TEFL without a Degree
Contents |
Overview
For most countries the basic qualifications to teach English are a degree and a TEFL certificate such as the ICAL TEFL Certificate.
The degree is usually required for visa purposes. In Korea, for example, only by having a degree can you get the required work visa to teach in the country.
If you don't have a degree, however, there are still possibilities for teaching work including in those countries which normally ask for a degree.
However, bear in mind that without a degree you will tend to find work in the less prestigious schools at the lower end of the market in places where the demand for teachers outstrips supply.
Finding Work
Because a degree is pretty much a pre-requisite in most places, how do you go about finding work? Here are a few pointers:
Make Yourself Employable
The first step is to make yourself as employable as possible. This means:
- Getting some sort of qualification to show the school. If you turn up without a single piece of paper then it won't do you any good. At minimum you should have a TEFL Certificate such as the ICAL TEFL Certificate to show that you have had some instruction and will know what you are doing in the classroom.
- If possible, get some kind of experience be it volunteering at a local immigrant centre or teaching one-to-one lessons with the children of a local family who have just moved to your country. Anything to put on your resume is better than nothing; and of course maximise it!
- It may sound very obvious, but you also need to look the part (and this applies to all job applicants, not only those who don't have a degree). Teachers are often highly regarded overseas and turning up at a school wearing grubby jeans and a t-shirt will not do you any good; think about what to wear when you turn up at a school.
Online Advertisements
By all means check out online advertisements, but bear in mind that whilst you're free to send in your application, most will disregard you immediately without a degree. Don't, therefore, pin your hopes on getting a job from an online advert.
Agents
Likewise, many agents will often not consider applications without a degree. This is especially true of agents working in Western countries and sending teachers to other locations.
In other words, large professional agencies based in Canada or the USA or the UK or Australia will probably not consider a teacher without a degree as they are partly responsible for sorting out visa issues and so on and don't want the hassle of teacher who doesn't fulfill the basic requirements.
However, you may stand a better chance with agents based in the country where you'd like to go.
If you contact an agency in China, for example, which is placing teachers there they may be willing to accept your application and find work for you. This is well worth considering and since it costs nothing to send an email to an agent, it may well be worth sending applications to all the agencies you can find and checking the results.
One word of warning: NEVER pay an agent to find you work. They are paid by the school and not by the teacher.
Choosing the Right Country
Some countries are more strict in their requirements. Although there are teachers working without a degree in pretty well every possible country, it tends to be easier to find work in China, Taiwan and other Asian countries. South and Central America are also popular destinations.
It is probably not worth looking at the rich countries of the Middle East or Europe. These countries are worth checking out:
- China - the demand here is so great they often overlook the need for a degree.
- Colombia
- Indonesia
- Ecuador
- Mongolia
- Czech republic (although you will need a passport from an EU member state to teach here)
Arriving On Spec
Arguably the most common way to find work without a degree is being in the right place at the right time. This is looked at in more detail below.
Many teachers without a degree have found work simply by turning up on a school doorstep when the school is in need of a teacher.
Quite simply they fly to the country of their choice and make a planned assault on every single school they can find. It will often turn out that sooner or later a school will be in need of a teacher either part or full time and will be happy to employ someone there and then.
A few useful ideas here:
- Make sure you have enough money to tide you over in your country of choice for a few months in case work doesn't come through. And make sure you have a return ticket or the airfare home so you can get home if the worst comes to the worst.
- Fly in to the country at the start of the school year; this is when demand for teachers is at its greatest. If you can't be there then, you may be able to pick up work after Christmas which is when teachers sometimes "go home" and don't come back.
Plan it well:
- Go to the largest city and get a cheap room in a hostel, for example.
- Get the local equivalent of the Yellow Pages and get the address of every single school. Mark them out on a map.
- Start walking and take the first job that is offered you!
In other words, you go round to every single school in town and see if they need a teacher. Make sure you have your resume to leave and contact details (your email and a phone number if you have one there).
Possible Problems
Because there's a chance that you will be employed on the black as it were, you will not necessarily have the same benefits and safeguards as other teachers.
Firstly the school may well pay you less than the legal minimum (they may not, of course, but this is a possibility). There is not a lot you can do about this except to take the job for now but keep looking round for work and seeing if you can get a better offer elsewhere.
Then you may not have the legal safeguards if something goes wrong. If your school owner decides not to pay you for some reason, there is little you can do about it except leave. Again, once you have got the hang of the new country you will be in a better position to know what is a good school and a bad school and make your employment choices based on that.
Finally there is a slim possibility that you will have to pretend to be something other than you are. Cases of teachers slipping out of the country to get their tourist visa stamped are common. Likewise having to pretend you are not a teacher in case the inspectors call also happens!
However, there is very little chance that there will be any serious consequences to working illegally. Only in the most extreme cases will you have to leave the country.
Conclusion
This article is a very general look at working without a degree.
There are many, many cases of TEFL teachers without a degree working in great jobs in big schools in top capital cities all over the world but generally they have got to those jobs after many years of good, solid work. Don't expect to step off the airplane into the greatest job in the world; it will take effort and some luck at the start to find work but plenty of people have done it before you and you won't be alone - there are plenty more teachers out there to come!
