Diminising Income Opportunities as an Overseas ESL/EFL teacher

[MrMan]

Back in the 1990's, I graduated college with a degree in Linguistics. After many months, I found out about a recruiter who hired people for Korean English schools. I spent a year in South Korea. At the time, I was getting $1600 a month. In today's dollars, that was about $38,000 a year. Several years later, I had a job in Jakarta editing textbooks and doing voice acting and college lecturing, making $1900 a month with two months annual bonus. That was about $42,000 a month.

I thought I would check out ESL cafe to see what jobs pay now. I saw a job in Japan that paid $2500 a month...in Japan! Korean jobs paid just over $2000 a month on the high end. I did see some Chinese jobs that paid around $4000 a month, but one of them said they were hiring teachers already in country only. It must be hard to get into the country right now.

It looks like income prospects have kind of dried up. I'm glad I went back to grad school and went into another field.

Possibly a better niche, job wise, is teaching English or whatever else at international schools. Good schools may pay a little better than the US. Some schools pay about the same, and put you up in housing.

For a fresh college graduate who can get a job paying $2000 a month in South Korea or $2500 a month in Japan with housing and travel to and from included, it's probably not that bad of a gig. You could probably still save if you are not the type to drink away your money or waste it frivolously. And private lessons might still pay well.

[Cornfed]

When I taught in Korea over 10 years ago I got 2k a month plus that amount for completing a years contract plus yearly travel etc. Even if it is still that, with inflation this is a massive reduction. I've said this before - ESL sucks for most people and has done since about 2010. Better think of something else.

[Stranton]

When I taught in Korea over 10 years ago I got 2k a month plus that amount for completing a years contract plus yearly travel etc. Even if it is still that, with inflation this is a massive reduction. I've said this before - ESL sucks for most people and has done since about 2010. There are lots of other opportunities in educating people. Say, you can run your own online courses using modern soft like Proctoredu which will make passing your courses even more valuable. Better think of something else.

Like what?

[publicduende]

Back in the early 2000's I had just broken up with my then Japanese gf and my yellow fever was still running high. After my ex gf moved back to Japan, I went there a couple of times to visit her. She was in Osaka, sharing a large house with 2 English teacher from Canada.

By hanging out with these guys and their teacher friends, I learned that large language schools like Nova or Aeon were practically hiring anybody who spoke English as a native language, or native level, and still blessed by a pulse. They were mostly working during late afternoon, evenings and night hours (students were all busy with work and school during the day). As I learned, average net wage was around $2000 a month, which was not bad in 2003 for a second-class graduate who would have struggled to find gainful employment in their native countries.

I remember being fascinated by that lifestyle and, despite having a job that paid much more than what Nova would offer, I tried applying and even got past the first couple of interviews. They failed me at the HR interview because, apparerntly, I was too ambitious and expecting too much from what was, in the end, casual work.

Fast forward a few years (2007 I think) and Nova found themselves in a bad financial situation. They stopped poaying wages to their teachers and even some of their admin and management staff. I remember reading that some 1,500 young teachers from Australia, unpaid for months, were stranded in Japan, unable to afford their flight back home. The Aussie government intervened with relief flights, it was almost a diplomatic case.

While my experience was limited to this, it was enough for me to understand that the whole industry is ripe with low-paid jobs, precarious working conditions and risk.

Much better to run an online language school from here in the Philippines, as many Japanese and Koreans do.