Let’s find out! Is doing a TEFL certificate online a viable work from home/ work online option?
You may have noticed we heavily promote the benefits of getting a TESOL/TEFL certificate as a way for people to get started as ESL teachers and start working from home.
Here are 7 reasons why teaching English online is a viable option for anyone!
- You don’t have to have experience
- A TESOL/TEFL certificate can be completed at a reasonable price
- A TESOL/TEFL certificate can be completed in a short period of time while you plan your new life
- There are lots of ESL jobs out there
- Earn up to US$26 per hour, or even more if you work for yourself
- You don’t need a degree
- You’ll have more time to pursue other dreams and goals
Now to be upfront, I don’t have ESL teaching experience. I have instead worked for years on the other side of things, recruiting teachers for positions all over the world including China, Thailand, Chile, Korea, Japan and France. And of course for positions online!
We at Just ESL Jobs/Just ESL Resumes know what schools want in an applicant, we know what a good resume looks like and how to help candidates get the roles they want. But honestly, we have no real idea what it is like to try and manage the time to get the TESOL/TEFL course completed while having other commitments. And as much as we have been told by graduates that the TESOL/TEFL course wasn’t too difficult, we really have no idea! We also don’t know what the recruiting process is like as a candidate when it’s time to actually try and find a job.
We get a lot of questions from people who are just itching to TEFL certificate online but aren’t sure how long it takes or how difficult it is.
The most common ones include:
- Will it take forever to complete?
- Is it worth the money?
- Will I actually get a job when I finish?
- Do I need to have any teaching experience?
- Don’t I have to go to university to be a teacher?
- Will I get help from my TESOL provider if I need it?
- What if I haven’t studied for a long time?
- Do I really need the TESOL certificate to get a job?
- Should I do it online or face to face?
So we decided one of us was going to do the TEFL certificate online to see what it’s really like!
We talked to our friends ateTEFL Online about the common questions we are asked and they agreed that one of us had to give the course a go to see how easy and worthwhile it is.
They kindly offered to sponsor me (Rach) to do their accredited 120 Hour TESOL/TEFL course!
It’s an internationally recognised TEFL ccertificate online course and is the industry standard for TESOL certification.
You could be working online, either from home or from anywhere in the world before you know it!
I know from a recruiting perspective that there are companies out there who take on candidates without a TEFL certificate, but most commonly that is for people who are already teachers. But a lot of companies don’t even require a TESOL certificate to get started, as long as you can prove you are completing it!
So you can start applying for jobs once you are enrolled in your TEFL certificate online, and have your ESL focused resume and cover letter sorted out.
I start my TESOL/TEFL course next week and will be keeping everyone up to date with how I go. I’ll be writing a series of blogs during and after the course, and even applying for some jobs myself just to see the application process from a candidates perspective. My main goals are to answer the questions we get asked most often, and to gain some insight into what it is like for people wanting to do a TEFL certificate online.
We have decided to set some guidelines for the completion of this experiment, as we want to make it as realistic as possible for other prospective digital nomads. The guidelines include:
- I am going to get no special favours from the eTEFL Online team, I am going to rely on their amazing tutoring and mentoring.
- I am going to squeeze the course in around my other commitments which include all the normal things like home life, work and exercise.
- I don’t have any special flash equipment, just a laptop and wifi.
- I aim to forget everything I know about the industry when studying and then use that information when searching for a job
This is really exciting! I can’t wait to tell you guys all about it, so you can see that it could be the right way for you to start earning an income from home within weeks.
Further Reading:
Part 2: Is Doing a TEFL Certificate Online Really That Easy?