Moving abroad to teach! Hello, My name is Sophia and current...

Depends what your ultimate goal/purpose/intention is. However, after being in this business/field for some 20 years. I’d say it is drying up as an industry. Enjoy it while you can but formulate a long game so as not to get trapped. As for going out into the unknown, that can/will eventually yield the highest personal rewards even if not financial.

ESL is and has been going downhill in East Asia for years. There is a flood of non-native speakers here and most work for low wages to the benefit of language center owners, private schools and the like. It is quite acceptable to hire non-native speakers here in Vietnam and many of the ads state they want non-native, Russian or Filipino teachers. There is also a flood of non-natives from Morocco, India, and even South America here teaching for low wages-2004 wages. To add to this is a new generation of people working in recruiting and HR that make it difficult on teachers as they are incompetent, self centered and unprofessional selling themselves-not the company. Not saying all are this way, but a good many. Low quality teachers overall.

I've been teaching ESL and other subjects in English as a secondary career in Asia, the Middle East and now Europe for the past 15 years. Some jobs pay extremely well (eg United Arab Emirates including private teaching) and others pay midrange. I've never seen it as a career goal but only a way to support my graduate and medical studies while living abroad. But many colleagues do make a career of it or do other work as well. In my case, I simply always had other career goals. But there's nothing wrong with doing it. I know less about its marketability as to me it's a convenience, but I do know 8 find work in this, field extremely easily as a native English speaker. If East Asia is no longer doing well, why not check out the Arab Gulf states

Hi I love teaching and worked recently in a UK primary school doing the NTS programme which was great. I recently loved back abroad for mainly family reasons and we have place here. I can also concur the jobs and industry of TEFL is very poor now in itself as salaries and what is offered in terms of accomodation is not really worth it. I mean if you are single or child free and dont mind lower cost living which is ok but as a life style it's not really great. I however would take a job offer if's at an international school with decent salary but do your research first as some are terrribly managed. Good luck

Hi, a lot depends on how much of a change you really want to experience, and how "risk averse" you are. Perhaps you can look to tech in countries around Europe. There is a fair amount of need in Eastern Europe, and in Southern Europe. And it is not that far from home - if you wanted to catch a quick flight home, or you really are not liking where you are. Countries such as the Czech R, Spain, Portugal, Italy are real possibilities.

Get your head down- go for it. Thats my advice. It can be better than you think and its worse than you think. Depends on your mentality. Ignore the noise though and its a great experience. I left home 6 years ago for Siberia of all places. Since then, I've experienced teaching in Saud. Kazakh and Iraq. If you do not like it - Air and food are the only things compulsory in life