When it comes to finding a TEFL Job, you really have two choices. You can take a job with a school or institute or you can go it alone as a freelance teacher. Both have their advantages and both are better suited to some market conditions. I will start off with taking a job with a school or institute.

Teaching for an institute or school is a great way to get needed experience. You can hone and practice your skills as a teacher and get valuable feedback from not only the students but fellow teachers and management. If you took the the train yourself option for TEFL, this is really a must. You will never be a decent teacher without getting experience and it is not good to get this practice on private students that typifies the freelance TEFL teaching circuit.

Ok, so you want to go with a school or institute? Which is better? I would suggest that if you are interested in the stability of a regular job(visas, work permits, long term career) then I would suggest going with a school. A school usually means less hours, a steady schedule, and long vacations. An institute on the other hand prepares you for the freelance market. The institute wants happy students because happy students re-enroll and that means more money for the school. If you can succeed in an institute environment then you know you can succeed in the freelance market.

How do you find a great job? Well, first off, I would suggest finding a good jobs list and taking the time to see the job offers that flow over a period of a couple of weeks to a month. There are a lot of job lists out there, one of the most eclectic is the one at Great TEFL Jobs. Their TEFL Job List is updated every few days with some of the most interesting mix of jobs out there. Other places to check out in include Dave’s ESL Cafe. Don’t jump at the first offer you see out there, instead observe over a period of a few weeks before jumping at an offer. Pay attention to the going salaries and working conditions in the markets you are interested in. Take the time to visit TEFL forums like ESL Cafe to find out the situation on the ground in places you are interested in.

When it comes time to apply for jobs, apply for as many as you can. My suggestion is to write a killer introduction letter that highlights your experience, training or any other qualifications you think are pertinent. Attaching a photo is a good idea. Don’t attach the resume just yet, I usually put in the email that if they are interested, then I will happily forward a resume. Some will disagree with this approach, but it has proven highly successful. A well thought out introduction letter will contain the highlights of your resume and won’t bog down the employer with too many details too early on.

Once you get your initial responses(a the response rate will vary!), you will know which schools or institutes are serious. I suggest that you check them out with a blacklist site like TEFL School Reviews. If you don’t find anything, do a google search on the school’s name. This isn’t foolproof, but it is a great way to quickly find out if a school has a bad reputation or not. It is much better to catch these things before the contact goes on too long with the school.

Wanna go into the freelance teaching business? Your path is a bit different. My suggestion is to make arrangements to go to the place where you want to live. This takes a huge gamble. If you have a general idea of an area, you can just go and spend a week or so in each place as a tourist, but try to gauge demand for English, the number of other foreigners teaching, and importantly the number of mid-level professionals in the area. Also look at the competition. Maybe even try to find out the going local price for English at institutes. Once you have found your place, the real fun begins.

I suggest renting a decent place with the idea of having some classes in your apartment/house. You want to be settled before you even start teaching classes. Once you are settled, I suggest getting a mobile phone set up, getting business cards printed up, getting a nice suit, and getting a simple website up with information on your classes. You should think about making a rate sheet and a sample syllabus or two as well.

Once you have all needed information, you should start visiting restaurants and pubs frequented by your target demographic, the mid-level professionals. Hand out as many of your business cards as possible, leave them on bulletin boards, give them to casual acquaintances, anyone and everyone. Even if the person you give a card to is not interested in learning English, they might know someone who is.

Your goal is to get a few students and build on that base. If you teach your students professionally, they will tell others about your teaching and you will in turn get more students. With your target demographic, you will make a lot of connections in short order. You will even make some connections to break into the corporate teaching circuit. One foot in the door with a company can land you a contract paying very handsomely.

Will all of this happen overnight? No way. It will take 6 months to a year to develop a large enough base to fully support yourself in this profession, but you will be your own boss and you will make your own hours. Freelance or work for institutes and schools, it’s your choice. I am happy to answer any questions or comments, so feel free to ask away.

Good training is essential to any occupation and TEFL/TESOL is no exception. There are several pathways to becoming a successful teacher, including generic TEFL training courses offered by institutes, internationally recognized certificates like the CELTA or the Trinity TESOL Certificate, various online courses, and self-taught training programs.

The generic TEFL training courses run the gamut from large institutes like TEFL International and to small programs run by small institutes as a sideline. They all share common modules such as teaching methodologies, lesson plan preparation and most importantly, observed teaching practice with feedback. These programs can really help a new teacher build up the confidence they need to succeed in the classroom. Teachers leave the programs generally satisfied with the knowledge they gained in such a short time. Again, the better programs will last 4 to 6 weeks while some other programs may be as short as a weekend.

Internationally recognized certificates like the CELTA or the Trinity TESOL Certificate offers a chance to complete TEFL Course that is well known and recognized throughout the TEFL teaching world. They are like an international driver’s license. Not all courses are created equal and having a CELTA or Trinity TESOL allows potential employers to easily assess your teaching abilities short of having you perform a demo lesson. Both of these courses are offered worldwide and take 4 weeks to complete with observed teaching practice and feedback.

Some potential teachers decide to embark on an online TEFL certificate. These are of dubious value and serve only two purposes, to give someone a very rudimentary grasp of the TEFL profession and give potential TEFL teachers at least some kind of paperwork to satisfy immigration authorities. Most of the knowledge gained from an online course could be gained with a week spent in a library and a few days of cruising the main TEFL web forums such as ELT World. They do offer guided study, but if you need to have guided study then going abroad may not be what you desire.

Now on to the last way to get the training to succeed in this profession, learn it on your own. There are a plethora of books available on teaching English, just cruise on over to Amazon.Com to check out some of the TEFL books or check out your local library. To adequately take on this pathway, you need at least one good teaching methodology book, one good grammar book, and a good dictionary. These three books will serve you well in putting together some very good lesson plans. Try practicing a few lessons in front of friends to get their feedback. With some trial and error, you will work out a teaching style that works for you. This pathway is particularly suited for freelance teachers because qualifications are not nearly as important as teaching ability.

I hope this has opened your eyes a little bit on training opportunities for TEFL teachers. In this next installment, we will touch upon finding an ideal position. It should be an interesting read as I share some freelance secrets gained from nearly 5 years of teaching in Asia and Latin America. Stay tuned.

In many countries of the world, English is a path to a better position, socially and economically. In many countries, English ability is a prerequisite for middle management positions. Good English skills equal good opportunities. Some companies will even require potential employees to submit to English tests before even interviewing them. Potential employees recognize this and are willing to spend money themselves to improve their English skills.

In some countries, good English skills are seen as face gaining skills that shows that they have been educated the right way. True or not, parents will send their students to study with foreign teachers just to show off to other parents, learning English is like a status symbol. In these countries, many schools have foreign English language teachers and pay these teachers well.

As you can see there is a huge market in schools, language institutes, and freelance. The biggest markets for TEFL, teaching English as a Foreign Language, teachers are China, Thailand, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan in that order. Most work in these countries are focused in institutes and schools. The Mideast has a good market, but security and qualification issues keep away all but the most qualified teachers. Latin American countries have a large market for freelance teaching, lesser for language institutes.

One challenge to entering the TEFL profession is training. The range of training options seem almost limitless, do I need a teaching degree? What about a teaching diploma or certificate? What certificate course should I take? Should I just wing it? This issue will be discussed in second part of this series. Stay tuned.

Hold your horses, the further down you are in the list of the comments the lower the traffic potency of your comment. If you’re like me, you read the first few comments and then skim the rest of them. It’s only natural that if you want maximum benefit then you gotta be the first to comment. You want your comment to be the first readers see and the first they might click on.

I schedule commenting time as part of my weekly web promotion schedule. When it’s time for a commenting session, I cruise on over to Technorati and see which blogs have newly posted content. I visit the ones with a medium popularity ranking and then post some thoughtful comments. (Hint to idiots: Don’t make the comments too spammy, I don’t know anyone with the name Debt Consolidation, do you?) I make sure I put my link in the URL field and if, and only if, I think I can add to the post made, I post a link to a related article that I’ve already written.

Easy, right? So what are you waiting for? Get to work promoting those blogs.

I’ll hit products and service later, but right now, you gotta know about hosting. It’s wayla better to go with paid hosting, but I can understand that you wanna get started right now with or without spare cash. I feel ya so if here’s a some free blog hosts that you can use to get started now to get some pesos.

Here are the two biggies:
1) Blogger.com — Ok, we all know this one. You get a free blogspot.com subdomain and you can get started in literally minutes. You got full control over your template and can make some cool designs.

2) WordPress.com — They index on Google lightning fast and it’s an easy platform to blog on. It’s hard to add ads and extra goodies without paying extra so that’s a drag.

But amigos, I know two just ain’t enough. Here’s some more. I ain’t checked them out, but you can surf them and see what strikes your fancy.

3) Livejournal.com
4) Xanga.com
5) Bravenet.com
6) Blog.com
7) Blogsome.com
Multiply.com
9) ShoutPost.com
10) Tripod.com

Ok, Peso Hunters, get to work!

Aero Mexico will begin flying on May 29th from Mexico City to Shanghai via Tijuana. The twice weekly flights will leave Mexico City every Thursday and Sunday and make the return trip every Tuesday and Friday. The flights are the result of an agreement reached back in 2005 to establish direct air links between the two countries.

These direct flights are joining a growing list of direct air links between Asia and Latin America. Air China has direct flights from Beijing to Sao Paulo, Brazil. Emirates has a flight from Dubai to Sao Paolo and with their extensive Asia network, it’s possible to connect through Dubai from anywhere in Asia. Malaysia Airlines has a flight from Kuala Lumpur to Buenos Aires via Johannesburg and South African Airways has flights from Hong Kong to Sao Paolo via Johannesburg.

The direct air links will greatly improve trade and travel between Asia and Latin America. No longer do travelers in Asia need to pass through the US or Europe to travel between the continents. Now, it’s just more convenient to travel.

First direct flight between China and Mexico to start in May; Du Guodong (04/16/08); Xinhua News Agency; 04/15/08.