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Marcoregano · Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 872 Location: Hong Kong

I wonder if anyone has come across a reasonably reliable estimate (say to the nearest 10,000 or so) of the total number of TEFLers wordwide? I reckon in HK there are around 3,000 give or take 500, (that might be a little conservative), including TEFLers at kindergartens, primary, secondary, tertiary, private schools, private teachers and also those working for corporations. It seems difficult (not surprisingly perhaps) to get even a guestimate.

Dr.J · Joined: 09 May 2003 Posts: 304 Location: usually Japan

Wolf · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 1245 Location: Middle Earth

217 691.33442?

Probably a difficult question to answer. Some countries give out special work permits that are more or less for EFL teachers, but not ever country might do so. Also, I imagine there are coutnries that don't care about how many of us there are. And, turnover rates are quite high, and many EFL teachers work illegally. All this must make the world's total EFL population hard to track.

dmb · Joined: 12 Feb 2003 Posts: 8397

I once read that there are more people in China learning English than there are people in the US. So in China alone there must be loads of teachers

struelle · Joined: 16 May 2003 Posts: 2372 Location: Shanghai

Wolf · Joined: 10 May 2003 Posts: 1245 Location: Middle Earth

I've heard that about China as well. In middle school ("high school" to some) EFL is a compulsary subject. I can personally vouch for the fact that EFL does get taught in at least some rural areas (most of my students come from the countryside.)

They don't want to learn it, but they have to. I'd say that there's at least a chance that the number of Chinese who end up studying EFL (sucessfuly or not, willingly or not) would outstrip the population of the US. The number of effective English speakers, well, that's a different story.