One of the best job opportunities for you to consider in your new country may be Teaching English as a Foreign Language or as it is widely known, TEFL.
Our article “Teaching English Abroad” looks at this increasingly popular work option for both recent college graduates as well as experienced or retiring teachers who want to live abroad.
Because of globalization and international business needs, it seems that countries all around the world are hiring thousands of teachers every year to provide their people with English language instruction. Given that English has become the de facto language for international business, they want to ensure their competitiveness.
To personalize our article, we interviewed a recent graduate of San Jose State University in San Jose, California, who decided to leave his Silicon Valley job to join the TEFL corps and see the world.
Tim Winfred is a typical TEFL candidate. The twenty-three-year-old graduated with a degree in advertising, got a job doing social media and then began craving more meaning in his life. Sound familiar?
Winfred focused on South Korea because he has a friend from college who is currently teaching English there and his brother soon will be stationed at a military base in the country. Plus, South Korea is pouring a lot of money into English education.
How do you go about finding a TEFL job? According to Winfred, it’s all about research, research and more research. Most of the information can be found on a wide range of TEFL certification websites. A TEFL certificate is required to teach in most countries and the amount of training required varies by country.
For South Korea, Winfred completed 170 hours of training and was required by his certification program to tutor a language learner or attend a local language class to either observe or teach for a minimum of 20 hours. His 11-week course cost US$1,199.
Are you thinking about TEFL as a work option? Let us know.
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