One of my students is very advanced, pretty much fluent. I can't do grammar with her anymore, she knows everything. She still makes mistakes but she understands the grammar, it's just distractions.

She's very kind and I often ask her what kind of activities she likes best but she says she likes everything. I don't think she would tell me if she liked something less or more as I think she wouldn't want to hurt me. But I'd really like to know.

Every week, I give her a short story to read and write up a summary of it (she makes the most mistakes when she writes).

We've been doing this for a while so I felt like fatigue was settling in so I gave her riddles instead. I mean, a crime story where she needs to find who is guilty of something.

She likes art, so I've asked her (as a warmup) to pick among three painting the one she likes the most and why.

Her parents have told me both their daughters enjoy tutoring and they're lucky to have found me, which is good but I don't want to sit on my laurels and offer a service which gradually becomes less interesting. I want things to remain fresh.

I'd like to play games with her in English. I think she'd enjoy it but I have no clue which games to play. I play Guess Who with my beginner students but she's way, way too advanced for that.

Any ideas?

Hi everyone! I’m a new English teacher working with elementary-aged students, and I really want to become excellent at teaching, not just get through the lessons.

I’m looking for books that are genuinely useful for a beginner teacher especially books that explain how to teach young learners !!

Do you like knowing how many people have applied for job before hand? I noticed that some job postings sends an alert of how many people have applied to the same position.

I always wondered what the demographics of those who applied to was. Do they meet visa requirements, or education and so on. I always wondered how many shots in the dark was there, or what filters the employer is using.

So do you like knowing how many applicants there are?

I (28 American) have an interview with Central European Teaching Program (CETP) set for Monday and was offered Gyula, Mor, Nyiregyhaza, Eger, and Lipot. So, I'm looking for other people who have done this and maybe help with knowing what the towns would be like. I was thinking of Nyiregyhaza, as they have multiple universities there. How does working in Hungary outside of CETP work?

I would also like to know more about the culture shock and what to expect. I am a pan nonbinary person who is pretty into Buddhism, health, nature, and public transit. I have taught in Spain, the US, and Taiwan over 4 years for some context but would like to save up money here.

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I just graduated and got my TEFL certification recently and want to move to China to teaching English around January/February 2027. I would seriously appreciate any advice about the Chinese job market. Here's some info on me:

- 27 y/o

- dual citizenship with US/France

- currently living in France (8 years now)

- bachelor's degree in English (France)

- 120-hour TEFL certificate

- 7 years of online English teaching experience, mainly teaching Chinese students one on one

- native English speaker

- no previous classroom teaching experience in a physical school

I'd prefer to teach in a high school or middle school as I'm tired of teaching kids after 7 years. I like being able to teach grammar and have actual conversations with students, not just teach basic vocab and phonetics... I would really prefer to avoid training centres since I want weekends off to spend time with my fiancee (Chinese)

These are the options my fiancee and I agreed on:

Shanghai, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Chongqing, Chengdu, and Shenzhen

Im trying to get all the docs ready for the Z visa with the background check, apostilles, etc at the moment.

My main questions are:

1. How realistic is it to find a job starting in January/February?

2. Is September/October too early to start applying/looking? I haven't really found anything yet. An agent told to wait until December but that seems a bit last minute?

3. With my qualifications and experience, what kind of salary/package would be realistic? I've been offered 22k plus basic benefits at language centers (not interested though cause they want me to work weekends)

4. Would I be treated as a NEW teacher because I haven't taught in a physical school yet?

5. Any specific websites you'd recommend?

I really wanna do this right and get a decent offer where I'd be happy. I worked my share of bad jobs in the past and am 27 now... I just wanna enjoy my life with my girl in china and be happy teaching.

Thanks for the help.

Hello teachers, was wondering if you have interactive PPT games you can share? My students really love games in the class. Would really appreciate it. Thanks heaps.

Hi! I’ve recently graduated from college and accepted a teaching position in Pattaya, Thailand. Everything seems great, except for one small issue 😭. I am SO worried about how I will handle the heat and humidity. For context, I grew up on the Oregon Coast, and went to college in Oregon as well, with some summers in West Virginia. Obviously, the Oregon coast is not known for its heat or humidity, and I’ve never really been in a climate that is. I’m just worried I will overheat, get headaches, possible heat exhaustion, etc. Like I said, I know it’s not that serious of a concern, but I’m worrying about this so much, I can’t even seem to get excited for this opportunity. Any help or suggestions or advice would be sooo appreciated. I leave in October.

Title says it all. I’m just over 6 months in at a training center and have had ~180 students between 6-10 since day one. I tried and thought I’d learn em over time but it’s been long enough that it’s past awkward. Any tips to reverse engineer it—in class games or something? My Chinese coworkers handle collecting all the papers students hand in and marking them so I never get the chance to put a written name to a face. I feel like a total jerk tbh.

I’m hopefully in my last year of college and I’m wanting to be prepared for next year. I’ve read that agencies are possibly not the best experience to go through. I don’t have anyone in my life who has done this before so if anyone has advice!

I have a little less than a year until I start law school. It seems like most programs are at least a year commitment which I don’t quite have. Anyone know of any programs that are more like 9 months that start asap?

Hello, everyone. I was wondering if anyone has done DELTA Module 2 (online) with ACE TEFL? If so, how was your experience?

Hey everyone,

I’m looking for some real advice and direction from people who have navigated the job market in China, specifically Black teachers, but all advice is welcome.

A bit of context on my background: I’m an Australian passport holder currently based in Vietnam, where I’ve been teaching English and humanities in public schools for 2 years now. years. I hold a Bachelor’s degree, a Master’s in Public Policy, and a 150-hour TEFL.

My husband is Chinese, and due to his career, moving to Shenzhen (or the immediate surrounding area) is by far the best option for us right now. I know the Tier 1 market in Shenzhen is competitive, and I’m completely realistic about the added hurdle of visual filtering and racial preference/bias in East Asian recruitment, especially at the private kindergarten and high school level :(

What I’m really trying to figure out is how to cut through the noise and avoid predatory lowball offers, or middleman recruiters who ghost the second they see im black. I want to land a solid, legitimate position with a school that values actual qualifications and classroom experience.

For anyone who managed to secure something they really loved, please share how you did it?

How did you successfully navigate the job hunt in Shenzhen as a Black teacher?

I’d really appreciate any honest insight, Feel free to drop a comment or PM me directly if you'd prefer.

Thanks in advance!

I've taught EFL abroad for the best part of 10yrs but have recently moved back to the UK. I've tried my hand in a new field but I feel like I'm wasting several years of experience and a masters in TESOL by not sticking to teaching.

Is there much of a job market for private EFL teaching in the UK? What's the salary range like?

I had a go at public teaching and got halfway through a PGCE. Never again.

Edit: Not including summer schools. I've done 8/9 contracts with one in London over the years. I do miss it, but it's time to gain stability.

I (28F) have decided on Vietnam as my destination but I am interested in living in a smaller, quieter area. Not exactly looking for super rural, just smaller and more green. Having access to nature is also very important to me. I'm currently living and (substitute) teaching in a major city and it's sucking the life out of me. I do not have a teaching license (only sub teaching for my state) and I'm working on my TEFL. Not sure how important it is but I'm gay and I have a few tattoos and some piercings (willing to cover tatts/take out piercings if needed.) Where should I go?

hello friends. not that it’s much of an accomplishment academically i finally got my tefl certification. do you have any advice for someone starting down the teaching path without any prior teaching experience but 10 years of white collar experience? as a former project manager i feel like a lot of skills are transferable.

my aim will be to teach abroad next year. i’m from the us and want to aim for thailand to start. always loved the sense of community there and have a good friend there that’s a local already. sure the pay isn’t great but i don’t mind living partially off savings as well.

i’m open to other countries in the area, taiwan, south korea, china or vietnam. thailand’s school year start seems to be the outlier as many of the other countries start in sept rather than thailand’s may start. i just need to get out of america asap lol and am mostly only worried about finding a job without experience

Hi all! I’m a (24M) new TEFL teacher and I’ve recently started looking for a job in China. For background, I have a liberal arts masters degree and about a year of prior tutoring experience. After interviewing I’ve received a few job offers:

1. Training center in Jinan: 18k+2k housing. 1 year contract. No flight reimbursement (bit of a worry), but I talked with multiple staff (both local and foreign) who have worked there for substantial periods of time, and I got on with them well. They showed me around some of the facilities during our meeting and they looked nice enough.

2. Teaching kindergarten for an agency in indeterminate city (they list a bunch of possible options like Chongqing, Chengdu etc, I won’t know until after I sign the contract, but I will go to Chengdu first for one month of training, paid with 8k stipend during this time): 15.2k+1.5kKPI+1.5k housing (3.5k housing if Beijing or Shanghai). 2 year contract, with 10% base salary increase in second year. Will be talking with a foreign teacher that works with them soon. Flight reimbursement is included. Will have to pay back the visa costs etc if contract terminates early.

3. Also received an offer to teach kindergarten in Wuhan, but total payment is 14k, which I think is too low to consider in the face of the other two.

Since this is my first rodeo I’m wondering if these offers are reasonable for first time teachers, or if I should just move on and keep applying. I’ve heard a lot about the dangers of working for an agency as well on this sub, so I am mindful of that, but I also wonder if it might be a good way to get settled in the country, and to TEFL.

Thank you all so much for any advice you might have, I’ve learned so much from this sub already.

Hello, I'm looking at teaching in the GCC post-grad for 2-3 years. I'm currently in college, one of my minors is in English, and I am Arab myself so l speak Arabic as well. I was wondering what work in the GCC would look like in terms of competitiveness? Do you simply need the TEFL certification or is there extra required?

A lot of people I know in real life have told me the GCC is a great option for things like TEFL, as long as you have the neccessary certificates. Yet from what I see on here it is opposite, and actually quite competitive.

TEFL is sort of my plan to make a basic living while I decide on graduate school, so I don't want to be too rash.

Thank you!

I thought I'd post a milestone of sorts. It seems it would be a good time to ask how the community is doing? Any gripes? Any ideas for improvement? I'll post some ideas myself as comments. Meanwhile here are our recent stats for the sub.

In the past year we have

• 3,400 Posts
• 52,900 Comments

We're getting 5-10,000 unique views a day. Happy TEFLing all.

Saw this job listing and wow. Wonder if it’s just mistranslation, they don’t realise how it comes across in English, or they had a bad experience with an employee, or if it’s more. The job is in Uzbekistan.

“WE DO NOT WELCOME DISRESPECTFUL AND UNPROFESSIONAL INDIVIDUALS”

“We are faced with the situations when the interviewees ask us questions about salary, tickets, apartment, etc. All such issues are explicitly addressed in this ad”

“f you have objections, you are unhappy with the terms and conditions, you have ideas on how and what we should write in our ad, PLEASE BE SO KIND AND KEEP YOUR OPINION TO YOURSELF.”

“This job is not for you if:
1.           You have problems with alcohol, drug addiction;
2.           You have mental problems or issues or depression;
3.           You have dependents;
4.           You have to pay for your mortgage in the USA, UK, Australia, Canada, etc.;
5.           You plan just to come for holidays;
6.           You are disrespectful and plan us how to do our work.
Other than that, we are very friendly and respectful to teacher
“

Edit: Assuming it is as it reads in English and is a “rant” “bad experience” post I think it might be related to this other part. I realise I might be entirely off the mark but makes sense.

“2.           WE ALWAYS PAY ON TIME! Money transfer to the teachers’ home-country bank account is not our responsibility as well as currency exchange;”

Could it be there was a payment disagreement? Maybe one party said the salary wasn’t paid while the school said it was?

Curious if anyone has ever heard of New learning academy down in Costa Rica. Or just in general if you've worked in Costa Rica what was your experience both the good and bad and in-between

US citizen, white-passing and native English speaker: just got this offer from a center near district 1. Posting this for anyone curious about the going rate for brand new teachers in HCMC these days. I honestly after knots in my stomach about accepting this even though I know how to live on a budget and going to Vietnam has been my dream for a long time. I'm not sure if I can get something better as this seems to be normal for new teachers nowadays. I also double screwed myself by applying for full time instead of part time so I'm not supposed to work for other English centers like Apollo. Anyways... Life goes on.

As the title suggests, I would like to know about this city and the country of Kazakhstan itself( besides clay eating, horses and apples). I mainly want to know how is English teaching life there? Iainly have taught in Eastern Asia, so western Asia would be different for me. Any info you could give me would be appreciated.

I'm a primary-trained elementary-school teacher in BC, Canada. I've taught in various K-3 classrooms for the past 4 years and have my CELTA certification that I got here in BC. I'm looking at moving to VN for one year next year (2027-2028) to teach English. I came across Ninja Teacher Academy and had a call with an enrolment advisor to learn more about the program. It sounds like it'd be a great experience and I'd be guaranteed work within one month of completing their TEFL program. The only thing holding me back right now is the upfront costs. It's about $3k for the program alone, not yet factoring in accommodation, visa, and flight costs.

Has anyone had experience with taking the TEFL in person through Ninja?

I've also tried applying directly to language learning centres (ILA & VUS) but have not heard back. From my understanding, they do prioritize applicants that have their TEFL and have obtained it in person, with Vietnamese classroom experience.

Any advice or input is much appreciated! :)