sifting through the myths, exaggerations and fabrications about the tefl industry

You may have seen these lines before. You may have come across them in a forum, heard them on a youtube video, or even wondered them yourself. Well I can tell you from years of experience that these are simply myths, wild exaggerations or outright lies. In this post we are going to comb through the top ten lies about teaching English as a foreign language.

1) You can't make any money.

I don't even know where to start with this one. It is quite possibly the most nonsensical falsehood I've heard about TEFL. Like any other industry, TEFL jobs come in a variety of flavors; from the low wages to the executive salaries, the TEFL industry is ripe with opportunities for all of us to make some serious cash. I recently did some research on 20 of the most in-demand locations for teaching English abroad and the salaries they pay for entry, mid and senior level posts and you can see the data doesn't lie. In the UK alone, the ESL industry accounts for some £2 billion pounds of the country's GDP - per year.  So if all this is true, why do I keep hearing that you can't make any money? I think it is important to consider one's perspective when discussing an individual TEFL experience and to always be wary of those who make blanket statements about an entire field of work.  A recent wave of lies are coming from what I call "veteran outlaws" who are being chased into the sunset by the rookie cowboys. Some 10+ years ago, the TEFL industry was the wild west; it was dead easy to get a job teaching English in almost any part the world. There were fewer candidates available in those days, which meant anyone going for a TEFL job could practically get one - and with a pretty good salary to go along with it. Now things have changed, as they always do when competition enters the market; the demand is high, but so is the supply. You don't need to be an economist to know what happens at this crossroad: the market naturally weeds out the least qualified to make room for the best candidates. The market will also self-adjust for wage increases or decreases, and in some areas people may see stagnant wages because the market is saturated with highly qualified candidates. This is not to discourage those without degrees or certifications from pursuing an ESL career, rather to educate you on the facts. Things are not the same as they once were and entitlement will get you nowhere. Making money in the TEFL industry means learning quickly, being adaptable, and embracing efficiency.

2) you are not a real teacher.

I'm not sure why I have seen this a lot as of late. Perhaps it hits on the point I made above in that for a time this industry was just seen as a bunch of rejects who couldn't do anything else with their lives so they decided to leave their country to teach. Even that statement sounds ridiculous to me considering the insane amount of courage it takes for one to pick up his or her life and move to a completely different part of the world. I would call that anything but a reject. But I digress. What exactly is a real teacher anyway? Is it someone who is invested in giving their students best education possible? Is it someone who is knowledgeable about his or her own subject? What about someone who is caring or sincere? Perhaps the idea that TEFL teachers aren't real teachers alludes to the fact they can sometimes bypass traditional teacher training and still land gainful employment - which is totally true. But I'm at a loss of words as to how this makes you any less of a teacher. You still have to show up every day prepared and ready to transform your students. You don't get a pass because you've not trained as long. As with any profession, you have some crap schools with crap teachers, but they certainly aren't the industry standards and they are quickly being replaced by better, more stringent schools. Instead of comparing the length of our school sticks, we could look at the effectiveness of our teachers. No one would tell Mark Zuckerberg or Bill Gates that because they didn't graduate with a four-year degree their products or services are no good. That would be preposterous. Same in education. If you're an effective teacher, the way in which you trained is neither here nor there (IMO). Your testimony is given based on the outcomes of your students' improvement at the end of their time with you.

3) Once you go TEFL, you can't go back to your old career. 

This is a scary exaggeration for a lot of you who might be looking for a short change of scenery, and not necessarily an entire career change. Yes, you will have to do some creative resume repurposing if you take a few years to go teach and want to come back to your old job, but when has living and working abroad ever been a hindrance on one's employment? The world today is much different than it was 50 years ago, and so are the hiring practices. Gone are the days where you are expected to spend a lifetime in a position and retire with a nice pension, house, and 2.5 kids. Many employers are seeking more dynamic professionals with life experiences that make them stand out. So are you telling me that gaining intermediate language abilities, learning to work in a diverse environment, and having strong communication skills are not going to look good on a resume? I'm sorry, but where are you applying?! It's all about where your prospective employer's attention is drawn; will you capitalize on your experience or diminish it with one or two bland sentences about your experience abroad?

4) Anyone can teach ESL.

Considering everything we have already discussed, I guess we've both come to the same conclusion about the above statement. Erm, no! I'll never forget my high school geometry class. Our teacher was a mathematician in his early thirties who had a hard time standing at the front of the class while he taught. We had assumed it was his way of monitoring the class, but quickly deduced it was because he didn't like looking people in the face while talking. Even worse, he was always wrong about our baseline knowledge of the content he was teaching. He would skip through important, foundational information and get to the bits he thought he was there to teach, never really taking stock of the number of us who were failing his exams time and time again (over half the class failed each time he gave an exam). When we would tell him that we didn't understand his explanations, he simply brushed it off as not having paid attention while he was explaining, and being too lazy to do the massive amounts of homework he assigned - nightly. Needless to say, he did not last long at our school once the complaints mounted. By all accounts, he was a perfect fit for the job - on paper: well educated, knew his content like the back of his hand, was passionate about his subject. But when it came to the actual teaching bit - he crashed and burned.  

5) Non-native English speakers can't measure up to native English speakers.

If you have spent any amount of time in the TEFL sphere, you'll know that this idea - more than any others - sparks more arguments, trolling and rage. You see, it is a sensitive topic and rightly so. The short and sweet rebuttal to this statement is that it is completely and utterly false. Here is something that all NNS should know: the fact that you are at a level where you can teach another language is amazing. Never let anyone tell you otherwise. Now, there are some very salty NES who feel entitled to jobs simply because they speak English, and they will pick out any and every flaw you might have. But there is one distinct advantage you will always have over native speakers which is that you know what it was like to learn English as a second (or third or fourth) language. You will most likely know the pain points of your students and know when they will have trouble understanding certain concepts (articles anyone!) and the best way to get them through these tough grammar rules. This makes you better equipped to teach than your NES counterparts in some regards. Of course, I have also seen a lot of NNS who go on to forums with very bad English expecting the world to throw them a pity party because "at least they tried." Listen, in no other field of work will you get away with that rubbish. If you finish medical school and you're still terrible at identifying symptoms or you can't spot potential fatal diseases or whatever they learn in medical school, no one will give you a sympathy job because you've spent loads of money and "at least you tried." Just think about it like this: we are the surgeons of the mind and we need to get it right. No matter if you're an NNS or NES you need to know what you're talking about. 

6) If you are a person of color, you can forget a career in TEFL.

This is the second most controversial statement in the TEFL world, and for good reason. As a person of color, I would definitely classify this as a myth/exaggeration *some of the time*. You see, I lived in Asia for 90% of my time abroad. In China, they had a strong propensity toward white skin and were often quite ignorant about heterogenous populations. I cannot tell you the number of times I got into heated discussions about where I'm "really" from. And I can't tell you how many times I was told I wouldn't get a job because my skin was black. Now there was one of two things I could have done that information, my friends. I could either 1) cower to it and join the perpetual wheel of negativity, or 2) soldier on and find a position that would value my credentials. The world isn't created equally and neither is TEFL. If you're reading this and saying "That's easy for you to say, what with your American passport and all," I assure you you have every right to be cynical. BUT, I have worked with some of the best and brightest TEFL instructors who hail from countries with dark skin; places like Nigeria, the Philippines, Brazil, Zimbabwe, and so many more. Sometimes, these NNS had higher wages than us NES and that's because they knew their stuff and sussed out an employer who VALUED their skills. They didn't sit back and wait for the world to drop opportunities in their laps, and they didn't play on negative Nancy's hamster wheel. Just as an aside, I started in a terrible TEFL training center and worked my way through all the b.s. jobs and job interviews where I was told I would never get hired because I was black only to become the only woman - or person of color - on the senior leadership team at my international school. Booyah!

7) You need a branded TEFL certification to get a good job.

Let me let you in on a dirty little secret: after having worked with and for a number of TEFL entities, I've learned that many of the people doing the hiring don't have a good working knowledge of the ESL industry and all of the certification programs within. I know, that does not make a good case for what we're doing here, but hear me out. A lot of the deep explanations of TEFL, TESL, TESOL, etc., are written in English. The people who are hiring are sometimes local third-party recruiters, or they are local HR associates - both with maybe an intermediate level of English (good enough to converse), but nothing academic, which means they aren't diving too deep into the rankings and educational philosophies of each certifying body. That's not to say they aren't doing their job, but honestly it takes two seconds to look up whether your TEFL is accredited and how many hours you're required to complete to get a certification. These are the two of three things that matter most. The other is whether or not you had a practicum. In higher positions (we're talking universities, international or government schools) they may be more inclined to ask for things like CELTA, but again it's usually because that name tends to be synonymous with quality. In the end it's more about how you sell yourself and your skills than which TEFL certificate you have. If you graduated in the top 10% of your class, but it was a school no one had ever heard of and you were interviewing for a top company like Google, do you think they'll pass you up for mediocre applicants from Ivy league schools? Is it possible? Sure. Is it likely? Nah.

8) You have to be young.

Hmmm, I don't know why this keeps coming up, but I'll explore it. We'll call this a myth because I often see people come out to bat in defense against these kinds of statements. This is 100% false, and frighteningly so. If I'm honest, schools quite like hiring older candidates because they feel they will be more reliable. Even more, older candidates (and I'm talking 50+) often come with a wealth of knowledge that can really ameliorate the environments of certain schools. Corporate, financial, and managerial experience are incredibly beneficial for schools and training centers. The only issue some people run into are visa laws that have age restrictions on work visas.  If you're curious about how old is too old, I found this fantastic chart that breaks down - country by country - the visa regulations based on anecdotal evidence (which I find more reliable than official information since some companies find ways to work around the system, hehe).  The gist is, even after 60 you can find gainful employment around the globe, so don't let age get in the way!

9) You have to have teaching experience.

Blah. We all know this is crazy! While English continues to pick up steam as the lingua franca and more and more countries are advocating mandatory English in primary schools, do we really have the luxury of saying in order to teach, you have to have already taught? Sure, there are some countries that require 1-2 years of teaching experience before they'll even consider giving you a visa, but that teaching experience doesn't have to be in a specific setting. Before I went abroad, I volunteered at a local NGO helping to teach mothers and their children. These were refugees or families who were accompanying spouses of students selected to do their Ph.Ds at my university. I did that for a whole year and you bet I wrote it down as teaching experience! It was one on one work, but it was still teaching English to speakers of other languages. Also keep in mind that sometimes not having experience is better for the school than someone that has experience. Why? Sometimes - not always - people who have experience are inflexible and hard to manage. They know how to do things their way and that's it! This presents a lot of problems for the school, especially if the teacher is using a methodology that doesn't mesh with the school's specific set of needs. So when you have someone come in who is a blank canvas, it is easier to mold that person into who you need him or her to be. 

10) It is not meaningful work. 

I'm a recent member to the reddit community. If you're not careful, you can get sucked into the negativity chain and swallowed up by the black hole that be. I often find people in TEFL reddit communities who are so dissatisfied with their jobs, yet stay in them for years. They complain about the monotony, the conditions, the pay, but haven't managed to leave. Why is that? After all, they have the option to go back to their countries. I perceive to be the case that particularly morose persons, leaving their jobs and their houses and their families for an adventurous life abroad isn't going to magically erase their melancholic tendencies. You find meaning in the things you give meaning to. It's incredible to think that anything you regularly repeat won't become unbearable if you don't add some sort of meaning to it. Anyone who is any good at any field of work be it sport, medicine, law, or education - has had to do repetitive work to get better and better at it. If we approach this as dull, meaningless garbage, then yes, there will be no joy in your ESL life, because there is a lot of repetition. But if you say to yourself: this time I'll get the students to stand up and survey each other to find the answers. Or next time I'll hide the answers as clues in the poem we're going to read. Or how about I make the students create a video using the target language we learned. These could all be covering the exact same lesson, exact same content, but wildly different deliveries. Your class. Your choice.

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