Bored with your current job?
Feel like you are spinning your wheels?
Or perhaps you are thinking of a career change.

Wouldn’t it be great to pull up a chair at a cafe somewhere in the world and enjoy the surroundings of a new and exciting location? Or watch the sun set on a beautiful beach as you prepare to go out into the city for dinner? Well, thousands of new TEFL teachers do this every year. And there is no reason why you can’t be next. 

So if you are bored, tired or just want a change, there are 3 steps to making the change come true for you. I did!

Step 1 

Find a map of the world. I like this one from Vector Maps - clickable and shows each country clearly: http://www.vectorworldmap.com/vectormaps/vector-world-map-v2.1.png

Now think about where you might like to live. Remember, it doesn’t have to be forever. You could move from one country to the next with the right qualification. Perhaps it is a destination you have always wanted to go to, or a country you used to visit on holiday, maybe that lovely Greek island you went to years ago…

Yes, that’s the view I visualised when I set off on my first journey. However, I ended up in Mexico City, which wasn’t quite the same. Could be I boarded the wrong flight and fell asleep, something similar to this poor Japanese traveller, who wanted to catch a flight to Turkey but was put on a train to Torquay after asking directions at Paddington.

But I enjoyed the Mexican experience and it was my first step working around the world.

Once you have a place in mind, you have something to focus on and this will help you as you begin to make your plans. But how to you get from where you are today to your dream destination? And how will you manage to make ends meet when you get there? Well, this is where the TEFL course comes in.

Step 2

Choosing the right TEFL/TESOL course and setting your budget.  Now TEFL courses come in all shapes and sizes (and cost from £170 to over £1000, depending on what you choose).  The course you decide upon should be a good fit for your ideal destination. There is no point doing something quickly and cheaply if you get there only to find you can’t get work when you get to your chosen country. Similarly, spending lots of your hard earned cash on an expensive course may be a bad investment, particularly if you are only thinking of staying a short while.

As a general rule, if you are volunteering in continents such as Africa, Asia or South America, you should be able to get by with a short Weekend or 3 day TEFL course. You can do these up and down the UK at convenient city locations. It is a good way to dip your toe in the TEFL water, so to speak, get a paper qualification, and then off you go. Prices are competitive and start at £170. You’ll also get to share in some classroom experiences with other trainees in an exciting classroom environment, with some classroom teaching practice as well.

Alternatively, if you are heading for a more established destination, such as Western Europe, Japan or other countries with a more mainstream TEFL industry, you are likely to want a little more. An online course, providing it is accredited by an independent professsional body, can help you get to where you want to go. These start at 70 hours / £195 and are customisable, so you can add specialisms such as teaching English for business, to young learners or in a one-to-one setting ( listen to a teacher speaking about how to teach English one-to-one). These courses go more into theory and methodology, as well as grammar, so you’ll be more confident when you stand up in front of the class for the very first time. Budget for spending up to £395 for these programmes, but they are very flexible and fit around your schedule.

Of course, online and distance based courses work really well if you want to take time over your studies and go at your own pace. If you work best in a group situation, you might want to consider a 4 week CELTA course, which will give you the theory and methodology, along with 6-8 hours teaching practice in front of ‘live’ TEFL students, rather than the peer teaching you get on the weekend programmes. This was the traditional way of getting started and provides a more thorough introduction than the Weekend TEFL. Good for those who like working intensively. Budget for spending up to £395 on a CELTA course. If you’d like more information on CELTA or online programmes you’ll find this blog on Online TEFL vs CELTA helpful.

We suggest you look at the following country guide to help you - we have listed 43 of the top TEFL destinations around the world, with recommendations for what course works best in different countries. It also pays to watch out for some countries, like Japan, Korea and increasingly Thailand, who require their TEFL/TESOL teachers to have a degree.

Step 3

Making the Move and finding work. This is the big jump. You can put a pin in your map, and buy your TEFL course from the seat you are sitting in, all in the next five minutes. But actually packing up and getting on the plane is the final step. Don’t be dissuaded - you have come this far already. Now is the chance of a lifetime to get that job and realise your dream.

But how to find work? Well, there are lots of jobs out there, as many as 20,000 new TEFL positions are offered around the world each month. So if you are a new TEFL teacher there is a good chance that one of them has your name on it. Here is how to go about it.

a) finding TEFL work from the comfort of your armchair - or computer chair

Nowadays arranging a TEFL job starts with a google search for EFL jobs. Alternatively, a visit to one of the specific TEFL job websites may yield results. Probably the biggest is http://www.tefl.com/jobs/, which has a wide range of positions and RSS feed accessibility so you can be updated with the latest positions.

b) in situ

But the fact is that many TEFL jobs simply don’t get advertised - especially in places where there are several teacher travellers passing through, dropping in CVs. Like me when I started, a number of people find work by speculative drop ins, in Spain in this example. In the more ‘off the beaten track’ places you will need to be persistent, so check out this advice given on finding work in Finland.

C) planning your job from overseas

The British Council offices in different countries often hold a list of local schools and ESL base has a list of schools in various countries. But I also like this idea of finding TEFL work that is offered in Germany, by searching through the online yellow pages to find the local language schools in a particular area.

We have expanded on all of these ways of finding your first TEFL position and we hope you find something that inspires you. In the meantime, here is a look at how it is done, from experienced TEFL teacher Louisa Walsh :

Hope you found this helpful and like me, twenty years later, you can still be doing what you love, wherever you decide to travel!

William Bradridge

Type ‘TESOL Courses’ into a search engine and Google will display a vast array of TEFL course providers all over the world offering online TEFL, weekend TEFL, 4 week CELTAs, part-time Trinity’s, 4 week non-CELTAs, university courses (pause for breath) and exciting combinations of the above. If I was looking now, with an outsider’s head on, I have to admit that I probably wouldn’t know where to start. How would I choose a ‘good’ course?  They all say they are ‘accredited’ so what does that mean? Is one accreditation better than another?

These questions didn’t bother me much when I was looking to get started in TEFL many moons ago. Why? Because it was either CELTA, Trinity, or um well CELTA or Trinity. It was pretty much your 4 week standard intensive or nothing. There was no way I wanted to wing it around the world without a qualification, trading on my English native speaker status alone. The thought of standing in front of a class, mouth dry, not knowing my prepositions from my prefixes just made my blood run cold.  So, a CELTA it was. No worries over accreditation, recognition or acceptance worldwide. Oh, life was so much easier then.

My, how things have changed. When considering a TEFL course. Where do you start? Well, first you might want to read my other blog
Online TEFL vs CELTA

Then, I suggest working backwards to ensure that the course you take will get you where you want to go. If you want to work in the UK and need the security of working for an English language school year-round, then I’d suggest a CELTA. However, there is very much more to the UK than working in a language school as many successful freelancers in the UK TEFL market will tell you. For many others, especially those with a degree and flexibility, an online TEFL course will often suffice. For many, the CELTA vs Online question is purely academic since they can neither afford the money nor time  to invest in a CELTA.

Is there an online TESOL accrediting body?

If it’s an online course you want, how do you choose a good one and how does your employer know it’s a good one? I would like to argue the case for external accreditation.

There’s every chance your prospective TEFL employer will not have heard of the school you did your TEFL course with. Even the biggest online schools have little or no international reputation with most TEFL employers. How then does an employer satisfy themselves that your qualification has any merit and that you have the necessary methodology to conduct a class? I suggest the only way is for the qualification to come direct from an independent awarding body.

While there are a wealth of online course providers, there are only 2 independent accrediting bodies that specialise in TESOL , have specific TESOL qualifying criteria that providers have to meet and award their own certificate upon successful completion of a TESOL  course. These are:

The College of Teachers

and ACTDEC

Both  have set specific TESOL qualifying criteria and strict codes of conduct. As a non-profit making body, ACTDEC’s sole responsibility is to ‘maintain professional standards in TESOL distance programmes’.   ACTDEC awards three certificates and a diploma to successful course participants. This quality training guarantee is backed up by the publication on the ACTDEC website of a pass list so employers can verify the validity of the certificate.

In the anonymous world of online TESOL provision, is there any better way to ensure quality training and a certificate that will stand above other online TEFL qualifications?

Well you could visit a comparison site  but often they either have a) an axe to grind or b) get commission either overtly from sponsoring schools or less obviously through an affiliate marketing site, such as clixgalore. Even blogs and forums have to be treated with a pinch of salt; it’s well known that schools often respond to forum questions posing as happy TEFL graduates from xxx school saying ‘why don’t you try xxx school?’

My advice is to ask yourself ‘is online training for me?’ If yes, then choose a provider whose courses have been independently scrutinised by an independent TEFL body and awards a certificate with their seal on to back this up.

Deciding to try and obtain ACTDEC accreditation some years ago was a big decision for us at Global English. Time consuming and expensive, we had to submit our courses,  marking papers, marketing and tutor biographies for investigation.  We had to justify and in some cases amend our material to ensure it was up to scratch and met the tough qualifying criteria.  By the end, we knew we had courses of quality that would prepare our students for the TEFL classroom.

The good news for students and employers is, it’s not just us that says so.

Find out more about Global English accreditation