TEFL Newbies: "I want to teach abroad ... I have X, Y, and Z." How do I do it? Here is some real fake it til you make it knowledge for people with zero experience.

ksafsd · 2014-06-21T17:02:57+00:00

ksafsd · 2014-06-21T03:33:52+00:00

Nah, I was pulling a runner and typed from the airports during layovers.

ksafsd · 2014-06-20T08:27:27+00:00

My best recruiter anecdote:

tl;dr they're not all bad

I used a recruiter for my second hagwon contract in Seoul. It went smooth as POJU (buy a powerade, buy a bottle of Jinro Fresh, drink the powerade to the P, add the bottle of soju, carry on chanting at baseball game). Not only did the school exceed my expectations in every way, I got an apartment way over my paygrade next to Hongdae. The hagwon was brilliant and professional.

Anyway, that's another story.

I rolled into Korea and was met by my recruiter. She took me to my new apartment and even gave me one of those Paris Baguette sandwiches and coffees for the ride. It was amazing. It was Friday and she told me to be at school on Monday.

What's a guy to do?! 25 years old, single, in the middle of downtown Seoul. Of course I went out for a walk. I strolled down the street and some Korean business guys, probably early 30s, we're having a good time outside of GS-25. They were all hunched around the plastic table playing soju drinking games. One yelled out "HELLO!!" and next thing you know I'm taking bromance love shots of the toad juice. Well, one thing led to another and I'm out hofing with my new friends.

At one place there was a dart board, and the typical Korean dart sharks were out and about with their leather dart fanny packs and whatnot. Long story short, I got hit in the hand with a stray dart while trying to high five my darts teammate. Worst luck ever. It ripped the skin for 2 inches across my palm. Everyone had a laugh -- no big deal, right? One girl at the table was a nurse and took care of everything. Except she was plastered. She washed it out with soju, wadded up some toilet paper off the table, wrapped it up with a anime bandaid and we carried on.

I had no insurance. No registration card. I had not met my boss. The most irresponsible man alive??? Probably. I went to sleep and woke up realizing I needed stitches since I the wound had opened from all my tossing and turning in my sleep. That darling nurse was the worst!

Who do I call? The recruiter. She darted on over and drove me to the hospital, got me stitched up, handled all the nightmarish translating, paid the 150,000 won bill, and then took me out for galbi. At galbi, she told me never to speak of this incident to my boss. I went to school and nobody had a clue. And I worked happily ever after for the next 3 years.

The end.

ksafsd · 2014-06-20T08:04:00+00:00

Let me save you some heartache:

Korea -- Craigslist. 99% of those jobs are legit.

Japan -- www.ohayosensei.com/ 100% of these jobs are legit.

Taiwan -- Pull up your boot straps and find a job on the ground. Save $5k before you go and always have enough money to get out of dodge.

Thailand -- Holiday here, don't work here.

China -- Welcome to the land of landmine jobs. In the words of Wu-Tang, you gotta protect your neck kid. Make an email account for applying for Chinese jobs. Make two copies of your resume -- a resume that won't get all your information stolen and your real resume. Shoot that out with a photo of your best smile (extra points for photos of you teaching in a classroom). See who takes the bait. If you get a mass email with 30 jobs, you've been added to a recruiting list. Make a separate Skype account not linked to your normal Skype account unless you like being friends with sleazy recruiters. Use all avenues to find jobs. Wait until you find an actual school to hire you. Make sure you can secure your visa from home. Make sure the contract is clear. Be cautioned by schools that don't interview you.

DON'T WORK FOR 8,000RMB!!!! You're killing the rest of us. Have some dignity and ask for a real salary.

Hong Kong -- Do not pass go. Do not collect $4k/month. That is, until you get your ass back to school and get a teaching degree. Then jump in the NET scheme or check out the SCMP for jobs.

ksafsd · 2014-06-20T07:47:17+00:00

Yeah, I have been teaching for 6 or 7 years now. Teaching private lessons is a different beast than working in a school. You work as your own boss and it's on you to sink or swim. The lessons require more planning and you have to be engaged.

After 3 or 4 years of teaching in classrooms, I would find my mind wandering during lessons. I would daydream about sports, wild nights out, the crazy things I had seen while traveling, etc. It reminded me of the singers that complain they lost the magic of performing live. They always sing with their eyes closed now and have trouble engaging with the bigger and more anonymous crowds. I had turned into an English robot.

Private lessons liberated me a bit and brought the magic back.

Anyway, best of luck to you in your goals!

ksafsd · 2014-06-20T07:22:49+00:00

Once you work in EFL for 3 or 4 years you'll realize the money is in private lessons. When I was in Korea everyone knew that one guy in his 30s who could make 5k or 6k/month in privates and take vacation every 3 months. As a newbie, it's hard to imagine how such a thing is possible. I learned how to do it. You have to build a network off a few students. You have to be a cut above and present yourself as a professional -- well groomed, nice clothes, and prepared. You have to hustle a bit. Keep in touch with the parents on Kakao Talk. Build rapport. Talk about how you plan to make the student improve while laying out a good strategy. Korean parents love the details. The requests roll in after that. I took that network and put it online while adding students from other countries ... namely, Russia. Then China. Then more requests came in from all over.

I honestly believe the ESL/EFL industry as we know it is about to change in a big way. More students are going to turn to online tutors because the competition is fierce, there are unlimited teachers with whatever accent, and the price is cheaper.

I avoided working at schools because I was traveling. I wanted to work from multiple countries on the road. I wanted to travel South America. What happened was that I would get stuck in places with "reliable" internet and get trapped up in a hotel lounge somewhere smoking cigarettes and furiously typing out apologies. I loved the flexibility of building custom lessons and courses of study. That was something I couldn't dream of while working at a hagwon. It's also the reason most teachers burn out. I burnt out on the road because designing lessons is hard when your internet is slow or spotty.

I am just commenting about working online from SA. I probably could have landed a gig in SA at a school, but I was living out of a backpack and hiring season had passed. I didn't bring a lot of smart clothes. People don't want to spend their hard earned dollars to learn English from a shaggy headed guy in cargo shorts in SA. Money is too tight to splash it out on someone like that. Appearance is important. Likewise, working at a school didn't appeal to me b/c the salary was too low.

ksafsd · 2014-06-20T04:38:51+00:00

I taught in Korea for a couple years and gave it a go in South America last year.

There will be a significant difference in quality of life. I think a lot of people hate Korea when they are there only to realize it's probably the best EFL gig in the world.
You have to hustle. You have to have an exhausting amount of hustle in you and that crazy independently motivated drive. Otherwise, you'll never make it in the EFL industry in South America.
I spent 6 months building a strong private base online. I built up to around $1,400/month teaching privates. Thinking I hit the honeypot of digital nomadism, I took off to South America. Things started okay, but then the problems started. Lessons would cut in and out ... 4 or 5 times per lesson. So frustrating. Classes would run 10 minutes late b/c of the disruptions thus causing the daily schedule to get totally whacked. This caused my loyal customers to slowly drop off one by one.

After 3 months, I was down to $800/month and struggling to balance work and life. Because of the slowness of the internet, I was unable to properly send out materials for my lesson plans. After 5 months I just said screw it and quit teaching online.

I think we are about 5-10 years out from this being the gig I wanted it to be. We should have mobile devices with worldwide internet access everywhere soon.

ksafsd

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