Aside from the chastity, poverty and having to meet new people is TEFL really all that bad?
It sounds preferable to what I'm doing now. I just want to go out and live.
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What could go wrong?
Not sure. That's what I'm asking.
guess it beats being a wagie, but eventually you gotta get an actual career
Why?
because you'll need to retire one day and you don't want to spend your final years in a homeless shelter
Why not?
Just don't be a homosexual who thinks its a long or even mid term option or that you're going to love the destination forever.
Do it for a year or two for an experience then get out. Have an exit strategy.
Also don't do it straight out of school, spend a year or two in the workforce in your own country or you'll blame every miserable fact of life on this new country instead of recognising it as the reality of being in this b***h.
This but cap it at a year. I taught English in Turkey and while it was fun, a year was more than enough for me. The more 'experienced' teachers were the most miserable and bitter people I've ever met.
If you want to make it a career and make decent money then become a real teacher and take that to licensed international schools. But that requires actual work.
How much can you earn as an accredited English teacher in an international school? Especially if you have previous high school teaching experience?
What would be an average salary in South Korea or Taiwan, for example?
There's a good resource on a certain website that rhymes with keddit called internationalteachers. Lots of people compiled data showing how much they make in various countries. It's pretty common to make $40,000+ which in a country with a better cost of living goes a long way. I've seen people easily save half that a year, plus benefits like a tree airplane travel ticket a year. If you're wondering why more people don't do it, the truth is that most TEFL workers aren't native speakers and you kinda need that US/UK/AUS etc passport to do international schools.
Thanks for the info, I'll check it out
>the truth is that most TEFL workers aren't native speakers and you kinda need that US/UK/AUS etc passport to do international schools
How true is this really? I have a degree in English and a degree in education but I come from a non-English speaking country, is there really no way around this bullshit?
You can definitely get qualified, such as doing a PGCE with QTS in the UK or whatever the American one is. Securing the visa for the 2 years of school work afterwards may be difficult. Some countries like taiwan straight up discriminate against non-natives although it happens far far less with real international schools since they're professional institutions rather than the shithole cram schools anyone can run. TL;DR: it's possible, but with more hurdles. With your degrees and experience it shouldn't be too difficult though.
>is TEFL really all that bad?
anyhing is ok if you can develop a supplementary location independent income as all careers are prisons so don't worry about lake of experience preventing you from getting a golden handcuff job in usa
What is a supplementary location independent income?
Also should I do TEFL in Bali, Indonesia or Japan? Or possibly somewhere else?
>What is a supplementary location independent income?
he means crypto
>be me
>have online job making 20 USD an hour teaching English online
>work 4-5 hours a day
>wage was good
>Ukraine war happens
>RMB devalues in value
>im essentially now making a little over 2000 USD a month
>due to the Ukraine conflict and Bidenflation my job is now poverty level
>due to the trade war and the state of the Chinese economy it's very hard for me to raise my prices
>can only survive by living in a thirdie country
What should I do? I'm thinking of saving up some money to join an english speaking coding camp in Thailand or something. I like travelling around the world but 2200 USD a month is quite pathetic.
Would you suggest doing TEFL in Bali, Indonesia or Japan? Or possibly somewhere else?
Are you working for an online company? 20 an hour isnt bad if you can choose your hours and you can live anywhere
>bidenflation/putinflation
>ukraine war
were you in a coma in 2020? obviously, the two issues mentioned aren't helping, but the world economy got wrecked because of covid more than anything. that's when the money printers kicked into overdrive.
Do it. Best two years of my life. Then I reverted to wagie serfdom in my home country and have been in a sort of wagie hell ever since, only made palatable by the wife I acquired during my TEFL stint. As others have said, there's a type that gets stuck in TEFL but in my experience they're always the sort of people who have no other options and maybe they have the right idea anyways. I say cap it at two years. My second year was much better than my first since I understood my options at that point.
It’s going to depend a great deal on where you end up and what kind of an institution you end up teaching in, but as someone who’s taught at foreign universities, US community colleges, and international high schools (as well as a few private “language school”/night school sweatshops, albeit briefly, thank fricking God), it can without question be a real, long-term career worth taking seriously, if you know what you’re doing and give a shit about doing it well.
It’s also a relatively low bar to entry way to just frick around abroad for a year or two if you’re casual about it. Either angle is legitimate in its own way, although the casual route probably needs to be short-term for your psychological well-being.
But it’s rarely prestigious (with very few exceptions—teachers at Asian universities and posh private schools in many countries actually command at least a tiny bit of popular respect sometimes), and doesn’t pay very well, even when legitimately qualified.
So I think anyone who’s curious about it might as well give it a shot, and anyone who actually enjoys it should invest in qualifications.
>as someone who’s taught at foreign universities, US community colleges, and international high schools
What qualifications do you need to teach in these places?
Varies by country, but typically at least a master’s degree plus experience. To teach in an international secondary school you almost always need a real teacher’s qualification, which depending on where you’re from might be either a master’s degree or some kind of shorter postgraduate diploma.
Oh, and to speak for myself, I’ve got two master’s degrees, one of which was not all that relevant, the more helpful/valuable of which (MSc in applied linguistics and language acquisition, with a concentration in TESOL) I got while already working as a teacher.
I'm doing a masters of engineering (MEng) in the same subject as my bachelors.
How would schools view this over a MS? Since I'm only 1 term in should I just drop it and do a M.Ed?
>I'm doing a masters of engineering (MEng) in the same subject as my bachelors.
>How would schools view this over a MS? Since I'm only 1 term in should I just drop it and do a M.Ed?
Not sure where you hope to work, but in a lot of places a master’s in just about anything plus teaching experience can be sufficient. I don’t think a master’s in engineering without some kind of specific teacher training or certification is going to open English teaching doors at most international high schools (when I talk about these, I assume you know that I’m talking about secondary schools teaching either a British, US, or International Baccalaureate curriculum, with English as the primary medium of instruction, to kids from all over the world, of whom the ones who aren’t fluent in English yet would be your main students), but these may not be the jobs you want anyway. An MEd usually would open these doors.
If you don’t want to further your engineering education and are seriously considering teaching instead, of course I think you should think about getting an MEd. It would qualify you by default, with minimal additional training, for university-level English teaching postings in a lot of countries (and maybe science or math jobs in some, thanks to your engineering background), which are among the most pleasant TEFL jobs around. But if you’re not actually interested in the prospect of a career as a teacher it’s a terrible choice. I decided after working as a teacher for a while that I was into it, so I got an explicitly ‘Master English Teacher’ stamp, and I’m glad I did. But I also committed to doing this as a career at the same time. My options outside of doing this are undeniably narrow.
Thank you, I appreciate the detailed response. I will save it to think about.
At a crossroads where I never broke into entry level for CS, and mostly want to live in Asia (currently here). I find teaching to be a respectable profession so it sounds nice.
I'll probably TEFL in China and use work referrences to get into a M.Ed program.
chinanon here: moved from tefl into high school science subject teaching - you have no idea just how comfy life is in the 'guo
how do i bring my thai ladyboy?
serious question
i teach at a university in south korea. it's all right. i like the respect from my students and having 5 months of paid vacation a year. i don't make as much money as my teacher peers in the US, but they don't save as much as i do, or get to travel as much either. sometimes i miss burgers tbh