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How to Find English Teaching Jobs Abroad

How to get a job teaching English as a foreign language abroad? It’s easiest to get overseas teaching work with a minimum of a bachelors degree in any subject from a university in an English speaking country. However it’s possible to find work sometimes without this or by getting fake documentation. I wouldn’t recommend going [...]

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How to get a job teaching English as a foreign language abroad?

It’s easiest to get overseas teaching work with a minimum of a bachelors degree in any subject from a university in an English speaking country. However it’s possible to find work sometimes without this or by getting fake documentation. I wouldn’t recommend going this route because it puts you in a more precarious situation. It’s even
better to have a teaching certificate for English as a foreign language. The most recognized ones are CELTA and Trinity. There are many places worldwide where you can take this course. It takes about a month of intensive effort and costs a couple thousand dollars. There are other teaching certificates and even online courses. But many of

these are not well recognized at all. I began EFL teaching as a volunteer in South Africa, but took a CELTA course in Hungary before I got my first paying job as an EFL teacher in Iceland.

East Asia is a good place to start EFL teaching. If you commit to a year contract in South Korea, Japan or Taiwan you can often get airfare paid for the round trip journey from North America or Europe. Wages are pretty good in those three countries as well. And the quality of life and cultures are not that hard for Westerners to get used to.

The best place to start looking for jobs is Dave’s ESL Cafe at www.eslcafe.com.

For a serious career in teaching overseas it is best to have an education at a masters level in education and whatever area you want to teach. This is for jobs in international schools rather than as an EFL teacher. This sort of investment would open up the opportunity to get (usually two year) contracts in international high schools that exist for the children of the elite in virtually every national capital and large city in the world. This jobs are well paid and have generous benefits.

Loren Everly is Vagabond Journey’s teaching English abroad correspondent.ask Loren a question.

Get your English teaching credentials now!

I’ve recently partnered with Star TEFL to offer their 140 hour online TEFL certification course for just $199 — a big discount, as it sells for $425 on their site. This certification course offers 140 hours of user-friendly material, tutors to help you through the process, email, chat, and phone support, feedback on your performance, and you can complete the course at your own pace. Upon completion of the course, you will receive an internationally recognized TEFL/ ESL/ TESOL certification. You can buy this course directly from Vagabond Journey at a 53% discount here:

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After you have your teaching certification send me an email at vagabondsong [at] gmail.com and I can help you find a good job in China!

Filed under: English Teaching, Start Traveling

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3694 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

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  • cape town tours November 24, 2010, 12:37 pm

    My wife and I are planning to travel alot in the future, we are just saving up for a motorbike so we can tour at a pace, life’s too short to go slow all the time. It’s great to know there are others that are doing the exact thing we dream of.

    My wife is going for an english teaching course soon so it’s great I stumbled across your blog. I’ll keep it bookmarked

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