Teaching Abroad

Teaching ESL Abroad

If you are abroad and finding that ESL teaching is just the thing for you, then you need to decide what your priorities are.

Are you interested in constantly moving around and changing up your environment, so that you stay for only one or two school years in each country you move to? Or are you interested in dedicating yourself to one school or one culture and deeply assimilating yourself in one country? If money is high on your list, maybe you should consider doing something else than being a teacher. There might be the possibility to move up the ladder and go from a teacher to a director at a school, but rewards of the monetary kind are not what you will be seeing. Instead, you will be gaining a rich understanding of a culture or many cultures, and watching your students grow and learn. You will gain greater responsibility for a school or program, and be able to use your TESL experience over the years in various locations to develop a stronger, more effective ESL program at your own school.

Volunteer teaching is also an option, and you will easily find plenty of NGOs in the U.S. and especially abroad that are searching for dedicated, passionate English teachers. In some cases, you may be part of a school from the ground up, even helping build or organize a new school, and then be among its first teachers.

RELATED – Learn about teaching English in Japan on JobMonkey.

TESL Jobs Abroad

Aside from the usual school setting, private or public, TESL work can take place in an office, such as a law firm that has a full time. Also onsite language advisor/consultant to teach regular classes to its employees, help with questions employees may have when writing emails or reports, or even do some occasional proofreading of documents. If you are interested in only teaching, then this position is not for you.

Then there is the classic au pair or nanny position, which can provide plenty of fantastic perks, like free accommodation and food in the family’s home and travel with the family, but can also be the most draining of all the TESL positions, since you are becoming part of a family and your independence and privacy maybe limited. If you like to run rampant in your free time after school is out, if you don’t want to play babysitter or even big sister, then this is not for you.