Becoming an ESL teacher can be highly rewarding, lucrative and life-changing experience if done right, but how long does it take to become an ESL teacher?
It takes 4 to 5 years to become a state licensed US based ESL teacher in government schools. However, it can be a matter of weeks to start teaching ESL in a language institute or even a matter of hours if you are wanting to teaching ESL online, unaccredited.
Further to the above, we need to consider that some people put ESL, EFL and EAL jobs into the same basket. In which case, the picture becomes even more varied. Let’s now take a look at each of these cases in much more detail and consider the likely time, qualifications and experience needed to get started in each of those roles.
Firstly, though, remember that traditionally an ESL teacher teaches English to students who are studying in a country where the first language is English. That means teaching English language to international students from abroad in an English speaking country.
For example, a Chinese student studying English in America, or a Russian student studying in the UK. For this reason we will not be including EFL job roles in this article i.e. going abroad to teach English, apart from the international school section which I felt was a relevant aside.
You might also be interested in my popular article titled Can You Make A Career Out Of TEFL, here.
How Long To Become An ESL Teacher In The US School System?
Therefore there are two main options for ESL jobs, firstly, schools and secondly in language institutes. In general the requirements for teaching in US state schools will be much higher.
Typically, it will mean completing a 4 year education degree followed by or blended in with the coursework and other requirements to gain a state teaching license. Most of the ESL teaching job in schools on jobtopgun.com seem to ask for this, or a variation thereof. Here is a snippet of one such ad recently:
So, it seems as though 4 years is the minimum you could get away with for a US school.
How Long To Become An ESL Teacher in the UK School System?
To work in a UK school as an ESL teacher there is more flexibility. Academies, free schools and independent schools can employ anyone they deem suitable, and not just someone who holds QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) which is the standard teaching route typically requiring either a 3 year degree plus a PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate in Education) and a one year Newly Qualified Teacher (NQT) training year to be completed.
Strangely though, you cannot actually do an NQT year featuring ESL/EAL as your subject/specialisation, you would have to do a straight English subject specialism.
Also, there do not appear to be many roles as ESL teachers available in UK state schools. There were 3 listed at the time of publishing on the premium UK jobs board TES.co.uk and none of them were on the same pay scale as mainstream teachers, so a bit of subject bias there.
Overall, though, seeing as though school’s can employ people without being fully qualified to work there, you could probably get in to one of them on a lower salary scale based on experience, some form of ESL certification and good references.
That would still take a number of years to accumulate so you would be better off getting fully qualified and certified (PGCE/NQT year) if you were serious about teaching in schools as a career.
Following that, you would then have to do a PGCE focused on a traditional subject area, like Geography, Maths, and so on before switching back to ESL, but I’m not sure anyone would want to after having put all the effort in to get qualified in a subject area.
This leaves job roles in independent schools as the most likely route to getting an ESL role in a school without having a PGCE. An increasing number of private schools make money from allowing students from abroad to join their school.
This of course means they need suitable staff to teach them and this is where your ESL/TEFL certification, experience and good references could get you a foot in the door and get you started in an independent school as an ESL teacher.
At this point, you might also be interested in reading my eye opening guide to the pros and cons of TEFL teaching here.
How Long To Become An ESL Teacher In An International School?
To work as an ESL teacher in international school then similar qualifications are required. Take a look at this extract of a job description for the role of EAL teacher at a decent international school in Bangkok.
As you can see, you would need to be a fully qualified teacher with a PGCE and with three years experience. So, that would essentially mean it would take you 7 years to apply for a role such as that if you are starting from scratch. The school advertising is a British school but I believe American qualifications are accepted just as readily.
Also check out: How Many Hours Does An ESL Teacher Work?
How Long To Become An ESL Teacher In A Language Institute?
Theoretically, being private institutes they can employ anyone. At a real stretch they could employ someone with no qualifications or experience if it were someone they thought had the personality traits and motivation to do well.
Usually though, a TEFL certificate of some description would be required, the CELTA tends to be the entry level certification of choice and anyone can take that. It is a 120 hour course with around 10 hours supervised teaching.
Personally, I rate these courses quite highly as they give not only a good grounding in ESL teaching but also in the same practical classroom skills that sometimes a traditional PGCE course that focuses on theory and coursework do not so readily give you.
In fact, I was way ahead of my peers on my PGCE course due to the fact that I had done this type of qualification and even to this day I fall back on some of the methods I first learned on one such course.
In my opinion, if you are interested in becoming a teacher but don’t know if you are going to like teaching or if you have the personal qualities to become a teacher then I would strongly recommend doing one of these courses as a way to get some real world experience and a respected qualification at the same time.
Just to round up this discussion on ‘how long does it take to become an ESL teacher’ you could, of course, jump straight into ‘teaching’ conversation classes online immediately with no qualifications, experience, or training!
All you need to do is create a profile on a site such as italki, upload a few videos and sales blurb and you can be accepting students within minutes, literally!
You would of course be looking at the bottom end of the hourly rates, but on these platforms it is all about building up a reputation for yourself and then there’s no stopping you, no qualifications, or experience needed!
In order to get the higher paying online students out there though you would definitely want to move away from general conversation classes as quickly as possible. You need to develop some sort of specialism, perhaps related to your previous career, English for Tourism, and Business English stand out as two likely candidates.
Failing that, you can take a look at specialising in exam preparation classes. Something like IELTS, TOEFL and TOEIC. The quickest way to get to know one of these exams is to actually do those tests yourself. There are plenty available online but by actually doing it you will understand what the students are facing and then you can go on to read all of the exam prep sites that are out there which will now make much more sense to you.
If you do this, then you will be ready to start marketing yourself as an exam prep specialist. Once more you may have to start at the lower hourly rates and work your way up but it is certainly viable, and don’t forget the location freedom you have with this kind of income.
You could do everything I have just recommended to get started with online ESL teaching and exam prep in a long afternoon should you have the motivation and desire.
So, what are you waiting for people, there is an ESL career out there for anyone who is prepared to put their mind to it, starting from whatever point you are at right now in life, what are you waiting for, go for it!
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