Country Guides

Rio, Buenos Aires, Quito… ahhhh starting a new life teaching English abroad in South America sure does sound tempting! If, like thousands of other TEFLers, you are longing to make the big move to South America then you’ll need to make sure you get clued up about how to make it happen!

Done the ‘TEFL jobs in South America’ Google search? Not brought up loads of jobs? Don’t panic – this doesn’t mean that there isn’t a demand for TEFL teachers. Instead, a lot of job opportunities tend to be advertised on the ground – many TEFL teachers seeking employment visit the employers in person!

Here’s a short guide to landing your dream TEFL job in three of the most popular South American destinations!

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Indonesia is a vast archipelago comprising more than 17000 islands.  With a large variety of languages and cultures in addition to volcanoes, beaches, valleys, jungles, mangroves and cities to explore, what better place for a TEFL teacher to spend a year or two?

Surabaya is Indonesia’s second most populous city, and is home to several English language schools.  Described by Lonely Planet as “a hot and dusty, crowded city with precious little to see”, a description with which I would concur, you may wonder why I have spent almost two years here.  Despite the downsides, this is a place where one can experience a real Indonesian city largely untouched by tourism.  As a result, the locals see you more as a source of fascination and entertainment than as a cash cow.  Travel to Bali or Yogyakarta, and you will be plagued by people harassing you to use their taxi, or buy their products.  Often they will walk right up and interrupt you while you are talking to a friend, demanding to know where you are going and waiting impatiently for an answer.  It can be very frustrating as one doesn’t want to be rude, yet offering even the most basic politeness in refusal will often lead to more harassment. 

No such problem in Surabaya, where the local people have never had tourists to make a living from.  They don’t rely on making as much as possible during high season to see them through the rest of the year.  Instead when they see a foreigner, they just want to be as friendly as possible, and they are very easily amused.  Some find this patronizing, but I find it quite endearing.  It is not unusual to be “drive-by Hello Mistered” as I have termed it.  You are walking along the street and hear “Hello” behind you followed by “Mister” in front of you as a motorbike whizzes past, its driver looking over his shoulder at you, evidently more concerned with addressing a foreigner than keeping an eye on the road.

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The Vietnamese Government is very focused on improving the quality of English language teaching across the country. Unlike a number of countries in South-East Asia – Indonesia, the Philippines and Cambodia for example – the days of the ‘backpacker’ foreign English ‘teacher’ have largely finished in Vietnam with more hoops to jump through to be eligible to work.  Over the past year or so, there’s been a noticeable exodus of backpacker ‘teachers’.

With backpacker ‘teachers’ leaving in droves, there is huge demand for foreign English language teachers in Vietnam who meet the requirements to be eligible to work, laid-down by the government. Specifically, if you wish to legally work as an English language teacher in Vietnam for a period exceeding 3 months, you need to produce the following:

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Here’s part three of our very quick and very selective guide to some of the best travel opportunities for people teaching English in Thailand. This article covers the southern parts of Thailand including The Andaman Coast and the Lower Gulf. Read part two here.

The South

While the south doesn’t have huge teacher hubs like Chiang Mai or Bangkok, it does have quite a few TEFL jobs in provincial towns like Surat Thani and Nakhon Si Thammarat – and boasts some of the most beautiful beaches in South East Asia! While the wages are lower than in Bangkok, so is the cost of living and it really couldn’t be any easier to decamp from the town or city where you are based for a weekend lounging on a palm fringed beach.

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There’s been a growing interest from travellers to volunteer as teachers for quite some time now. Only a decade ago, school leavers would simply laze around on the beach in South East Asia, or grab a cheap rental car and speed around the Australian coast; but now, the younger generation are turning their hands to selfless work in countries more suited to structure than sunbathing. Volunteering is now seen as a learning curve prior to university – and afterwards, too.

The issue with volunteer teaching, though, is the expectation that it will be easy without any training. While an amateur teacher may have a classroom’s best interests at heart, how easy is it to actually throw yourself at the mercy of a group of children and hope that you can impart some worthwhile knowledge?

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Here’s part two of our very quick and very selective guide to some of the best travel opportunities for people teaching English in Thailand. This article covers Bangkok and the surrounding areas of central Thailand. Read part one here.

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An ever increasing number of people are choosing to up-sticks and spend some time teaching English in Thailand. Most of these TEFL opportunities exist in three main areas: Chiang Mai and the North, Bangkok and Central Thailand, and the more touristy areas of the South.

So if you fancy teaching English over in Thailand, or if you’re just heading over there for a bit of travelling. Here are our top three picks for things to do in the first of those three areas – Chiang Mai and the North. There’s one touristy place, one slightly intrepid place, and one place where you’ll probably need a little help from Ray Mears!

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By Helen Hargreave

When you think of China, what do you associate it with? The Great Wall, Peking duck, the Terracotta Warriors? These are all common things that spring to mind when you think about one of the most popular TEFL destinations on the planet.

However we all know that visiting a place and living there are completely different – so what can you expect when you get there?  Here are a few inside facts before you join the 1.34 billion people living in China…

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by Clark Nielsen, author of Yes China!

After working at multiple schools in China, I’ve switched gears and am now teaching in Thailand, facing many of the same obstacles and noticing similarities on a regular basis. Namely, the school facilities are almost identical. I think a lot of us EFL teachers go with the naive assumption that our school abroad, wherever it may be, is going to be clean and modern and cozy. But we’re English teachers! We don’t always get the best. So here are five things you should be aware of, in case any of these are deal breakers:

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By Barrie Smith

The prominence and impact of French history, culture, fashion and cuisine on global history and society has made France one of the most popular destinations for English language teachers from the UK in recent years. With a fantastic climate and some of Europe’s most enticing cities, it’s not hard to see why this country catches the eye of so many.

What surprises most people is just how accessible and open France can be to English teachers. Work is available throughout the year, with most contracts beginning in September and lasting the course of a full academic year. Travelling to France from the UK is as easy as it gets too, with ferries running daily.

If you’re considering vacating the drab English skies for a new life on the continent, here’s all you need to know.

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