How to Find a Job Teaching English Abroad

da teachada teacha Regular
edited October 2010 in Spurious Generalities
So you're looking to get away from the monotony of local life; are on the run; want to see the world; learn a local language; fuck some foreign women, or a plethora of other reasons.

Teaching English abroad seems to be the fashionable thing to do these days in response to the above. But a lot of people are wondering: how the fuck do I find myself a gig?

There are 2 ways....


Rocking Up
The ballsy way to do things is just to get a one way ticket to a place, have a look around and knock on the doors of various schools. Not only will you get to see what the school is REALLY like (not just glamoured up pictures), but additionally you'll show your future employer that you're already here and that you mean business.

The easiest way to go about things is to make yourself a profile on Couchsurfing, a site where you can stay at people's home across the world free of cost; saving accomodation costs, whilst being able to tap into the local knowledge. Your hosts can point out to you what the local schools are, and where to find them. Even if you cannot find a place to stay, there's nothing to stop you being able to send messages to various people and ask for advice.

Alternatively, you can do some translations into the local language, scour the net for addresses, compile a big list and take a little journey around town. I did this back in 2008 in Poland without any clue about teaching or knowing what I was doing, and after 2 days of aimless wandering, I found myself 2 jobs. Far more satisfying than sending around some emails.

And don't forget, do NOT dress like a backpacker on your search.

Traditional Hotspots:
China - masses of oppurtunity, big classes, no experience required
Japan - need a degree for visa
S. Korea - need a degree for visa
Thailand - need a degree for visa, i think
Poland - easy for EU citizens to rock up
Ukraine - will need to probably work under the table


Internet
Firstly you have the standard job sites which you could find on a simple search for 'tefl jobs'. It's highly unrecommended, as you're going to be competing against the hordes of ESLcafe wankers and fresh off the boat CELTA toters looking for their first gig.

Beat all these idiots by looking locally for jobs. Firstly, you'll be competing against less people, and secondly, the employers will be expecting non-natives to apply; putting you at the very top of the pile.

Your first step is to find out where these local job sites are. So get out your favourite online translator, find out what 'job' 'work' 'search jobs',etc is in your desired language. and then plug these keywords into Google to return yourself the local job sites.

When here, you're then going to have to look for posts teaching English. The search bar should be evident, if not, enter the URL of the site into a translator and find out what's what. Sometimes employers list job vacancies for English teachers in English, so searching things such as: 'English', 'English Teacher' and 'Native Speaker' may bring you success, if not, translate them, and voila.

For the lazy ones out there, which would include me if I was reading this, here are some websites which may prove to be useful for a newbie.

Ukraine
http://www.work.ua/
http://rabota.ua/
http://www.jobs.ua/
http://greenforest.com.ua/posted_page/27
http://www.speak-up.com.ua/eng/method.html

Poland
http://gumtree.pl (under 'Praca' click 'nauczyciele')
http://www.profi-lingua.pl/praca/en (chain school)
http://www.pracuj.pl/
http://gazetapraca.pl/gazetapraca/0,0.html
http://www.praca.pl/
http://praca.gratka.pl/

International Schools
http://www.britishcouncil.org/teacherrecruitment.htm
http://www.ihworld.com/recruitment/
http://www.englishfirst.com/trt/tefl-jobs.html
http://jobs.languagelink.ru/jobs/
http://www.callan.co.uk/en/school-search/

Mailbomb the hell out of every lead you can find. As for CV writing and nailing the interviews, stay tuned...
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