Being an English language teacher can be whatever you want it to be: a passport to world travel; a stable and fulfilling career; a way of helping others or the first step to owning your own business. This guide will help you choose how best to get qualified, find a job, develop professionally and travel the world. World demographics will result in sustained demand for teachers of English for at least the next twenty years – that’s about as secure a job market as you will find these days.
Like it or not, English has become the world’s language and it is growing in importance every day. Globalization and developments in communications are fuelling demand for the language around the world. About 85% of the Internet’s web-pages are in English and everyone has acknowledged that English is essential for efficient use of the web – recently the governments of Japan and Korea announced policies to encourage all of their working populations to acquire a basic level of English.
If you are looking for a way to travel and work overseas, then teaching English is an obvious path. There are teachers from the UK, USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand working as English teachers in almost every country in the world. Hundreds of thousands of young people have used teaching English as a means to see the world and understand other cultures.
By the year 2050 it is estimated that half the world’s population will be competent users of English. This learning frenzy will not take place because of some love for the language, but due to the realization that people will be left behind in work and social situations unless they can communicate with the rest of the world.
And even in native-English-speaking countries, the demand for learning English is high: for example, in the UK, there are hundreds of ELT schools that gain most of their student intake from overseas visitors combining lessons with travel – from young learners visiting with a school for a week to professionals learning business English for their job development. And in the USA, teaching people to speak English accounts for almost half of all adult education!
This website will show you how you can work in English language teaching: if you are looking for a stable, long term career; to give something back to your community or to the rest of the world through voluntary work; or a good way to pay for your round-the-world adventure, this guide will explain how to do it through teaching English.