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General questions
Q. What is ESLwizard.com?
Q. Can you explain all these acronyms (ESL, TEFL, ESOL, EFL etc.)?
Q. How can I link my website to ESLwizard.com?
Q. How can I contact ESL Wizard?
Training
Q. Do I need a teaching qualification to teach abroad?
Q. Do I need a degree to enrol on a TEFL course?
Q. How long does a TEFL certificate course take?
Q. What are the best qualifications to have?
Q. How much will a TEFL course cost me?
Q. What are the career prospects?
Jobs
Q. How do I post a job vacancy?
Q. How do I write a resume?
Q. Do I need to be a native speaker of English to teach?
Q. Do I have to speak the local language?
Q. Which countries pay best?
Q. Is there a specific time when most jobs start?
General questions
Q. What is ESLwizard.com?
A. ESLWizard is a website for anyone involved in teaching English as a second language.
Q. Can you explain all these acronyms (ESL, TEFL, ESOL, EFL etc.)?
A. For a full list of acronyms, click here to visit our acronym guide.
Q. How can I link my website to ESLwizard.com?
A. To link to ESL Wizard, copy the following html into your site:
<a href="http://www.eslwizard.com/" title="ESL Wizard" target="_parent">ESL Wizard</a>
Q. How can I contact ESL Wizard?
A. You can contact us at admin(at)eslwizard.com
Training
Q. Do I need a teaching qualification to teach abroad?
A. It is still possible to secure teaching work solely on the strength of being a native English speaker, but these opportunities are becoming more and more difficult to find. Fewer and fewer schools are willing to employ people with no formal TEFL background.
Q. Do I need a degree to enrol on a TEFL course?
A.
Ideally, you should have attained a degree before studying for TEFL qualifications. However, some teaching centres will accept students with alternative educational backgrounds.
Q. How long does a TEFL certificate course take?
A. The CELTA and CertTESOL courses can be taken intensively over a period of 5 or 6 weeks, or part-time over several months.
Q. What are the best qualifications to have?
A. If you are planning to teach abroad, one of the most important considerations is the degree to which the qualification is recognised by employers worldwide, and whether the course is accredited by a recognised external validating organisation. Other factors to consider are the quality of the course in terms of standards, resources, and experience of the trainers.
There are many courses available, the most well-known being the CELTA and CertTESOL courses. There is also an increasing trend for distance learning courses. However teaching is a skill, not an academic subject, so you should be very careful of any course that doesn't offer a substantial amount of supervised teaching practice.
Q. How much will a TEFL course cost me?
A. Course prices vary from country to country and centre to centre. In the UK, a full-time TEFL course costs around £800. In South Africa the average cost is about ZAR 8,200. In Canada you will pay about CAD 2,500, and in New Zealand courses cost around NZD 3,000. In general, part-time courses are significantly cheaper than their intensive equivalent.
Q. Is it easy to get a job once I have my initial qualification?
A. Yes, although inexperienced teachers may find their choice of location is limited. It is generally more difficult to get a job in the more popular destinations if you are newly qualified and have no experience.
Q. What are the career prospects?
A. Many people teach English for a year or two and then leave teaching to pursue another career.
Once you have at least two years full-time experience, with preferably experience of teaching both multi-lingual and mono-lingual classes, you can take a further qualification at Diploma level. Again the most widely recognised are the Cambridge DELTA and the Trinity College, London LTCL Diploma (TESOL).
If you have a DELTA it is a clear sign to a future employer that you have invested serious time and money into your professional development. With the DELTA you can start considering working in teacher training or academic management, or more specialist teaching like English for Business or for Academic Purposes.
You might consider being a freelance teacher/teacher trainer as you gain more experience. Materials writing and writing books is another option. ESL teaching doesn't have a rigid career structure.
Jobs
Q. How do I post a job vacancy?
A. If you're looking for someone to teach in your school, or for a private teacher, click here to post a job vacancy.
Q. How do I write a resume?
A. See our guidelines for writing a resume.
Q. Do I need to be a native speaker of English to teach?
A. If you have a good TEFL certificate, not being a native speaker should not be a problem. One of the entrance requirements for any serious TEFL course is the ability to communicate in English fluently, so anyone with a good TEFL certificate will be on a level footing. Non-native speakers who have not taken a serious TEFL course are likely to encounter resistance and will certainly need to demonstrate a very high degree of fluency.
Q. Do I have to speak the local language?
A. The ability to speak a foreign language isn't a requirement for teaching English, but some experience of learning and speaking a foreign language will help you understand language in general and how we learn it. If you're teaching in a foreign country, some knowledge of that country's language and culture can also make your life easier and enrich your experience.
In general, today's communicative approach to teaching English requires teachers to speak only in English in class. Speaking a foreign language is therefore of no particular value. Indeed, if you are teaching a class of students who have ten different mother tongues, as is not impossible, even fluency in multiple foreign languages would have little relevance.
Q. Which countries pay best?
A. The highest paying jobs are in Western Europe, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and the oil-producing countries of the Arabian Gulf. Some jobs within the English-speaking countries may also be reasonably well paid. However, if you're solely interested in money, teaching isn't the career for you. Q. Is there a specific time when most jobs start?
A. Generally speaking, teaching English is a year-round business with no particular calendar or holidays. Even if schools employ teachers at the start of their "academic year", teachers leave or additional clients arrive unexpectedly so job opportunities arise during the course of the year. It is true, however, that in Europe there is a particular demand for teachers to start in September or October.
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