As local unemployment rates continue to surge, a window of opportunity is glowing just beyond the horizon. What next, how to get there and grasp it? First, you’ll have to decide which country is right for you. Unless you’re equipped with all the legitimate credentials (continue reading for specifics), you will likely be required to travel on your own expenses before you can guarantee employment, meaning you’ll need an initial savings base to cover your plane ticket and living until you receive that first salary. Depending where you’ll venture to, the initial necessary sum will vary. In Thailand, for example, 1000 USD is more than enough to live like a king-queen for a month, or like a local for six months.

The most demanding choices for ESL/EFL teachers are part-time and full-time gigs at public & private schools and institutes across Asia & the Middle East, Eastern & Southern Europe, and Central America, e.g. Thailand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, Dubai, Vietnam, Mexico, and Spain will be where the mass of ESL-EFL jobs are.

If you haven’t got a clue where you’d like to go, the best starting point would be to browse global job announcements on one of the links below to get an idea of what the current demand entails. Personalized research of the preferred countries should accompany this preliminary stage. You shouldn’t focus on the raw salaries alone, but take into account other critical lifestyle and quality of life factors.

Do you want to earn more in a cold or desolate country like Korea or Dubai, only to spend all your savings on frequent sanity seeking Southeast Asian holidays? Some of the second and third world options in China, Thailand and Vietnam for example, may pay less, but offer more in terms of living standard.

Once you’ve narrowed your choice to a particular country, it would be wise to establish a practical plan to obtain legit credentials that will satisfy employers and officials abroad. Aside from the basic secondary level diploma, most employment opportunities for language teachers require a standard minimal of a university degree and teaching certificate, particularly for legal paperwork & processes.

Basically, this means that if you can’t provide both a verifiable legit degree and teaching certificate, you won’t likely work legally (at least not without extraordinary perseverance), bringing those that apply into an under-the-table world of visa runs and border hopping. As the demand for your teaching hand is grand, it is possible to get a sufficing teaching job abroad without one or the other fundamental credentials. Short term is seemingly not so bad, but the long haul is something one must consider if they plan on being a permanent teacher.

Previous relevant experience proves advantageous, but not necessarily an impermeable barrier initially. For newcomers, it is recommended that you consider fundamental teaching accreditation, e.g. TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) TOESL (Teaching others English as a Second Language) TOEFL (Teaching Others English as Foreign Language), and CELTA (Certification of English Language Teaching to Adults).

The differences in variations of these legitimate English language transferor credentials are marginal at best. If anything, they will give you ample preparation of what you will be doing once you land a paid gig. In choosing the course, one has to use personal discretion taking into account their personal short and long term goals. The typical routes are either to save up enough to do a course locally, before traveling abroad e.g. at the local community college or university, or to choose a more affordable alternative course in their target destination. If it’s the latter, be sure to check whether the destination country’s respective ministry of education accepts and approves of the certifiers’ accreditation.

The good news is this field of specialization offers many channels and alternatives, allowing one to obtain teaching certification intensively i.e. two weeks to a month, or spread out over evenings and weekends, allowing diligent subjects to work and gain experience all the while advancing their future career prospects. The benefit of being abroad is having access to first world services e.g. medical, leisure, and education at third world costs. With the manifestation of ICT globally, remotely obtaining accreditation is yet another convenient route, making a Post Secondary Degree abroad definitely a viable option for many.

Once you’ve sorted out your strategy and plan, it’s finally time to get working on your Cover Email-Introduction complete with CRV and professional-presentable picture, which should aim at establishing the initial interview with several potential employees. Simply, you’ve got to do your homework before you can give it.

Perhaps this applies directly to you? Don’t reserve your copy of ‘Slangin’ Rocks for Beginners’ guide just yet, there is still light in more prestigious fields of work. In fact there is more than enough demand and necessity for white collared workers regardless of any economic crisis the news was babbling about. This Crisis’ Cure has come!

If you don’t like your prospects as an independent writer, how about becoming a teacher? After all, it is a career considered immune to defunct economies. Whatever the state of a slumping and staggering economy, the fact is humans still got to speak, read, learn, and learn how to speak and read. In any post-modern society, there will always exist an affluent foundation supporting the demand for language transferors.

The idea of becoming a language teacher turns off most blue-non collared or even supposed ‘realistic’ folks at first. Aside from having to gain post-secondary qualifications, such authority and prestige that comes with teaching our birth earned skill of communication can be frightening for many: Putting up with and managing discipline lacking kids, comprehending and conducting complex curriculums, and organizing the respective lesson plans can seem like quite daunting tasks at first thought.

Depending on how bad you’re itching to earn, ‘teaching’ is not such an unfeasible reality to entertain. Okay, so homeroom teacher at your childhood elementary school is definitely going to require time (and ultimately money) before you’d even get your foot in the door. If one could actually afford first-world-higher-learning tuitions, they wouldn’t likely be as needy as the one who’s gotten this far in this article.

What? (Some of) You don’t have a University Degree or any pertinent post-secondary credential for that matter—don’t relinquish hope just yet. First consider these questions:

1. Did you at least complete your high school education?
2. Are you a respectable and moral adult (at least 18, ideally post 20) who maintains some form of an ethical code?
3. Are you a native speaking English speaker from US, UK, EU, CA, AU, NZ, or SA?
4. Do you excel in and/or enjoy interpersonal communications, particularly public speaking?
5. Do you value intercultural sensitivity, possessing some language aptitude?
6. Do you seek to stimulate and stretch your physical, emotional, intellectual and social quotients?
7. Are you willing to be an unstably mobile visitor in a foreign, exotic second or third world country for at least a year and then some, knowing that at the end of it all, you may be back to square one with only the addition of hard earned experience behind you?

If your answer was yes to most if not all such questions, then you are an ideal candidate to consider becoming an ESL (English as a Second Language) or EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teacher abroad. Continue to the next part