Whats it like working as a TESL instructor?

Question

(TESL) means teaching englsih as a second languange, mainly to foreigners. i would like to know more about it.

Answer 1

Are you going to be a TESL instructor (instructor to other teachers) or an ESL instructor (instructor to foreign language students)? That is a big difference. In order to become a TESL teacher you need to have many years of experience teaching ESL. You also need to understand the difference between EFL and ESL- I'll let you do the research to find that information yourself.

I worked as an EFL instructor in Italy for about two years. It was a good experience. I met a lot of new people, learned how it feels to be an immigrant, and had the opportunity to travel during school holidays. The downside was that my school was a for-profit business that would do bad things to make extra money (for example, some days I spent ten hours in the classroom, other days I spent four hours commuting to in-company classes). I was ONLY able to work in Europe because I am a dual citizen- people without EU citizenship will NEVER find legal work in Europe unless they are licensed, experienced K-12 teachers (and even that doesn't happen often).

Later, I worked as an ESL teacher in Canada, at a community college. I was paid well but the work was mundane and I got bored very easily. My students were mainly there because their parents made them come, and many were angry about being taught by someone younger than them (I was 22, they were post-graduate university students). I also did some private tutoring in Canada, working one-on-one with international students. I built up a good reputation and soon started tutoring university professors and corporate executives.

To become an ESL/EFL teacher you should have a university degree and a TESL certficate (like the CELTA) that includes a minimum of six hours supervised teaching practice. You'll also need to invest in a good grammar book, because your students will think of lots of "why" questions that you won't know the answers to (at first)!