What can you tell me about teaching ESL courses abroad?

I've met people who tried to do this as a job and came back 6 mos later frustrated but these people were not especially ambitious. I would like to hear some positive stories of this.

I did not have a teaching certificate, or any experience whatsoever. I worked for a company that provided English teachers for a few dozen schools in the city. So, I didn't teach at one school, I taught at five. Two schools on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, another two on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and a Kindergarten class on Friday afternoon.

It's really not hard to find a job at all, at least in China. They are always in need of teachers, even after the semester starts, because there are always teachers who break their contracts.

The pay, at least in Shanghai, was very good. I was paid 10,000 yuan, the equivalent of $1250, per month. That wouldn't be that outstanding elsewhere, but in China, that goes a long long way. It meant that my girlfriend could go out and eat at fancy restaurants all the time without really worrying about money. I've never really lived like that before, and I probably never will again.

Downside: Teaching can be very, very stressful. With older students, the problem is more a lack of motivation in the students, getting them to talk and be interested. With younger students (I taught K-2, mainly), the problem is always discipline. Every class I taught was supposed to have a teacher's assistant, which was fine for a while. Eventually, I think they thought I was a great teacher and could handle it on my own, and the assistants just wouldn't show up for my classes. At times, it turned into pandemonium. I had to renege on my decades old promise to myself that "If **I** were ever a teacher, I wouldn't yell at my students!"

My birthday was especially depressing. I wanted to have a good day, so I planned a bunch of fun games to play that day, and brought tons of candy. The kids went crazy, and I had to yell at my kids for FOUR different classes that day. It's about all I did.

This is all very China-specific, so if you teach elsewhere, your experience could be totally different. At least in Shanghai, though, you run into the Little Emperor problem. All the kids are already only childs, and then on top of that, you have to be a pretty wealthy family to be able to afford a native-speaking English teacher. It adds up to spoiled rotten kids. Also, if you are unlucky enough to have a student who is a troublemaker AND who has a very rich, influential family - you're in deep trouble. I had a student like that, the worst student I had out of about 300 total. I talked to my boss several times about him, and finally after a month of living hell, I learned that the kid's mother was actually the principal. The point being, the kid could not get in serious trouble, because no one was willing to tell the principal that her kid was horrible.

OK, I work in this area. The reason I asked if it was Britain or America is that I've never heard of 'Oxford Seminars' or 'TEFOL' (would usually be either 'TEFL' or 'TESOL'). If you are in Britain your best bet is to do a Cambridge CELTA course (or the Trinity equivalent). If you do it full-time it'll take about four weeks, or you could do it part-time for about six months. At a private language school it would cost up to £1,000 but you might be able to do it at your local FE College for nearer £500. The focus at the latter might be more towards ESOL rather than EFL: to generalize *massively* that means the typical student is a Kurdish refugee who is planning to live in London for the rest of his life, rather than a Japanese businessman / Swiss graduate who has come to London for a fortnight to brush up his English. The course will give you some idea of teaching methodology and aspects of the language and practice in teaching.

Once you've got that you've got the basics to find a job. Realistically you want to start teaching as soon after you finish the course as possible, to get some experience before you forget everything. If you're in London, or somewhere else with a lot of language schools (Brighton, Oxford, etc.) the demand for teachers pretty much doubles in the summer months and they become less fussy about who they take on, so a newly qualified teacher should be able to find work (albeit on a temporary contract and crap pay). Get a month or two under your belt at a language school in England and you'll be ready to start looking for a job abroad. There are various agencies that recruit for schools in different parts of the world. Pay / conditions vary hugely from one country to another. As for 'is it a scam?', I'd say probably not, but have a careful look at what they're offering you - finding a shit job is quite easy, finding a good one is much trickier.