bitofarambler

The demand is a big part of it. Most non-native English speaking countries have hundreds or thousands of job postings available today, so if they’re going to attract the relatively few English teachers out there, the hours, pay and benefits have to be competitive.

SEA/South America are wide open markets, but the pay is generally going to be half of what you’ll get in East Asia. You’ll always make well above the CoL though, wherever you teach, and there are always lots of jobs to pick from, so if you have a preferred country it’ll still be a great time just living abroad in general.

I was just looking at jobs in Panama, and there’s a beachside town an hour away from the city offering $1100 a month for those same hours and benefits, although they do throw in free housing.

more general points.

you really are helping the students. at this moment in history, english is in demand for students, business and socializing in general, and by learning english they are afforded more real opportunities, so it’s a rewarding job in that sense.

every month you teach is a huge boon in terms of experience. if you ever want to go back to teaching and you have any amount of experience, you’ll be offered higher pay and better benefits.

A corollary is that once you teach, you’ll always have that job available. Want money but don’t want to work much? ESL. Need to save up capital or pay off debt back home? ESL. Want to offset all of your globetrotting habits? ESL. Most financial difficulties are fundamentally off the table if you’re an English teacher.

you’ll have so much free time that you can focus on your hobbies and interests, which was a huge part of me enjoying my time abroad, living my actual life.

Sure. Some general recommendations:

1. If you care a lot about where you teach, get a TEFL certificate. this is the one I got. All PDF tests, lifetime certification, internationally accredited, valid for any ESL job globally, plus TEFL certificates automatically give you access to the higher end of the pay scale.

You’ll be able to teach in your country and school of choice with this certificate.

That said, you don’t need a TEFL certificate to start teaching and if you fly to China on a tourist visa tomorrow and are a fluent English speaker, you will get a job in one of the first schools you inquire at. Someone might even stop you on the street to offer you a job if you look like a foreigner.

2. If a job doesn’t feel right, keep looking. There is a large, constant demand for English teachers globally and there is zero reason to take a job you aren’t comfortable with or a job that doesn’t provide the compensation and benefits you’re looking for.

3. DavesESLcafe is one of the original TEFL sites, and will give you an idea of what job postings look like online(that’s the China job board page), although typing “English teaching jobs in _______” whatever country you want is going to net plenty of job postings you can apply for.

I could go on, but I don’t want to overwhelm you.

If there’s anything specific you want addressed or you have followup questions, I’m happy to answer them.

nope.

some countries and schools require a TEFL certificate or prefer candidates with an associate’s degree depending on the position, but if you want to teach English, all you need is to be a fluent English speaker.

some English teachers i know aren’t even native speakers. they are very good at English and have a minimal accent.

for any fluent English speakers out there, it’s a very similar situation if you want to start teaching English abroad.

20-25 teaching hours a week, sign up bonuses, airfare reimbursement, at least a couple months of vacation per year, much lower cost of living in most countries, with maybe the field-specific benefit of thousands of job openings currently available.

Plus you get an adventure the whole time you’re in another country, new experiences and new cultures.

Definitely why I never went back to the work culture in the US.

I see, yeah, the 10-year anniversary of the 2008 scandal.

good article, I’m curious what the numbers are 7 years later.

it looks like in 2018 80 to 90% of Australian baby formula was exported to China!

I found a PDF explaining the specific domestic and local market share, so even after the scandal in 2008 about half of the baby formula in China was produced and bought domestically.

of course even half of the market is a huge amount of baby formula in real life considering the population of China.

the market research data only goes up to 2017

interesting, how do you mean?

not for a while, since the US has stockpiles and other outside sources and domestic resources, plus the defense and military arms of the US government will be the last industry to be affected by these import sanctions.

If these Chinese sanctions remain in place for any amount of time however, they will affect US corporate bottom lines much more rapidly and significantly than they affect the DoD, which is no small thing.

Corporate policy is argued to have determined the outcome of the '24 US presidential election, so the ramifications of further industries-wide vast US corporate loss in addition to the 11 trillion already lost are likely to lead to further policy change like the blocking of presidential tariff authority underway now.

the policy decisions of the Chinese government are extremely separated from the everyday lives of the people.

the CCP may refuse to sell expensive minerals to the us, but the Chinese population will buy the cheapest, freshest produce full stop. which is usually the local farmers.

I don’t think I’ve ever seen American produce in China, come to think of it.

during the last trade war, there wasn’t any anti-us purchasing sentiment from Chinese people themselves because everything they want is produced by China anyway.

the Chinese population, in effect, is and has been boycotting every other country all the time for decades because so many of their basic needs are met by domestic production.

I’d like to say that so are zombie films and media.

zombies have become an excuse to dehumanize and glorify justifiable violence against humans at this point.