International TEFL InstituteHow to Find that English Teaching Job
Where to search for an English teaching job
There are some good places to start looking for an English teaching job. Our favourite sites with jobs are:
These job sites, have a good reputation, so they are a good place to start. There are also other sites out there that offer good quality jobs.
How to be proactive
If you are specific in where you want to work, then be proactive, sell yourself. On the sites mentioned above, as well as on search engine searches, you can find whole lists of TEFL schools per location. Just type in “language schools in ……..”. Applying for jobs is a numbers game, especially if you don’t have any experience yet. There are many schools that would love to have you on board, they just don’t know about you yet. So, if you can’t find many vacancies in your specific area, find a list of schools and contact them directly. It is not guaranteed but it pays off time and time again.
Be educated
The TEFL industry as a whole is not governed. That means, amongst the great school and employers out there, we are going to come across plenty of ‘ bad apples’ because there is nobody to check up on them. This is pretty worrying when you are going to travel halfway around the world on the strength of a few emails and a Skype call. The TEFL community has developed its own way of keeping others informed – basically, through using forums. It is critical that when going through the recruitment process you research the school on forums.
TEFL teachers are pretty excellent at commenting on their experiences of a school. By putting the name of the school in search engines, TEFL blacklist sites or TEFL forum sites you should nearly always get some hits. You should be careful of any school which has a high number of negative comments, is completely whiter than white, where the language of the post is with mistakes or there are no comments at all.
By nature, we like to complain about the smallest things so we would worry if a school was complete without a negative comment unless there are loads of comments everywhere and the language is entirely native. If the language is a little simple or full of silly mistakes, then it is possible the school owner is writing the posts himself. Do you want to work for someone who is dishonest? Finally, unless the school is very new, I would really worry if the school has no comments because, as a TEFL community, we really try to look out for each other. No comments for no good reason would be a little fishy!!
Applying for Work
There are TEFL jobs the whole world over and the whole year-round. However, there are sometimes of the year that is really good for applying for an English teaching job. These are: during the summer break or between the end of a semester and the beginning of the next. So, basically, July and August, moving into September are great times to apply. Almost as good is mid-January, February leading into March. This is when there are more jobs available.
As a new teacher, there are two schools of thought. One applies when there are a lot of jobs. Obviously, it makes sense, it’s like shooting fish in a barrel! The idea is to apply for jobs when school terms/semesters have started. What often happens is that many new teachers get a job in love with the idea of travelling the world and experiencing different cultures, after a few weeks or months they realize it is not for them and they either hand in their notice or they simply run away! Well, Chinese employment law doesn’t really affect you if you have no plans to return there ever!
So, schools have all the students paying good money but nobody to teach them. What often happens when you apply for a job mid-semester, you receive a phone call or email begging you to book a flight to come over today or tomorrow. You don’t even have to go through the interview process. As new teachers, this is great because the school just wants someone with a British passport and a pulse and you are really nervous about having interviews on a subject that still confuses you. The answer is there is never a bad time to apply. You are either lucky or unlucky that the time you apply is the time that there are jobs available in the place you are most interested in.
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TEFL Courses & TEFL Training Programmes
TEFL Jobs & English Teaching Positions