BootsnAll Travel Community

Hi Bootsnall community, I have spent several days reading through the site and appreciate all of the info. I hope that a few people who have direct experience will respond to my questions as follows:

My wife & I are US born and raised, with conventional 4 year BS degrees. We have had varied careers in large and small businesses, including 2 years working in the British Virgin Islands, and a reasonable amount of foreign travel. Our children are grown, and we recently sold a retail book business that we owned and operated for 15 years. All of this has led us to consider teaching English overseas. We have done lots of reading online, including TEFLDaddy, Dave's ESL Cafe, Ajarn, Thorn Tree and others and like what we have seen.

Currently we are considering going to either Thailand or Vietnam, with Korea a less likely possibility. Our questions at this point include the following:

How do we decide which country should be our first choice?

When is the principal hiring season in each country?

If we are willing to pay for the best course, what is the difference between CELTA and TEFL in this country? What about worldwide? Is there any advantage to taking the course in in the US vs. the country where we want to teach?

How do we evaluate different training programs & schools?

How do we find out about availability of medical insurance and prescription drugs in a country?

Are there other web sites or forums that we should be reading?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Hey
I'm teaching in Korea and only visited Vietnam so can't give a full answer.
I would ask yourself why are going is it for the experience, a career move, change of lifestyle or financial reasons.

I can quite confidently say Korea is the best financially. The cost of living compared to average salary can't be beaten.

In Korea the main hiring seasons are for starts in March and September so recruiting is New year/ Feb time and July/August time.

CELTA V TEFL- It can be a long argument. In korea CELTA is not considered any higher than a TEFL course. Here it's either a Masters in English or a course like TEFL/CELTA. Saying that the CELTA is a much better qualification if you want to do it for career development.

Not a lot of difference from doing it in the US to abroad ( i would say though CELTA is pretty difficult and is full time so being in place where you can have time to work on it would be better).

Finding out about school. It can and will be a nightmare. If you go in to public school system then the official programs are best if an academy then it can be hit or miss. To be honest korea is very hit or miss.

Medical Insurance comes out of your wages here and the health care will match that of the US in the majority of cases. I guess if you have some random disease then maybe you'd come into a few issues but you would anywhere in the world.

Hope that helps

Thank you blue, I appreciate your help.