By John Harley
TEFL is in all simplicity, Teaching English as a First Language. What this means is that if you are a native English speaker, your first language is of course English and as such, your teachers were in fact TEFL. On the other hand in the event that you are learning English as a second language, it is then known as ESL or English as a Second Language.
Knowing the difference is important especially if you plan on working overseas teaching English. While in most cases this can be done without any real credentials other than being a native English speaker, some places do require that you need to have a bit more qualifications under your belt. In most cases these qualifications will fall under the need for obtaining certification in a particular field of teaching English.
In contrast to teaching English as a second language, if you plan on teaching it as a first language even in a country where English would still technically be a second language, the approach and structured curriculum between the two is very different.
Taking a course is a simple process and when you are good in English, you may be able to make your way through this course with ease. Once you have fully completed the course and of course passed it as well, you will receive your TEFL certification which is good all over the world. This will allow you to obtain a job teaching English virtually anywhere in the world.
Having a TEFL certification is important because while you can still get a job without them, you can make substantially more income by having this certification as well as the many others that are available to English teachers who would like to teach English overseas.
Living life to the fullest is important and the adventures that await you out there teaching English to those who truly want to learn are many. Live a bit on the adventurous side and get your TEFL certification so that you can live in another country and still have a means of income irregardless of age or gender. The demand for certified native English speaking teachers is growing at an exponential rate and all that you need to do to help fill this fast growing demand is to become certified and then take the step to live over seas and teach English.
With years of experience in ESL (both teaching in schools and recruiting staff), our staff have a combined experience of over 14 years teaching English as a Second Language. Having taught all over the world including countries such as Kuwait, China, South Korea, Japan, England and Germany, we are very knowledgeable in the ESL field.
We started this site in 2002, trying to provide a resource where teachers could post their job offers, and native English teachers could post their resumes. We hoped to make a clear and easily read website that would succeed in bringing together teacher and jobs together in the ESL industry. Our website has continued to grow year after year, and we are proud to have one of the leading ESL job boards on the internet. Find your dream English teaching job, or find the perfect teacher to fill your vacant teacher position. All for free, on ESLJobs .biz.
About the Author
John is involved in ESLJobs.biz, one of the leading ESL job site, featuring jobs posted by English schools around the world. If you are looking for teaching ESL jobs or looking for English teachers, go to esljobs.biz
I’m awaiting more than one or two comments on this magnificent piece of work. Fundamentally, I find it difficult to agree with someone who has redefined the TEFL acronym, for a start. Have I been in a daze all these years.
Teaching English as a First Language? What?
Not only is this poorly written, it is shamefully misinformed.
TEFL means “Teaching English as a Foreign Language.”
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Are you sure of your acronyms? I’ve always understood TEFL to mean Teaching English for Lapdancing. I have to admit to feeling a little deceived after fifteen years.
What a funny article… and utterly wrong. Try Wikipedia for the standard definition of TEFL: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teaching_English_as_a_foreign_language
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Well done John, you got the twitterverse talking, let’s hope this article was a joke – if not then congratulations on offending most of the ELT teaching world. Hardly a good advert for a site proclaiming to be a TEFL site!
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Thanks for all the comments so far. I think you’re being too kind, to be honest. Anyone fancy a job from his website?
John, you were a decent player at Chelsea, so what happened to you and why have you decided to become a TEFLer?
He wasn’t THAT good….
He was no Ashley Cole, er, wait, is that such a bad thing?
What? I didn’t get it!
TEFL means “Teaching English as a Foreign Language”.
“one of the leading ESL job site”
We can only assume that the information in that statement is as accurate as the grammar of it and the info in the rest of the article…
It saddens me that this is the all time most popular article on the Times, it really does. Thank you again to all who have commented.
This article makes me want to smoke crack… and not in the good way.