Question about TEFL

Cornfed · Post by **Cornfed** » August 28th, 2015, 12:04 am

xiongmao wrote:Great YouTube, Aaron tells it how it is. It's better to find a "proper" job overseas than teach English.

Yeah obviously, but proper jobs are scarce and whether you get one probably depends on factors beyond your control, so you have to do what you have to do.

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » August 28th, 2015, 7:07 am

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gnosis · Post by **gnosis** » August 28th, 2015, 8:06 am

Most online information about TEFL is inaccurate.

In Asia at least, a "career" in TEFL is not possible, unless by "career" you mean nothing more than a string of different jobs with different language centers. (CELTA trainers with DELTAs are a possible exception to the above.)

As far as pay goes, the floor is essentially the ceiling. And the "floor" hasn't gone up in quite a while.

You should always remember that your job is to essentially entertain children (often badly behaved) while avoiding friction with "co-teachers" / "classroom assistants" .

Assuming you are white, young, healthy, reasonably photogenic, and have a passable accent, you will get a job. After a couple of years of working a number of different TEFL jobs, you may find that getting out of TEFL is harder than getting in.

Zambales · Post by **Zambales** » August 29th, 2015, 5:45 am

I looked into this a couple of years ago but I was more interested in teaching over the internet. Apparently you can charge what you want for your services but when I looked into it further, there were 'teachers' from countries like the Philippines whose going rates equated to half the average wage in my own country. Needless to say I lost complete interest afterwards.

tamdrin12 · Post by **tamdrin12** » September 9th, 2015, 1:14 am

GoingAwol wrote:Thanks for the input guys! Well I think my plans have changed! As of right now I think I'm going to bust my a** at work, save money for a year or so, take a TEFL certification course, and get to Russia. I learned that you can get TEFL jobs in Russia without a college degree so I'm going to put getting a degree on hold for now because I want to get out of this country. I just can't wait another 4 years

If girls are part of your priority, which I assume you are giving some consideration to if you are a heterosexual man Russia could indeed be very good. I met some Russian girls here in Thailand and they told me American's were in high demand over there (I am assuming you are one) I'm sure it would be the same for Brit's too. She told me Russian guys are basically losers without jobs, don't take care of themselves, and drink too much

Ghost · Post by **Ghost** » September 10th, 2015, 7:04 am

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xiongmao · Post by **xiongmao** » September 10th, 2015, 2:07 pm

It is possible to make TEFL into a proper job, or a "career". I'll just point out though that TEFL has little value in the West. I went to a lot of job interviews lately and nobody was interested in my CELTA. But my time spent living in China - now that was something people wanted to know about!

A career in TEFL is good if you want to live in somewhere like Spain where there's big demand for English tuition and also plenty of great schools where you can build up to doing a DELTA and onwards...

GoingAwol · Post by **GoingAwol** » October 9th, 2015, 1:51 am

Ghost wrote:
tamdrin12 wrote:
GoingAwol wrote:Thanks for the input guys! Well I think my plans have changed! As of right now I think I'm going to bust my a** at work, save money for a year or so, take a TEFL certification course, and get to Russia. I learned that you can get TEFL jobs in Russia without a college degree so I'm going to put getting a degree on hold for now because I want to get out of this country. I just can't wait another 4 years

If girls are part of your priority, which I assume you are giving some consideration to if you are a heterosexual man Russia could indeed be very good. I met some Russian girls here in Thailand and they told me American's were in high demand over there (I am assuming you are one) I'm sure it would be the same for Brit's too. She told me Russian guys are basically losers without jobs, don't take care of themselves, and drink too much
The pay in Russia is terrible from what I've read. But that could be a positive in terms of finding a woman who isn't just interested in money. So decent looks + Russian + employed with some extra ambitions, I'm guessing that's the most workable plan for most guys in Russia.

I've been looking at job listings for teachers in Russia and the average seems to be between 900 and 1,500. Plus I've read that you can make 2,000 plus if you know business terminology to teach "Business English". I'm taking business classes in college to help pad my resume should I find one of these business English jobs.

GoingAwol · Post by **GoingAwol** » October 9th, 2015, 1:59 am

I saw someone on here say that English teachers are considered low status by Russian women. This doesn't seem to be the case with the women I've talked to online. They actually seemed excited and said English teachers are needed in Russia. If a tefl teacher can get a job making between 1,000 and 1,500 he is making double or triple what the average Russian makes. So I don't see why a Russian woman would stick her nose up to that.