I wouldn’t have stayed in the ESL industry for nearly twenty years if there weren’t some pretty decent benefits to it. Here is my attempt to sell you on the benefits of being an ESL Teacher
ESL teachers get to do highly rewarding work, be creative, work individually to plan and prepare classes but also work in a team/department environment to achieve results. The holidays, opportunity to travel and in general the secure nature of employment in the education field are also major bonuses.
During my career I have experienced all of the above and much more besides. Here I am going to unpack it all and talk through the benefits of being an ESL teacher. I am going to include the benefits of TEFL work in this list as well as I feel the two are sufficiently similar for the purposes of this article.
I am going to go from the more trivial benefits and work up to the greatest benefits at the end. And of course, I’ll be keeping it real with actual examples from my own career.
#10 – Giggles
Holy crap this has got to be one of the most awesome benefits. In what other job can you just walk into a room and play charades for half an hour and get away with it?
Seriously, on a daily basis I find myself laughing out loud at the misunderstandings, the games, and the slapstick nature that an ESL classroom can sometimes be. Even when teaching much higher levels, studying examples of sarcasm and standup routines is always a highlight of my week.
#9 – Acting
It’s just fun to act. Often I find myself getting involved a little too much in a role play situation and I find that the students really respond and get into alongside with me.
This week we role played a news reporter recording live from the scene of a wild animal that had just escaped from its cage in a zoo – it was a total blood bath, but the students loved it, and they got to practise past tense at the same time.
#8 – Wonga!
Let’s be honest, as much as I/we enjoy teaching ESL/TEFL we would not be doing it were it not for the money. And whilst you are not going to earn a fortune and retire a millionaire you can do very nicely out of it, especially if you hit a sweet spot in a country that pays a comparable salary to your home country but where the living costs are relatively low.
You should also see if you online teaching is ‘for you’. There is money to be made out there if you can get things set-up right. Have a read of my guide 5 Steps To Start Teaching English Online Today, here.
#7 – Bonuses
Not every employer of ESL/EFL teachers provides this but many of them do, especially where the teacher is on a one/two year renewable contract. Typically, you will be given a full months pay cheque as a bonus payment if you have performed satisfactorily over the course of the year. That is normally, could hard cash paid straight into your bank account, very nice.
#6 – The expat package
I am going to lump a few benefits in here together under this label as they are less commonly received in TEFL jobs, but as an ESL teacher in an international school you can expect to receive flights home as a minimum every second year. An initial settling in allowance, plus an allowance for shipping your belongings from back home to your new destination.
You should also get a decent health care package, indeed, I made great use of mine. I snapped two tendons in my shoulder playing rugby and was lucky enough to go to one of the best hospitals in Asia to have it operated on and all the follow up physiotherapy was included as well, as you can imagine I was very relieved by this!
Most international schools will also give you free places for your children although there is often a cap of two free places, and a fee for each child thereafter.
Importantly though, international schools will give you a far more professional environment for you to grow your career and develop as a teacher. In comparison, some language schools can feel just the opposite.
You might like: How Many Hours Does An ESL Teacher Work?
#5 – Job security
Right throughout the Covid 19 pandemic, whilst I have heard of teachers being laid off and jobs that were promised not being honoured, generally speaking, teaching has come through it well.
The world needs teachers be they subject teachers, or ESL teachers, we are needed. Being able to do the job online as well, also helps massively of course in this regards.
I might add to this that all the teacher I personally knew that were out of a job for one reason or another were all able to find news ones without too much difficulty. Having a good TEFL certificate is also pretty important. You might want to read my Insiders Guide To TEFL Certificates, here.
#4 – Location independence
You can teach ESL/TEFL/EAL in many countries around the world and there is consistent demand for our skills. Of course, you have to be careful to do you research on an orgrnisation before accepting any position but the knowledge that we can go and see a different part of the world fairly easily is awesome.
Personally, I have stuck mainly to Thailand, Vietnam, Japan and of course the UK for my employment but colleagues of mine work on a two year basis. They essentially rotate through different countries as they please.
Imagine this for a life, two years in Thailand, two years in Qatar, two years in Kenya, two years in Brazil and now this ESL teaching couple have moved onto somewhere in Italy – not a bad life hey!
#3 – Fascinating colleagues
This one mainly applies to TEFLers/those working abroad. I find it so refreshing to meet other like-minded people who have a passion for travel and teaching from different parts of the world who have also decided that they don’t want to stay in the rat race in their home country and have also taken the bull by the horns and entered the TEFL teaching game.
One of the things I got most sick about during my last teaching stint in the UK was the small-mindedness of the people around me. They were all so set in their ways, all so fixed in their way of thinking, they seemed blinkered to the world around them.
#2 – Freedom
Freedom, but not in the traditional sense of ‘I can run around and do what I want’ type of freedom, but freedom of the expectations of society in your home country. I have found my host country to be very tolerant of however I want to behave and I do not find that I am being constantly judged by my fellow countrymen for not having 2.4 children, a mortgage, and a dog to walk.
I feel free of all that sort of negativity, I understand that this one may not make much sense to you reading this but I do feel a certain relief to be away from that environment of judginess, yeah that’s a new word, judginess.
And finally, what I consider to be the greatest benefit of all to being an ESL teacher…
#1 – The journey
Picture the scene, it is the dead of winter in a small village in the North of England. A young 14 year old boy from Russia is sat on the wall of the playground on his own, miserable as sin and close to tears. He has not a word of English, he has no friends and no way of communicating with those around him save for body language. He is in a world of emotional pain and suffering.
Fast forward two and a half years and he is now one of the most popular students on campus. He speaks clearly and confidently and can write in a variety of different genres. He has just scored a 5.5 in his IELTS test and so can get onto the college course of his choice and is well integrated into school life and has even spoken at whole school events.
Being the person, the ESL teacher that first takes him through the alphabet and teaches him the very basics of the language when all the mainstream teachers are doing is complaining about why he has been accepted into the school with virtually no English.
Being the person that they trust to help them figure out this whole ‘planet English’ they have been dropped into the middle of and seeing them progress so strongly is a truly magical thing.
In fact, it is my favourite thing. I love it when a new student walks through the door all shy and nervous with very little English and nothing but a dream, because I know that I can make a massive difference in that student’s life. They may not yet know it, but I know that by harnessing my ESL superpowers and given sufficient time that I can transform that student’s life – it’s truly awesome!
So, there we have it. I hope you found that list of benefits enlightening and if you haven’t tried teaching ESL or TEFLing yet, if you have read this far down the page then you must have some level of interest so just go out there and give it a go – you never know where you might end up!
If you want to know more about the dark side and disadvantages of teaching TEFL then take a look at this article I wrote here about the Pros and Cons of TEFL.