I want to teach English in a foreign country and I don't know where or how to start?

Question

I want to teach English in a foreign country and I don't know where or how to start in order to get the ball rolling.

Answer 1

Well, you could get a degree in Teaching English to Learners of Other Languages, or one of many variations on that title.

Or, if you already have a four-year degree in something (economics, in my case), you could apply for a tourist visa from the pseudoembassy, buy a plane ticket to Taiwan and one other Asian country (Hong Kong is the traditional choice, but why not the Philippines?), fly to Taiwan, check into a youth hostel, open up the English language newspaper, and start answering ads, checking out the schools for yourself. When you have lined up an employer and started the work permit ball rolling, you'll have to duck out of the country for a bit to apply for the work visa, then fly back in. It worked for me, and I taught English in Taiwan for two years, without any kind of teaching credential.

I would not recommend following people who approach you at Chiang Kai-Shek airport asking if you want to teach English. Someone I knew did that, and was provided with a room to stay in. Too bad the room didn't have any furniture, not even a mat on the floor!

A considerably less skeevy option is to check out the JET program, where you'd be teaching English in a regular Japanese school, not a cram school, like most of the jobs in Taiwan.

Sure, we all want to teach English in Europe, but there's a couple of problems with that plan for folks from North America. Just as the Taiwanese prefer a North American accent (an Irishman I know was asked to lie and tell his Taiwanese students he was from Minnesota), the Europeans tend to prefer the British accent. And the UK is a member of the EU, so it's much easier for those British and Irish folks to get those jobs we want in Europe.

In any case, there is a tendency for students to be too dependent on languages they already know when learning a foreign language. For example, they tend to use the sentence structure of their own language, just plugging in the foreign vocabulary, but that really doesn't work very well. Around the world, teachers are learning the value of all their instruction being in the target language. It is necessary to learn enough of the local language to navigate your daily life, but it's actually better for your teaching if you don't know that much.

Besides, in Taiwan I taught students whose native tongues were at least three distinct dialects of Chinese! It was all I could do to get by in one!

Answer 2

Your best course of action is to get yourself at least a certificate in TESOL / TEFL. Obviously the higher you go the better chances of getting employment.. e.g. Diploma, BA. MA.  

Trinity and CELTA qualifications are perhaps 2 of the best, however if you are interested in distance learning you might want to check out London Teacher Training College too. Their courses are University accredited, and offer significant savings over the other courses mentioned, and you get to study in your own time. Save more by registering with Access2English too.

Answer 3

First, you need to learn the language that your students will speak.

Second, you can teach English through the Peace Corps, so I'd sign up for that.

Third, there are several exchange programs for teachers. Google them and verify their authenticity before you sign up.

Answer 4

1. Learn another language

2. Become fluent.

3. Pass a teaching course

4. Apply for a teaching role in another country.

5. Teach them!