01/08/2023
Hi, Linda here. Welcome back with another live session this week. Welcome, thank you so much for joining me today and taking some time out of your day today to spend it with me. I really appreciate it. I know it's a busy time of the year. You know we're almost New Year's Eve so we're heading into the new year, busy time. Busy time, but um I'm here and thank you that you're here as well. I appreciate that.
How is everybody doing? Um, let me know guys, where are you watching from right now? I'm in South Korea, it is 10:30 a.m. Friday morning. And yeah, how about you? Where are you watching from today? What time is it? Let me know. I'm always super curious. Let me know in the comments and let me know if there's an issue if you can't hear me if you can't see me if something's wrong let me know right away and I'm going to fix it. We have Cason. Cason I'm sorry if I say that wrong, hi good morning and Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas and happy New Year, how are you doing? Thank you so much for being here as always, guys. Don't forget to like And subscribe. We are doing this every week, pretty much without fail.
So if you're up for free TEFL/TESOL teaching English abroad and online information, hit the Subscribe button, give us a like whether you're watching on Facebook or on YouTube. We are live on both so wherever you're watching from just subscribe and like so you're up to date. On YouTube I believe you can activate the little notification bell so that you're notified whenever we go live, but it's usually the same time same day as now so you can kind of remember to put that in your calendar this is usually how it is. Yeah thank you guys so much for being here with Constanza here from Argentina, hi all the best to Argentina, congratulations on the World Cup win, you must be very excited, awesome, cool.
Also what I want to mention right away, I believe that is right up next we do have a 30 off coupon code or coupon link basically what you can do is you can scan this QR code right here with your phone or whatever device you use and it leads you to the application page and then you can get a 30% discount off of any tefl or tesol cores but if you can scan no problem. I'm gonna share a discount link in the comment section so you can also copy paste this link, this will lead you to the application page, you see at the top it says: "Congratulations, you get 30% off.” So if your goal for 2023 is to get TEFL or TESOL certified and to start off with an English teaching career this should be a great incentive and I hope that you're gonna use it. Don't pay full price, use the 30 off and apply for your course.
All right, who else is here guys? Let me know where you are right now, where are you watching from today? Meanwhile, I'm just gonna introduce myself and this is who I am. If you're watching this for the first time, my name is Linda and I am many different things. Most of all I am a passionate travel writer and content creator under the name Linda goes east, because I'm interested in Asia and I've been living in Asia for almost 10 years. You can find my content at lindagoseast.com and also on Instagram. I'm very active @lindagoeseast. So if you for example want to teach English specifically in Korea where I live or in other Asian countries you can give me a follow and head to my website, and you'll find a lot of good information there.
I'm originally from Germany and the US so my mom is from Germany, my mom's German and my dad is from the states but like I said I've been based in South Korea for the last seven and a half years and before that I also lived in China and I've been teaching in English in both China where I taught English in China and I've been teaching English in Korea, I also teach English online I do many different things and I also work for ITTT as a marketing professional. Basically and if you're new with all of this ITTT stands for international TEFL and TESOL training and you can find our website at teflcourse.net. And what is ITTT? well ITTT is a leading TEFL and TESOL course provider worldwide and ITTT has been around for over 25 years, one of the most established longest running TEFL TESOL course providers out there.
Back to today's topic so this is what we're going to talk about today: setting realistic goals for teaching English in 2023 in the new year. If you are not yet starting, if you haven't yet started with teaching English abroad or if you maybe you're teaching English online but you want to go abroad or vice versa, whatever it is. We are going to talk about today exactly the steps that you need to take to get started and sort of like the timeline, what is realistic step by step in how long everything takes and exactly the steps you need to take and the timeline that will be required to reach your goal of teaching English abroad or online in 2023.
Predictions & Trends for the EFL industry in 2023
So that is today's agenda basically. All right, then let's just jump right into today's topic. All right, so let's first, oh yeah and this is a little bit small so I'm gonna make myself smaller again, but I'll still be here so I hope you can still see me. But, I want you to be able to read this and it's a little small, so here we go, these are basically some predictions or some things that we see in terms of the demand for English teachers in 2023 or the all of the predictions for the EFL industry for 2023. So definitely one thing that is pretty evident is that e-learning or teaching online is here to stay.
E-Learning of teaching online is here to stay
And it's even going to grow even more, it's going to grow the online education market is going to grow substantially until 2025. Those are like the latest predictions. And we definitely see a trend even more so towards digital learning, so now's a great time if you are interested in teaching English online, 2023 will be a great year to do so, still and to pursue that there's still a great demand for online English teachers. So we have Juliano, hi Juliano from Brazil, hi.
Increase in Digital Nomad Visas
All right, and then I'm just gonna jump down here, oh down here, to digital Nomad visas. This is kind of tied in with e-learning. So we also see that more and more countries are actually introducing digital Nomad visas. And this allows you to basically teach online English online but from a different country. So this is really great news if you like the flexibility of teaching online but you still want to experience living in a different country, this might be a great option to do so.
And I did a live session about current digital Nomad Visa options a couple of months ago, so you can go and check that out. Just go in our playlist either on Facebook or on YouTube and you will see that live session there. But there are many, many countries that give out these so-called digital Nomad visas.
What this is, this is a visa of course, the requirement and like all the stipulations they vary from country to country. But basically, this allows you to live and work in a different country while doing online work or remote work. So this is also something that is becoming more and more commonplace, more and more countries are introducing visas like this, and I believe South Korea is also currently working on something like this.
So, we see that more and more now and it's great news for anyone, not only for teaching, but I know many of us nowadays meet included, we have many different jobs and teaching English online might be one of the things that we do, so having these visas is just great news for us.
Great focus on English for international companies
And then we also see things like this: nowadays because of the more globalized world, English still remains one of the most important job skills around the world and this is great news for us teachers. We see a trend starting now with more focus on skills that will be useful for the job market. You might have to start teaching things like writing a resume or communicating with clients from different countries or reading vital reports and papers.
It's moving away a little bit from traditional grammar and vocabulary, but more of a focus on business English, even for younger students. We see this as a trend for sure that it is moving away a little bit, but of course you're still going to have regular English classes where you have to teach grammar and vocabulary, but we just see more and more a trend towards also including these topics to get people from other countries ready for the international job market. And English is a huge skill for that and being able to speak with clients business English is very different from regular English and so we see a lot of that.
High Competition for Teaching Jobs in 2023
And also for 2023, a little bit of a negative, if you will. There is a lot of competition for in-person positions. So, as the world is almost fully open again, post COVID-19, the competition for in-person teaching positions may increase. We see a lot of teaching programs that are now recruiting again, or did not hire as many teachers. A lot of countries were totally closed. So because more countries are letting teachers back into their country and more positions are again open, and a lot of people kind of were also waiting with their teaching abroad plans so that now the world is open again.
So, now it's a good time to go abroad again, but the competition might increase next year. So, that's also something we already saw in 2022 a little bit and we're kind of expecting it to increase and not increase but stay the same in 2023 at least the first half of 2023. And then I think um once the 2022 people maybe left their one-year contracts and moved to a different country or a different school, those positions are vacant again. And then we see it kind of I think towards the end of 2023 kind of fizzling out and getting back to normal. It's just something to keep in mind and to um expect so it might take longer to find a position, might take longer to interview, and all of these things. So, just keep that in mind, okay? Let me know if you have any questions about these predictions or these um things happening for 2023 in terms of demand and EFL Industry, if anything's not clear let me know, but then I am moving on and let's have a look at what I call the teaching English timeline.
The Teaching English Timeline
Okay, so there are five steps in my teaching English timeline here, and basically we're going to look at every step of the way today in detail so that you know exactly what to expect for 2023, how, how everything works, from yeah, from the beginning, from the very very beginning, even before you start your TEFL courses, to then the last point here, number five, actually starting to teach.
These five steps. You want to plan for at least six months so if your desired start date is next year in the summer, you better get started now. That's basically what this means. So, if you want to move abroad to a different country to teach in the summer, you need to um start now. If you want to teach English in the fall next year, you still have a bit of time, but it's also good to start now. If you want to start if you want to go to teach in the spring you might already be a little bit too late to be honest. Okay, so this is what we're gonna look at today.
Choosing the Right TEFL/TESOL Course
Let's look at number one here, choosing a TEFL or TESOL course and first you might ask yourself why should you even get TEFL or TESOL certified? Sure, you've heard stories, yeah, you don't even need a TEFL. It's overrated, it's um, it's a scam. Even maybe all of these stories and I'm sure you've read about people or met people who don't have a TEFL who are teaching abroad, they don't need a TEFL. So, why should you even get TEFL certified? Is it a waste of time, waste of money? Let's figure it out.
Basically, I kind of like to explain this in two parts. Let's start with the left side here, so a TEFL certificate or a TESOL certificate is oftentimes required in many countries to even make it there to teach. So for example, in China, you need to have a TEFL certificate to even get a work visa. So, that's part of the visa requirements. If you don't have a TEFL, you can't get a visa for working in China. So, that's one thing. South Korea is the same, for example the EPIK program. You also need to have a TEFL or TESOL certificate to even get a visa for this program. There are also other countries that I haven't listed here that require a TEFL certificate and you can, if you want to find out if there is one country that you're interested in in particular, go to our website and there's a FAQ section. And we have a FAQ post basically about every single country and all the requirements. So, do check that out.
Even in countries where a TEFL or a TESOL is not a requirement officially for a Visa, many schools will still only hire teachers who have a TEFL certificate, that is just their own requirements that they have internally.
So they can also make their own requirements of course they can hire who they want, right they can make their own job requirements for their position. So a TEFL is just a good thing, it's like and I have this here, I'm going to show you later. It's this piece of paper that allows you to teach English in different countries, so it's always good to have this. The other thing, it is also a good thing to take a TEFL or a TESOL course for you and for your students.
Okay, because when you take a TEFL or TESOL course, it teaches you all the skills you need to know to be a good teacher, right? And I think that's what we all want to be, right? No, none of us wanna just go to a classroom, stand in front of students and then not know what to do. If you have no teaching experience, even if you have teaching experience, actually, a lot of our um graduates who have been teachers for a while they take the course and they're like oh my God I learned so much new stuff that actually improves my lessons too.
Even if you are completely new to this or you already have teaching experience, a TEFL course, a TESOL course, you might actually learn a lot. You will actually learn a lot from it and it will be helpful.
You learn all the teaching theories, methods, and techniques, how do you know how to teach, basically all the little techniques that you need to know, depending on how your students are, what you teach, what topics you teach, Etc. Learning about classroom management, very important, especially when you teach children how to manage it. It can be quite overwhelming when you stand in front of 30 little children who sometimes just go crazy. Classroom management will let you know exactly how to handle that. Also, lesson planning which I think is so so important. A lot of teachers I think really neglect the importance of lesson planning.
In our courses, you'll learn exactly how to structure a lesson. We use something called the ESA methodology. If you follow this method, you will know exactly how to plan your lessons in a way that is super successful. It's a proven strategy, a proven theory of teaching. You'll also learn how to evaluate and test your students. You'll also learn about equipment and teaching aids that you might not have even heard of. Also, for teaching online, there are a lot of teaching aids. A big component of the course is also English grammar, which especially our native English speaking teachers appreciate. Because a lot of native English teachers or speakers don't really think about English grammar. We just speak, but then when it comes to teaching English grammar, we're kind of confused. And then especially when a student asks the teacher why or why is this the way it is, and you don't know how to explain it, doesn't look so good. I can tell you that doesn't look so good and your confidence would kind of go down the drain. And then it's not good, right? So, why get TEFL certified?
Because of these reasons and a TEFL course really isn't even that expensive and considering if you move abroad or teach online, you get that money back already in your first paycheck. We also get this question a lot: if you are already a teacher like you're a teacher in your home country, you have a teaching license, do you still need a TEFL? Usually, the answer is yes, because again for this reason, many countries require a TEFL for their visa and a teaching license from the states or a teaching license from Canada or wherever else is not the same. Because teaching English as a foreign language is very different from regular teaching but it has certain components that are very different. And so that is the reason. I hope that makes sense. So, this is why to get TEFL certified. And then the next question would also be how do you actually choose a good TEFL provider? And these are six things that we're going to look at or that you should look at before choosing a TEFL course.
Maybe you've done this before, you went on Google and you typed in TEFL course, TESOL course. How many results did you get? Thousands, probably thousands upon thousands. So, how do you know which providers should you even choose? Who's good? And these are six things that you should look at. I think the first thing, and the most important thing, you should look at is accreditation. Are these courses even accredited around the world? So, every time you click on the link, maybe one provider that looks good to you, click on that, check their website and make sure they say something about accreditation and what kind of accreditation it is. And then you can even go further, you can take that accrediting body or their accreditation that they claim they have and also Google that one, is this real, is this legit, what's their reputation, you know.
That's kind of how you should go about it, that's the first thing. And then, if this all looks good, you look at who are the teacher trainers of this institution, of this provider, who are their staff? Do they know what they're talking about? Are they also English teachers? What are their credentials and certificates? What's their experience? Have they taught abroad? Have they taught English for a long time? Usually, you should be able to find this information also on the website. This is very important. If this all looks good, you would move on to maybe not reviews right away, but let's talk about reviews. We're just gonna go in the same order. You also want to look at reviews, right? And nowadays, we have so many options online to check for reviews, which is really helpful. And me too, I think I don't buy anything without checking reviews first, to be honest.
So for TEFL courses, some great places to look for reviews are things like reviews.io, Trustpilot, and then for example, Google reviews. But I think most importantly, the two big ones you should check out are GoAbroad and GoOverseas. So these are both institutions, they kind of do the same thing but they have different names. They're separate companies, but they kind of do the same thing. So, they offer programs and opportunities abroad, most of the time and TEFL is one of the things that they also have and offer, not offer but they list good providers for example.
So, GoOverseas and GoAbroad are a great resource to check out, and they also have reviews on there, so they're really good. And we at ITT, if you look above me here, we actually have two awards. We actually have more awards, but these are the most recent ones from GoAbroad and from GoOverseas. Some reviews here, some awards badges that we have. So, we are there as well and we have some pretty good reviews. So yeah, then maybe another thing you should look at is what does the job support look like at this provider. A lot of providers actually don't even have job support. A lot of providers, they actually want you to pay for job support, and then it's not even guaranteed. Um, some providers also claim they have 100% job placement, but we at ITT, we do not have 100% job placement because we don't think that this is realistic.
It really depends on where you're from and your background and the country where you want to go teach. And sometimes, unfortunately, you might not be able to actually teach where you want to teach. So, that's why we don't claim to offer this 100% job placement because it's just not realistic. It doesn't really work like that in this industry. But we definitely provide lifetime job support so you tell us, 'Hey, I want to teach English for example in Korea' and then we ask you all the questions to figure out if Korea is a good fit for you. And if it is, then we will help you. We have a great network of different schools around the world, and different recruiters. We also work with different government-funded programs, and we have connections to the EPIK program in Korea. Different programs around the world, for example, JET program also in Japan. So, and if there's a country where you really want to teach but it doesn't you don't fulfill the requirements, we offer you alternatives. We say, 'Hey, I'm sorry, but it doesn't work out. It's not going to work out in Korea, but how about Thailand or how about Taiwan, how about Japan.' So, we kind of work you through because we just like to be 100% transparent and not offer something that we then can't promise, because that's just how it is in this world unfortunately.
That's the job support. So, at ITT, everybody has lifetime job support and it's totally free also. So, but that's something to look for in a good TEFL provider. Then you also want to look at any other included services. What else is included? You know, do you actually get to keep the materials? Do you get interview preparation? Do you get help with writing a TEFL resume? Do you get an actual like physical certificate? Even a lot of providers don't even give you that, so look out for that. What is included in the price and then also what are the job prospects after you take this technical course? What can you actually do? Right? And a great way to check this is also reviews. Right? A lot of these companies or providers will have reviews from their alumni, from their course graduates, saying, 'Yeah, you know, I passed the course and now I teach English in Korea,' or things like that. So, that's a good way to check it out. And also, social media is a great way to check. Usually, a lot of these course providers will feature alumni and course grads on their social media. You can also reach out to bloggers, for example, a lot of bloggers who live abroad, including myself, for example, they would be able to help you out and make a good recommendation. So, these are the things you should look out for in how to choose a good TEFL provider. And if all of these things look good, you're good to go.
Little bit to to our own horn here, this is why you should choose ITTT. I have a couple of things listed here. We're not going to go over this just wanted to show you, of course, all the things that I just mentioned ITTT has and we fulfill that and we have accreditation and we have a network and we have great reviews and everything. And if you want to know more about um why to choose ITTT, we have this whole page filled with all of these um little benefits or um you know like Pro points advantages of ITTT. If you want to check that out, I'm going to share that now in the comments section, and then you can just have your own read through this. Basically, this is it: best-tefl-course-ittt. So, check it out, you can read those for yourself and then make a decision based on that if this is a provider that you want to go with.
Now you found a good provider and now it's time to choose the right TEFL cores, which is kind of the next hurdle. You might have found a good provider now it's like, 'Oh my God, they offer so many different course options. Which course should I choose? It's confusing, I know, um with so many options. So, what should you look for? So, these are all the courses for example at ITDT that we offer, it's a lot, um. But, every course is not going to work for everyone. So, there are some courses that are better for others and so on. So, let's figure out which course is good for you. Oh no, we're not figuring that out. Okay, well, I, oh yeah, I actually did a live session about this before, so where do we go in depth of all these courses. So, if you are interested, you can go and check that out. But, basically, what you need to know here is that the standard, I'm just going to make myself bigger here so I can talk to you directly.
Basically the standard for teaching English abroad or online, you want to have at least 100 hours of TEFL or TESOL training, so that's kind of the the international standard, that's the minimum that you should have, 100, and that is why our here, the 120 hour course is actually the most popular because this is yeah, the minimum requirement that you should have. Um, and then most people take this course, the 120 hour, and then they also take these two specializations, so the Young Learners and the Business English. Young Learners and Business English, so these two, that's what a lot of um people do. These are 50 hours, so these are just top-up specializations, you cannot take these on their own unless you're already certified with a 120 hour course, then you can take those.
And so that's why this is the most popular kind of like this triangle here. That's why we have come up with the 220 hour course which is basically just that. It is the 120 hour course plus 50 hours Business English plus 50 hours teaching children, which amounts to 220 hours. And this one is also what I took and this is the one that I would recommend to anyone, especially considering that in 2023 the competition is going to be more than before. So if everyone has the 120 hour course, if you come, if you apply, and they see your resume and they see you have 220 hours of training, you already have an advantage, and that's why I would recommend this course.
And then for me, I also took the teaching online specialization, which is another 50 hours. It's a really quick course, doesn't take much time, it's also not expensive, but it really helps if you want to teach English online, which I started in 2020 and before that I actually took that course, it was super helpful to get that started, and now I teach both online and in-class students. So these are the options, and yeah at ITTT, the highest step we offer is 550 hours, which is basically all of these kinds of things to get in one, um. So that's the highest level that you could do at ITTT, um. This is great for somebody who really wants to pursue a very long career in teaching English abroad because you also get all of these specializations, you obviously get the basic 120 hour course and you also get the TESOL diploma course. So the diploma is high-level and this is for people who want to pursue this long-term and they might even want to pursue a more like head teacher position, um, or like in a better school with higher pay things like that. So then you would go for this. So yeah, but my personal recommendation for people who want to start out now who are new to this 220 hours would be the one to go for in my opinion, that's the one that I took. All right, but like I said, all of this information and all the details about every course is on our website, so do check it out, teflcourse.net. You can go to courses, let me just share this also for you, um, in the comment section, so you can just click on that and read through and figure out which course makes sense for you. So, here this one, check it out.
Work through the course units
All right, and then we're moving on to step number two, and this is really self-explanatory, you would obviously work through the units, you picked your course, um, and you get your login information, you get all your credentials, and then you log in and you work through the course units. And the great thing about our online courses is that you can study at your own pace, you just work through as many units as you like per day or per week. This is also great for people who are working. When I took my TEFL course, I was already working, and um, it was great. I did like a couple of units a week, which was just enough, um, not overwhelming. And you have up to six months to complete this course, but I finished it probably in three to four months, but I was working full time. So, if you have a lot of time you can finish it much faster. If you have less time, you have up to six months to complete it, but usually people complete it in three months, something like that or two months. You can even finish it really probably a lot faster than that. So, it depends on you and your study style.
You can study this course on your laptop, on your computer, smartphone, tablet, whatever device you prefer, and the great thing also is that there are no specific times that you need to be online. So, these are not live classes, you just work through the units at your own pace and you basically study from anywhere, anytime, which makes these courses just so flexible and just great for anyone. If you have any questions throughout this live about anything that I'm saying please leave a comment and I will get back to you immediately. So, don't be shy. Um, then I think yes, we're already going to, oh, this is still part of step two, okay. Let me see, yes, all right, so this is also the time while you are working through the course units, right?
Get your documents ready
You also want to think about getting your documents ready, okay. There are certain documents that you will need for teaching English, especially abroad for teaching English abroad, you're going to need a lot more documents than teaching English online, let's say teaching English in a different country. So, I also did a live session about this before, where we talked in depth about all of the documents that you will need to teach English as a foreign language. So, if you want to know more about this in depth, go to our playlist and find that live session and check it out.
Basically there are two different kinds of documents, one would be the basic documents that you will always need if you go abroad to teach, and then there are special documents that you might not need but you might need depending on where you go and what you do, um. So let's check it out, the basic documents. Of course, you will need a passport, right? And ideally, you want to have a passport that is valid for at least six months, but even over a year is better, right? Um. You don't want to go abroad and then your passport's running out, and you have to figure out a way to renew your passport abroad. That of course is possible and it is done, but it's a hassle. So if you can avoid it, you want to avoid it. I've just been through that. I have two passports that I had to renew, and it was annoying. It was more expensive than if I'd done it at home, and you need to go to the Embassy, which might not be the city you live in, so you have to go there, you might have to take a vacation day, um. So, it's a hassle, it's a mess, it's expensive. So, if you can have a passport with many years still left on it, just so that you don't have to worry about that.
Then you also want to have and bring a copy of your CV or resume, and a cover letter. You might need that, in most cases, you will need that for your Visa. So, you take these documents, and then you go to the Embassy of the country that you're going to teach in, and you present all of these documents, and a copy of your CV, resume, and cover letter are usually required in order to get a work visa. And then you also might need some translated documents, right? Any kind of certificates, anything like that, you want to get translated. Sometimes you have to get that translated into the language of the country that you're going to and you also need some passport photos, some extra ones because once you're there, usually, you would get maybe a local ID card, and then you need another photo for that. So, have some spare passport photos with you. That is always a smart idea.
Background checks are still a thing. So, these are considered special documents. So, as you can see here on the right-hand side, you might need to, um, get a Visa, you might not have to get a Visa. So, it depends on the country you're going to. Sometimes you will have to go to the Embassy beforehand and get your work Visa, um, and then go abroad. But sometimes you can also go to the country on a tourist Visa and then you can change your Visa once you're in the country. So, this depends on the country that you're going to. They all have different rules and laws and regulations. So, you might have to do either or.
A lot of countries also require criminal background checks. So, for example, Korea needs one, I believe. Also, for China, you need one. We talked about that in our live session. So many countries require a criminal background check. So, those take time, especially it was a lot worse during covid, where a lot of offices and government places were closed. It took forever to get these things. But if you need a criminal background check, this is probably going to take the longest time, the longest out of all of these things to get one. It can take several months.
Go and check it out for the US, this is an FBI background check, it's called differently in different countries but you need to get a background check in many situations. Um, you might also have to get University transcripts and so you could just contact your University and they will send you those, but again they might ask you for money, the background check also costs something. So, it is not really cheap to do everything. It adds up a little bit, and then you also oftentimes need an apostille on your criminal background check or on your University transcripts on your documents. So, an apostille is basically an international notary stamp that is valid, and this certifies internationally that this document is real. And in many cases, you will need that and that also takes some time, you have to send in your documents to get that apostille, and then it takes time for them to process that, and then they send it back to you. So all these documents need a long time, so you want to start with that as early as possible.
And then, if you go to a different country, and you know you want to drive there, you might also want to get an international driver's license. Check that out, and then think about any vaccines you might need for going to a different country. You know, if you go somewhere in Southeast Asia or South America, I believe you will need some or Latin America, anywhere really where it's different from where you're from, you usually need some vaccines just in case. So just go to your local doctor and ask him, 'Hey, I'm gonna go and live in so and so, what vaccines should I do, should I get?' And then, sometimes you also need to do a health check before coming to that new country. I know for the Middle East they're very strict about this, and you need to get a couple of checks done before you even leave. It all depends on where you want to go. So, first you need to figure out where you want to go, and then we would help you in giving you a list of things that you need. And also, this is something your employer will help you with. He will let you know, 'Hey, for our work visa in Korea, you need this and this and this,' and you work through that with your employer. You're not really left alone doing all of these things. So don't worry. How are you doing? I'm great. Thanks for being here.
Receive your TEFL certificate
And then you work through all the units, you finish your TEFL course, and then you get your certificate. So you get two certificates actually with ITDT. One is this embossed, beautiful embossed hard copy certificate right here. Every ITTT course graduate gets this one shipped to them, sent in the mail and they all have, down here you can see, The Snug, it's blurry, oh down here actually this side, um, it has a personalized special number on it. Every certificate has its own number which you or an employer, most of the time, can use to verify the certificate. So, especially in countries where a TEFL certificate is required, they will need this number and then they can check if this is a real certificate, if you really if this is your certificate, if really you took the course, and they need to verify that. So this is on that certificate and then as soon as you complete the course, you get a pdf version of this same certificate, it looks exactly the same, it also has the number on it and everything in your name of course. Um, and then with the PDF copy, you can already start applying for jobs and for your Visa.
Antonella has a question about the documents, so she's asking, 'Do we need to have the documents before we take the course?' So sorry, I got in late. No, not before the course. So, the documents you will need before you leave your country and before you go to the other country in most cases. So, um, you should work on your documents while you also work on the course. Basically at the same time, to get everything ready in time. So you work through the units, and then you also, if you need a background check for example, because that can take maybe even a couple of months, you want to apply for a background check as early as possible. Um, and just work on getting all those documents ready. Then, by the time you finish your course, you also have most of your documents, you apply, you're ready, and then you have everything together when you then finally move abroad. So you don't have to have these documents before you start the course, this is all happening at the same time, basically, and in some cases not even at the same time. So, some documents like for example, renewing your passport, so the, what was this called, the basic requirements, basic documents, get those ready right away.
Then the special documents are going to depend on the country that you work in, and sometimes you can only start with those documents once you've already have a job, right? So then they would send you the job contract and only with that can you get certain other documents, so it depends. But now that this sounds all complicated, but the employer and also people from ITDT here, we will help you along the way. Okay, you don't have to figure all of this out on your own, that's what I'm saying, especially your employer or if you look for a job through a recruiter, the recruiter will also help you with these things. You're not alone with this and we'll let you know exactly, okay, now it's time to do this, now it's time to do that. So that's just what I'm saying, but you can start your course without any of these documents ready, those are separate. Oh, yeah, so then after this step number three, you get your certificate, and then you start applying for jobs, and then hopefully, oh, yeah, you start applying for jobs.
Apply for teaching jobs
That's the next step, number four, you apply for jobs, and here what you can do, you can either do an independent job search, so that means you on your own, you look for jobs on online job postings, job sites, Facebook groups, I know I like to mention those, what I mean with Facebook groups, so they are Facebook groups called like English teachers in Korea, English teaching jobs in Asia, or in Peru, in Argentina, wherever, there are Facebook groups for all these things, and those are also great resources to find teaching jobs. Again, any forums, there's this Dave's is a cafe that is really popular, and you can also go even more detailed with your job search, you can go on to Google for example, or Google Maps, or just Google, and put in, if you know exactly like where you want to go, for example, if you wanted to go to Berlin Germany, you could put in 'Berlin English language school,' and then on Google Maps, it will show you all the English language schools, and you can email them one by one directly, that is also a great method, if you're really sure like you want to go to the specific City for example, that is one way, the independent job search, all on your own.
ITTT job support
Of course, you also get a lot of information from us from ITTT, because you have lifetime job support, so we will also give you access to a vast database with jobs and we also have a network of people that we work with with schools and also recruiters, so you will be busy with that working through all of those things. And then another thing that I think is really great is a recruitment agency, so a recruiter and they're International or local recruiters, so for different countries or their recruiters specifically for example for China, there's a lot of recruiters or for Korea, and what you need to know is that they come at no cost to you, completely free to use for the teacher, because the schools pay for the recruiters when they hire you, but the services are completely free to use for you. You don't have to pay the recruiter at all. So why not use a recruiter, because they know the market.
They already work with schools, so usually, especially first-time teachers, I think working with a recruiter is a very smart thing. Of course, you don't have to pick and choose between doing an independent search or choosing a recruiter, you can do everything right, you can use all of these things and maybe you find a job through your recruiter that you like, he had he or she finds you a good job or maybe you find a good online job posting and it works out that way, just utilize everything right, you don't have to stick to just one method, just everything, and yeah, then you would apply, you would send out applications, you would go through interviews, usually they're conducted online, and then hopefully probably you will get hired, one of them will work out the school that you like, and oh yeah also, this is what I already talked about, the ITTT job support, right? And good to know that it never expires, also our job support, so whether you start teaching next year after your TEFL course, or whether or not you teach in five years or ten years, it doesn't matter, you can come back to us and let us know, hey, I'm an ITTT course graduate and I would like to teach in Brazil now, please help me and we will be able to do that, so that's just one thing I wanted to mention.
Start Teaching!
So then you would go through the interview process, and you would find a school that likes you, and that you like, and then you would just start teaching, you would either start teaching English abroad or maybe you start teaching English online, and that is how it usually works, that is the process and we are at the end now, but I'm still going to get back to Amon's question here. But these are the five steps that you need to do for teaching English in 2023, and now we are in Q&A!
Q&A Session
I'm going to make myself bigger again, hi, and I am going to answer your question, so anybody who has a question let me know and I'll get back to you, okay all right, Amon had a question that I haven't answered yet, and he is saying the pros and cons of taking a course in your country of Choice versus online, or even online but still in the foreign country, okay, so the last part, even online but still in the foreign country, that Pro air con might be whether or not you have the Visa and are allowed to stay in that country, you could certainly do this on a tourist visa because you can you can take an online course from anywhere in the world just the question would be like where would you stay for that long, it might be a little bit expensive if you don't work yet, so depends, doable of course, but like you would have to find a place to stay, etc, so let's talk about the pros and cons of taking an online course versus an in-class course and I didn't really mention the in-class course today yet, but that is of course another option that we have, so I talked a lot about all the online courses because most people actually do take the online courses because of the flexibility, and they are also cheaper than a than a four-week in-class course, so yeah depends on many things.
Online course, like I said, they are cheaper, so it depends on your budget, how much money do you have to spend on TEFL training. If you have a lot of money, and you want to go abroad, maybe a four-week in-class course abroad might be a good thing to do. Usually, you spend four weeks in this foreign country and then when you finish the course, a lot of times that school will help you find a job already there, but sometimes you still need to go back home to get a work visa, so this depends on the country. Some countries will only let you apply for a work visa from outside of the country, so you would have to fly back home, apply there, and then fly back. Some countries, you don't have to do that, you can stay and change your visa to a work visa, so it depends on the country, of course. Also with a four-week TEFL in-class course, you get a lot of teaching practice, so you will attend usually Monday to Friday at a training center and you also get to teach real English students, this is something you don't have with an online course, and this is really the only Pro, of course, you're also abroad and you have a great time, and you meet like-minded people, etc, but the training that you will receive, the course content is the same, and also the certificate that you get at the end is the same, and for an online course.
It doesn't say that the course was online on the certificate, so the certificates are the same. So again, it depends on what you want to do. Of course, in-class courses are super fun. Daniella asks what countries have the in-class course available, so we have a lot of different countries. Oh, excuse me, a lot of different countries. So if you go to our website, you actually see the list of all the countries. You should go and then you should go to locations, didn't send the right link.
You can go to locations and then you see all of them. So currently, we have Egypt, Bali, Indonesia, Thailand, Spain, Colombia, we have Argentina, Peru, Spain, Vietnam, turkey, Nepal, Guatemala, Germany, Costa Rica, New York City, Paris, France, Prague, Czech Republic, Phuket, Thailand, we have Rome in Italy, we have Seoul in South Korea and Tokyo, Japan.
These are all the locations that we currently have courses running at and we have available course dates for, so if there's something that you like, go and check it out.
I recommend it okay, and then we have a question here from Samander. Peace be upon you. Hi, I'm good. How are you? Your videos are very useful for us. I wish you never stopped teaching. A lot of students like us. Thanks a lot. Your course is gorgeous. Oh, thank you so much Samandar. That is so sweet. Thank you.
Well, I'm only doing this because of you guys, because people are actually watching this. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here. Of course, so thanks to you, I can be here. So, yeah, thank you so much. All right, Daniela. You're welcome. Oh, we also, Daniela, I wanna add that actually we also have combined courses.
I also didn't mention those yet. So combined courses is where you first complete the online part of the course, the 120 hours, and then you spend either five or eight or ten days at a training center of your choice and you get teaching practice. So, let me send you the link to this and we have a lot of U.S locations for those but also abroad. So we have, for example, Spain, Thailand, Italy, France and then a bunch of U.S locations all over and also Toronto, Shanghai, London, Costa Rica, also, Seoul, Korea.
So, this is another option, the combined course, and sort of in the middle price wise. Definitely, the most expensive ones are the in-class courses where it's usually around a thousand five hundred US dollars for four weeks, but then you also need to pay for accommodation. You can arrange your own accommodation or these centers will also have connections to more affordable housing, but that's another thing to think about. Hi, how are you doing? Thanks for joining from Iraq. Cool, how are you? Yep, we are in the Q&A section already, so feel free to ask your questions about teaching English abroad, TEFL, TESOL, whatever you want to know. We still have a couple of minutes here today, so don't be shy. And maybe let's pull up the timeline again, sort of as a recap. Hmm, here we can all see this. So, again, 2023, the timeline for teaching English abroad is usually six months or even more depending on where you want to go. Obviously, for teaching English online, it goes much faster. You complete your TEFL course and you can apply for online teaching jobs at platforms.
If you want to know more about teaching English online, I also did a very comprehensive live session about that, everything you need to know, how to get started with teaching English online, check it out in our playlist. We really have over two years worth of live sessions. So we talked about pretty much everything under the sun related to teaching English abroad or online, TEFL, TESOL, you name it, we've probably already talked about it, so go to the playlists on Facebook or on YouTube. We have certain playlists for our live sessions, so check it out. Amon says, 'Lesson planning sounds overwhelming. How much assistance training on this? What about being a teacher assistant?'
Oh, yes, Daniel, I missed your question. Daniel, I saw that earlier and then I overlooked it. Thank you Daniella, Daniel and Daniella sticking together here. But let me answer Iman's question first and then I'm on that. So lesson planning, yes, we our TEFL courses cover a lot of material on lesson planning because it is a very overwhelming topic. A lot of teachers get overwhelmed and that's why it's covered in depth. So definitely, a lot of training on it, don't worry.
Don't worry, we also give you lesson plan templates, you can print out and then use in your classrooms. So, there's a lot of training on that. We also have videos on all the topics, so don't worry, don't worry, you can learn all of that. And then what about being a teacher assistant? So actually, depending on where you teach, for example, in Japan, you are actually going to be a foreign what is it called, an ALT, assistant language teacher. So, sometimes, depending on where you teach, there's actually a native teacher. So, a native teacher from the country, for example, in Japan, it would be a Japanese English teacher and then also you, together teaching, sometimes literally together in the same room, but sometimes they are the main teacher and then you fill in as the native English teacher or the foreign teacher, a couple of hours a week depends.
So that is also sometimes happening. And then Daniel asked, yes, thank you so much and I'm just gonna pull up Daniel's question and Daniel says hi, and I read that and I totally forgot about it. So sorry, Daniel, I hope you're still here and watching.
I'm doing good. How are you doing? And Daniel says, 'For teaching English online to aspiring non-native English teachers, need to get proficiency certified prior to applying for a teaching position, let's say, TEFL C2 or similar.' This again will depend on the teaching platform, and if you have seen my live session about online teaching, you know that there are different types of online teaching platforms. So, one would be an actual online teaching company that you would work for and they provide you with lesson planning, lesson material, they have a curriculum, they assign students to you, etc. They tell you exactly what to teach and they might have certain requirements for their teachers. So, maybe some of them might not even hire non-native teachers at all, some higher native non-native English teachers, but then maybe they will require English proficiency certificates. That can happen, it varies from company to company.
However, the other thing is in online teacher marketplace and those are platforms where you basically create a profile, your own profile, with an introduction, you can even upload an introduction video and then you can add all of your credentials or all of the certificates that you have to your profile and then students would browse all of the teacher profiles and then book a lesson with you. So, that is the student's choice, and for those, you don't have to have any credentials at all, even so, what you upload to your profile is up to you of course, it's gonna look a lot better if you have more qualifications and you will also it will also be justifiable that you charge a higher hourly rate on those.
So, I would say for non-native English teachers it is always good to have English proficiency certificates,, always, always because already I feel like non-native English teachers already have this stigma that yeah, they're not good teachers or but of course, that's totally wrong, not saying that but that's what a lot of people think unfortunately still in this industry and so as a non-native English teacher I think you should definitely have some kind of proficiency certificate listed, yeah, TOEFL is good, any kind of Cambridge or what's the other one, IELTS, anything like that and then you have that added to your profile but for those English teacher, what was it called again, the English teacher, what did I say, English teaching marketplaces where you create your profile, it is not required for that. Okay, Daniella, I hope that answers your question.
Maybe I'll take one more question if one comes through now and then we can say goodbye and I also want to say Happy New Year to everybody. It's exciting, what are your plans for New Year's Eve is anybody doing anything fun? I'm actually going skiing tomorrow. So I'm very excited about that but yeah, how about you guys, what are you doing tomorrow? Daniel says yes I'm still here. Oh, I'm glad, I'm so sorry I overlooked your question. Tuning in every week is awesome. Thank you for clarifying the matter Linda. Yeah, I hope I was able to help you out with that question.
Okay, yeah so what are you doing tomorrow? What are your plans for New Year's Eve? Does anybody have any plans or what's something that people in your country usually do for New Year's Eve? Is there something? In Korea, we have this traditional bell ringing ceremony so at midnight they have this huge, old traditional bell and they ring it. I think 12 times or more.
No, I think more. Wait, 109 times I think. 109 is like a Buddhist, it's a very important number in Buddhism. So, they actually hit the bell 109 times starting at midnight, so that's kind of nice and you can watch this on TV. I watched it live before and I think now is the first year where they have it again where people can go after covet, they didn't do this because of COVID, they didn't do it previously in previous years but now they're doing it again as I hear but we're not going there but it's nice.
And then also they like to watch the first sunrise of January 1st, that's like a big thing so people would go usually to the east coast at like a beach and they watch the first sunrise of the of the new year that's like it's luck if you do that apparently so that's something from Korea but how about you guys?
Okay, here we have a question from El mayansi. I'm hope I'm saying that right El mayansi Al mayansi, that's a cool name. For teaching English, I need my degree in English or not because I have a degree in another career but I want to be an online teacher okay.
So yes, I think you're saying does your degree have to be in English? No it actually doesn't have to be in most cases. So, in a lot of countries a University degree is a requirement but also not everywhere but then where it is a requirement, usually your major is not important. So you could have me too. I have a degree in management business management, not in English but that is still recognized, that is still recognized so it doesn't have to be in English. Also for teaching online it doesn't have to be in English.
And then Amitabha was saying here's wishing you and your family as well as all the members of the ITTT community a very happy and prosperous new year 2023. Thank you so much Amitabha, I also wish you and your family and everybody a Happy New Year and also everyone here at ITT. I think we're gonna stop this life now, we're an hour and 12-13 minutes in so I think it's time to go and I really appreciate you for tuning in today. I know everybody is busy during this time of the year so I really appreciate you being here and I'm gonna be back again next week in the New Year in 2023. I hope to also see you again next week Daniela. Thank you so much for being here.
Amon says great job, great job to you. Amon, thank you for being here and asking so many great questions and I hope to see all of you again in one week, same place, same time. I'll be here and I hope you will also be here. Have a happy, happy New Year and I'll see you all again next week. Thank you so much, bye guys.
