Teaching English Abroad
As more and more people around the world are learning and speaking English, the demand for English teachers is increasing daily. If you’ve got itchy feet, an urge to take a year out before university, or you just don’t fancy cold English winters anymore, then ELT (English Language Teaching) abroad could be for you. The opportunities are there for people of all ages and backgrounds, and it doesn’t matter if the last time you were in the classroom was at school – conventional teacher training can be as much of a hindrance as a help as ELT has its own methods and approaches. So go into it fresh, with your enthusiasm and your own ideas, and you’ll go far!
Teaching English
Projects Abroad
Fantastic gap year volunteering opportunities in 26 countries
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GapGuru
Gap year specialist offering exciting volunteer, travel and internship opportunities across Africa, Asia, South America and Europe. Discover new countries and cultures and immerse yourself in local communities, while helping those in genuine need.
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BUNAC
Established work and travel organisation - Offering volunteer work & travel experience worldwide.
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Maximo Nivel
Maximo Nivel offers month-long TEFL certification courses and a range of exciting volunteer & internship programs in Peru, Guatemala and Costa Rica. The best work/study, language and cultural programs in Latin America!
TEFL Heaven
Where to go on a gap year? Spend 3 weeks studying for your TEFL on a paradise island! TEFL + work abroad + fun + teach = TEFL Heaven!
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Why Invest in a TEFL Qualification?
Global economics, and the development of worldwide communications technology, has made our world smaller, and in the business sense at least, the ‘global village’ is predominantly English–speaking. Wherever Western business has infiltrated, and Western culture has an influence, there are English speakers and people who want to learn English. In today’s world, that is virtually anywhere and everywhere. The choices and opportunities are huge for the native or fluent English-speaker, and where you teach is really only limited by your own imagination. As a native speaker of English, you already have the single most important skill that will help you to live and work in almost any country in the world, giving you the chance to get to know the people and cultures of different countries in a way that tourists just can’t.
All lessons are taught in English, but of course living and working abroad is also probably the best way to study and learn a new language. You can be trained to teach in as little as 4 weeks, take a taster course over a weekend to see if you are up to the job, take a course part-time, or even train yourself at home over the internet, giving yourself skills and qualifications that can take you anywhere in the world, opening up thousands of job and career opportunities. There is no age limit for English teachers, and there are many people who have taken up teaching in later life. Experience, and especially business experience, is highly valued by many employers.
Your training course could take place in one of the hundreds of well-equipped and highly respected language schools and training centres around Britain, or you could be even more adventurous and take one of the many courses that are on offer abroad. Some courses are very theoretical, with the amount of practical teaching kept to a minimum, while many of the courses abroad will throw you straight into the deep end with a class (where you’ll find yourself standing front of real live foreign students!) almost immediately. This can help you conquer your nerves and prepare you for your teaching later. Every course is different, so find out about the course content before you apply. Most of the top schools abroad advertise both on the internet and in national newspapers.
Whatever course you take, your language teaching skills will open up employment opportunities for you around the world. It will take you further, both in terms of air miles and experience, than probably any other qualification you’ll ever gain, and you should see any initial cost at the start of your training as an investment in your future.
