, I make more money now (not initially, but certainly more now). In my case I was "recovering" from a divorce and was invited top work in Hong Kong first. Never made a lot of money there, but enough to get by and enjoy some travel to Japan, Singapore, and Thailand.

Now living in Japan some 19 years later, I regularly travel to Europe every summer, and take 2-3 trips to various other Asian countries.

3) & 5) The culture shock sometimes makes this job harder, but it is not any harder (nor more stressful) than many other jobs where you push paper out before deadlines every week.

I'm not sure if living in a major city makes it easier to cope, though certainly living in a more modern country makes it easier (running water, regular electric service, high speed Internet access, good modern and timely medical care), though sometimes you bump into ineffiencies because of ingrained "tradtional" brainwashing that make you go "huh??".

ETA · Joined: 14 Jun 2010 Posts: 60

TwinCentre · Joined: 22 Mar 2007 Posts: 273 Location: Mokotow

I've been in the TEFL game for 13 years - started in my early to mid-twenties, many different countries. I am now at a point that I think I am done (hope so), so time to reflect and say my one empirialistically justified piece of wisdom, which I wish I had practised.......

Do TEFL the other way round.

Get a (proper) career, work hard at it, get a good pension (if you can), then if you find yourself, single (ish) free and easy at 45/50 years old, then go off and see the world...that way you won't give a hoot whether TEFL is a career or not....you'll just have fun, and have a home and some wonga, and a stable life to return to (if you want to). I think that is what TEFL might be made for.

SahanRiddhi · Joined: 18 Sep 2010 Posts: 267

I agree with that general principle.

It has another benefit, too. In their hearts, many who have done TEFL and nothing else have a complex. They feel like they underachieved and didn't have a "real" career, or they worry that others perceive them that way. Some deal with it by seeing how many initials they can accumulate (CELTA, DELTA, MA TESOL, CELTA-YL, EAP etc.) and how scornful they can be of people without "proper quals." Others are down to earth, but constantly wonder how to "get out of TEFL." If you have another career prior to TEFL, none of this matters as much.

But I would quibble with a couple of your points:

-Pension. Not sure where you come from, but where I come from they are hard to come by. I'd count on saving up your own money.

-Being single. You don't have to be single to enjoy TEFLing. Plenty of married couples find it fulfilling. Just be careful which location you choose. Some are more conducive to sustaining a marriage than others.

-Wonga. Not sure what this term means. If it is a synonym for "genital herpes," then yes, TEFL provides ample opportunities.

Perilla · Joined: 09 Jul 2010 Posts: 792 Location: Hong Kong

tttompatz · Posted: Wed Nov 23, 2011 5:00 am Post subject:

I would beg to differ a little bit (on some things that you said) but certainly agree completely with the need to get qualified.

I don't think "TEFL is past its golden years" but I do think that the days of the backpacker doing TEFL to subsidize his travels will soon go the way of the Dodo bird.

More and more, as different governments take the position that English language education is NECESSARY and policy makers move to make it mainstream, the need for qualifications to get a decent job is becoming more and more the norm but the number and quality of the jobs is also improving.

The days when a high school completion and a 30-day TEFL cert would get you something decent in a language school are quickly fading.

The general rule, at least in Asia, for legal work as a teacher (even in EFL) is a minimum of a bachelors degree and after the integration of ASEAN in 2015 it will be the minimum standard for all 10 member countries and will likely be adopted for the ASEAN +3 (soon to be 15 countries in east Asia).

For those who actually want to make a career out of TEFL it is a viable option.

You won't get rich doing it (teaching has never been a get-rich profession) but you will be able to make a decent living, enjoy a comfortable lifestyle, and save for your future.

It is no different than any other career path.

You can get a job stocking shelves in retail or get qualified (degree and experience) and work your way up to being the manager of your local Walmart (with salaries in the range of $100k+ per anum).

You can flip burgers at McDs or get a degree and experience and manage the restaurant (again, salaries in the $60-100k range).

You can get a job as a desk clerk or get the degree and manage the hotel (6 figure incomes in the better (4-5*) hotel chains).

You can get a job as an orderly pushing a wheel chair in a hospital or become a doctor.

You can do piece work teaching EFL in a language institute (often at subsistence wage levels) or get qualified and become the EFL / ELT teacher in school (even in SE Asia you can earn upward of US$40k if you include benefits and the cost of living is significantly lower than in the west where teachers still only earn about the same wages).

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mimi_intheworld · Joined: 23 May 2010 Posts: 167 Location: UAE

Short answer: eh, whatever.

I have done a few job/careers (what's the real difference? Some people make a career out of working on an assembly line, while others turn saving the world into a job) in my time as a grown-up. Some have been relatively lucrative, some have not.

I like EFL. It's my favourite. I'm earning a better wage than I would doing the same job in my home country. I have more time for travel. It's vaguely rewarding. I have once again become financially comfortable enough to accrue far too much stuff.

Yes, in some places there's no money and nothing but drudgery and summer camp (hey! I once had a career as a summer camp counselor!) and saving up for months to buy a new pair of shoes. In other places, EFL instructors get to wallow in filthy lucre.

Do what you like. It either pays or it doesn't, and then you carry on to the next part of your life.

etx · Joined: 15 Apr 2004 Posts: 26

English Teacher X wrote a very similar article, posted on this forum and others, EIGHT YEARS AGO.

His "Five Really Bad Reasons To Teach English Abroad" were:

1) I'll make loads of money aborad
2) I'll have an authentic cultural experience
3) It's really fun and easy
4) I'll be really popular and everybody will love me
5) I'll get out of the rat race

Although personally I preferred his short quiz, "Are You Suited to Teaching English Abroad?"

which can be seen in the forum archives here:

http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?t=19803&highlight=englishteacherx[/url]

SahanRiddhi · Joined: 18 Sep 2010 Posts: 267

Taiwanlight Zone · Joined: 24 Feb 2007 Posts: 25 Location: Danshui, Taiwan

The impression I got from the article was, 'You want to teach English abroad? Don't do it in Costa Rica!'

I'm With Stupid · Joined: 03 Sep 2010 Posts: 432

On the money issue, I find my job allows me a very comfortable lifestyle in addition to savings and regular holidays. However, I'm speaking as a single, childless person. Once you have a family to support and you're going to bring them up in a poorer country, you will often want to pay for tuition, healthcare, etc, which cancels out any of this surplus cash (if you can afford it at all). It's at this point that you realise that you also have no pension fund and no property. The alternative is, of course, to teach in a richer country, but then you're probably unlikely to be getting a massive salary, unless you're what you might call a proper teacher working in an international school.

Having said that, I don't understand the blog entry. If making short-term money is your aim, then there are plenty that will testify that it can be done. People have paid off student loans on ESL earnings. That's not an insignificant surplus of cash. There are even people who claim to have bought a house using money earned teaching in the Gulf. This rule might apply to the Americas, but it's highly dubious to suggest that it applies to the entire industry. Most people don't earn this sort of money, of course, but it'd be a pretty shocking ESL salary that wouldn't afford you to see a bit of the country between contracts and in holidays. In fact, I'd say this is one of the major advantages of this job. In the past year, I've seen countries for a fraction of the price I would've had to pay to visit them from the UK. Although that particular one is swings and roundabouts, because then visiting the family costs much more.