 from ITTT, back with another live session this week. Welcome! And today, this is what we're going to talk about. This way. Teaching English abroad without any experience. Is it possible? How is it possible? What can you do if you don't have any experience? All this and more is what we're going to talk about today. So welcome. Thanks for joining me today. Very excited. Let me know if you can see me, if you can hear me clearly, if everything is working fine, please do let me know. Always very important to make sure that everything is working fine and you can see me, you can hear me so that everything works okay. Don't forget to like and subscribe right off the bat when I mention that. And please also let me know where you're watching from today. Where are you right now? What time is it there? I am in South Korea and it is 10 a.m. Friday morning. So my usual time when I go live, this is it. And maybe you've watched before, you know how this usually works. But maybe this is your first time, if this is your first time watching. Thank you for joining. And it's going to be fun today. It's going to be very, very fun today. Lots of interesting things we're going to cover. And yeah, please let me know where you're watching from today. Excuse me. And maybe first off, I also want to mention that we do have a 30% off opportunity. Very exciting. So what you can do, and I'm just going to make this bigger real quick. So you can see this better. So you can actually scan this QR code and get 30% off any Teflur T sole course from ITTT. If you cannot scan the QR code, we also have a link you can copy paste, and it works just as well. So this looks like that the link ends in Facebook live minus Linda. And if you use this code, you will save 30% off of any Teflur T sole course from ITTT today. So just want to mention that right out of the bat, right in the beginning. So you don't miss that. And I'm going to mention that later on again. So don't you worry if you forget to do this now. There is also a QR code in the upper right hand corner throughout the entire live session. So you can also scan this way if if you can, if not, you can always use the link. So no problem. All right. And then we hear we hear here, we have Laura from Ecuador. Hi Laura, thanks for joining today. And we also have Zayed Zayed from Tunisia. Nice. Welcome. Welcome to Ecuador. Tunisia. I'm in Korea. We're like all over the world today. I love it. We have Hecmatula. Good morning. I hope be well teacher. I am very well. Thank you so much. How are you doing? Hey Laura. Awesome. We have people watching from or over on YouTube and we have people watching on Facebook. So we're live on both platforms. That's usually how we do it. So please don't forget to like and subscribe. So you don't miss any of our upcoming live sessions. We do go live every week, completely free, sharing information about TEFL, TESOL, teaching English abroad online, whatever it is, all these kinds of topics. This is what we do here. And also on Facebook, on the page, for example, we share a lot of good content every day that you can use in your classroom if you're a teacher or job offers. That's also what we share on there or any kind of useful information for teachers and those who want to be teachers. So don't miss out on that. And also on our YouTube channel, we have a lot of good videos, resources that you can use for your journey. We have Amitava here. Hello in Calcutta, India. It's 635 a.m. Very nice. We have Abby. Hello, Miss. How are you? I'm good. Abby, how are you? We have Sandra in Los Angeles. It's 6 p.m. Pacific time, Thursday, first time seeing. Oh, hey. Welcome, welcome. Everybody's welcome to join. Zed, Zaid, sorry. I don't know how to pronounce Zed or Zaid. I'm happy to join. I'm happy that you are here, too. Thank you so much. We have a lot of people over on YouTube today. That's awesome. Great. Okay. Very nice. Very nice. So let me maybe introduce myself real quick. And please keep your comments coming about where you're watching from. Everybody who's tuned in. And let me make this bigger so you can read. So my name is Linda. I do many different things. But these are the two main things that I do. So on the one side, I am a travel writer and content creator under the name Linda, goes East, East because Asia has been my passion for a long time. And that's why East. And so if you're interested in Asia in, I've lived in China and in South Korea, and I've traveled all over Asia. If you're interested in that, go and check out Linda goes East.com. I would really, really appreciate that. And also if you are on Instagram, go ahead and check out Linda at Linda goes East, my Instagram handle and just give me a follow and a like. And if you have any questions that you don't want to ask here in front of everybody, you can always send me a DM that is also possible. And I can just get back to you privately. I'm originally from Germany slash USA. So my mom is German and my dad is American. So I have this mixed background. But I have been based in South Korea for over seven years over. It's yeah, seven and a half years now. Before that, I also lived in China and I've been teaching for so many years. A long time. I've been teaching English. I've also started teaching German last year. I started teaching online a year and a half ago during COVID. So yeah, I also do in-person teaching obviously. And that's also why I am here for ITTTT and I am a Teflitesal Marketing professional as well. So I kind of slid into this role. I was teaching English in China and I knew that I wanted to move to Korea. And so I was looking for Tefl certification to increase my chances. And I did research and I found ITTT. And I hit them up and I was like, hey, maybe we can work together. You know, I'm a content creator. I'm a travel writer. Maybe we can do something. And they liked that. And that's kind of how I became involved with ITTT. And I took the courses and I moved to, I taught in China. I moved to Korea. And I started working for ITTT as well in a marketing department. And yeah, ITTTT, ITTT, I somehow, since last week, I cannot say this anymore. I don't know what's wrong. ITTT stands for International Tefl and TESOL Training. And our website is TeflCourse.net. And yeah, we are a leading Tefl and TESOL course provider worldwide. Lots of different courses. I'm going to show you some in just a second if you're totally new to this. But yeah, lots of different courses for people who want to become English teachers professionally, abroad, or online, whatever route you want to go, you want to take. We have a course for you. So yeah, let's see. We have Ali here. Ali or Ali, I think Ali. Nice to hear you. Hi. How are you doing? Okay, so I think it's Zayet then. Is it Zayet? The first spelling is correct. Okay, Zayet. Good. Linda, we have another Linda. Hi, Linda. Awesome. Linda and Linda. Love it. I always love meeting someone who also has my name, which doesn't actually happen that often. I'm surprised. So very happy. Then Zayet is asking, do I need the course to teach overseas? So we're going to definitely answer this question in just a minute. And again, today's topic is teaching English abroad without any experience, right? I mean, we all start somewhere. We all start at the bottom where we don't have any experience. So as with any job, it's become more and more difficult to start somewhere new because everybody wants you to have experience, but it's like, you want me to have experience for an entry level position, but how do I get the experience? So that's kind of what we're going to talk about today. And I'm trying to kind of take your fear a little bit if teaching English abroad or online has been something that's been on your mind, then this live session is definitely for you. And also feel free to ask questions throughout this live session via the comment section. I keep an eye on that at all times. So if you have any questions, I'll be there to answer them. And yeah, let's just jump in. And I'm going to make myself smaller. I'm still here, but I want you to be able to read the slides better. So that's what we're going to do today. Okay. All right. Yeah. Oh, and there will also be a Q&A section at the end. So we can ask other questions that related to today's topic. So the first thing I want you to know is that the demand for English teachers outstrips supplies. So that means there are more vacant positions for English teaching positions around the world than there are teachers to fill them with, which is great news for us, right? Great news. So that means if you really, really, really want to teach English abroad, you will definitely be able to find a position somewhere, right? Because the demand is just so, so big. And let's take a look at where the demand is. So where can you teach English abroad with no experience? And you can see there's so many pins in this map. And this isn't even all right. I just put in the hot spots. So pretty much on every continent, anywhere you want to go to, you can find a position. Traditional hot spots are definitely Asia where you can find positions. And that is the biggest English foreign language teaching market in the world, Asia. So if like me, you like Asia, you're interested in Asia, that's a great, great place to start. And also something to keep in mind, even if you want to go and teach somewhere where maybe it's maybe experience is required or some other requirement that you don't have yet, you don't, you're not married to your teaching destination. So you can start, for example, somewhere where it's easier to get into, like a country in Asia, for example, or you can get some teaching experience in South America, where it's also relatively easy to find a position, you can spend a year there, a year actually goes by super, super fast, especially when you're having fun living abroad, it goes by super fast. So you can spend a year there, get your teaching experience, and then you can go to the place that you actually originally had in mind that maybe first didn't work out. Okay? That's the beauty of having a TEFL certificate that you can basically go anywhere and teach anywhere in the world you like. You're very flexible. And most of the teaching contracts, they last for a year, 12 months, but some you can also find for six months if you don't want to commit for a whole year. So that's just something to keep in mind. All right. So basically, literally, you can teach anywhere the demand is here. And I also have this very useful sheet for you. I like to share spreadsheets. If you're watching for the first time, this is something that happens quite often. And I'm just going to copy the link here and share it in the comment section. But what this is, and I'm going to show you guys, oh, I'm going to show you, yeah, this one, yes. So this is the sheet. So what you can do is you just click on that on this link. And what you want to do is you want to go to file and then make a copy and then you can make your own copy. But basically what this is, as you can see, this is sorted by, can you see that? Yeah, sorted by continents. So we have Asia here, countries in Asia, with Europe, South and Central America, and we have Middle East and Africa. And you will find information about teaching experience. So this is what we're going to talk about today, right? So that's why I highlighted that in green. So for every country, you're going to see if teaching experience is required. And these are the most popular countries in Asia for teaching abroad. And as you can see, most countries don't require any teaching experience, right? So this is really good, except for here Kazakhstan, and Malaysia and Myanmar are preferred. And then we also have Mongolia, which yes, they require prior teaching experience. So except for all of these, oh, and India, sorry, so except for these couple of countries, no prior teaching experience is required. So you really have a big pool to choose from here, right? And once you have that, if you don't have any teaching experience, and then you can look at all the other requirements, a degree is a degree required, is it suitable for non native English speakers, any age restrictions, and then you can find the country that suits your needs, okay? And then you want to go to. And the same here for Europe, the same here for South and Central America, and to Middle East and Africa. So yeah, what you can do is click on the link that I shared the docs. Oh, and diet is already teaching in Tunisia. Great. Okay. Tunisia is also up on our list, right? Oh, it's not. Interesting. Maybe we can add that in the Tunisia with some information with your help, Syed. Okay, so you can go here and then just go to file and make a copy. So you have your own version, and you can save it for your own purposes, all right? Great. Okay, good. Then let's get back to our thing here. If you have any questions, if this doesn't work for you, let me know and I will check it out and help you out. So yeah, this is kind of your first step. If you don't have any teaching experience, you can kind of refer to the sheet and see where you can teach and what is possible. Okay, now let's talk a little bit about four tips for finding a Tefl job abroad without teaching experience. So four tips. If you don't have any teaching experience, I'm going to share four tips with you, what you can do to enhance your chances and to still find a job abroad. All right. So the first one, of course, we have to talk about this. The first step is to get Tefl certified. Now on the sheet that I've shared with you, oh, it doesn't actually say that. Okay, so there are some countries, right, where a Tefl certificate is a requirement and then some other countries where it is not. However, even the countries where it is not a requirement, it is getting more and more competitive out there in these countries and also the employers, they typically require their teachers to have a Tefl certificate, especially if you don't have any teaching experience, you don't have any teaching experience, you don't have any Tefl certificate, nothing. It's just going to be a little bit hard, right? So if you don't have any teaching experience, the least you can do is get Tefl certified and learn everything you need to learn all the basic skills for teaching. That's what the Tefl course covers, right? And that will help you get your job. That's the first step to this journey, right? So and you want to get not just any Tefl certificate, not just the cheapest one available, you want to get at least a 120-hour Tefl qualification from an accredited course provider that is very, very important. So why 120 hours? Well, the international standard, the international minimum, pretty much is 100 hours of Tefl training and there actually aren't any, not at ITTT at least, but also what I've seen, there aren't actually Tefl courses with exactly 100 hours. So most common, it is 120 hours. So that's what you want to aim for. There are some courses like 50-hour courses, 60-hour Tefl courses. They are not going to be enough for a long-term, full-time teaching position. A 50-hour or a 60-hour or even less than that, those kinds of courses are good if let's say you want to do like an English summer camp teaching experience or volunteer teaching, something like that. But if you want to do this for at least a year at a professional, real school, full-time, you really should get a 120-hour certificate. On top of that, like I said, 120 hours has become the international standard. So that means many people will have 120 hours. So what you can do, especially if you want to go to a very competitive country or a competitive city, what you can do is you can take specialized Tefl courses. So this could be a course specifically for teaching business English, for example, or specifically for teaching children. Or we also have a course specifically for teaching online if you want to teach online. So these kinds of courses are really going to give you an edge. They are going to set you apart from everybody else who already has the standard certificate. And so down here, I have listed our most popular courses. So you want to start with 120 hours. That is the minimum, but actually my favorite one. And this is the one that I also took is the 220-hour master package. So this one includes the 120-hour course plus two specializations, which is the business English plus teaching young learners, because those two really are the biggest fields in English teaching. So if you have those two qualifications on top of the standard qualifications, this is perfect. And that's why I also took that course. And it's really helped me, right? I have taught children, children, if you teach English in Asia, you're most likely going to be teaching children. So if you don't have any experience, someone who's very young, like when I started fresh out of college, you don't have any experience, they really like seeing that young learners certificate. So they know that even a college grad can handle these children. It's just a huge plus. And then also the business English certificate that came in very handy for me. I also taught business English at different companies in Korea. And in China, also I taught a doctor who wanted to move to America. So it's kind of also more a professional kind of English class. So that also really, really helped me because the teaching styles for teaching children and teaching business English or professionals, business professionals, English is completely different. So it's just good to know that. And then we also have 470 hour professional package and the 550 hour expert package. This is the biggest package that we offer. So this is really great. If you know, you want to be teaching for the next couple of years. This is your career. You really want to do this and you aim high. You aim for like a head teacher position or for like a really high level kind of school, then you want to get as many hours as possible as you can. So that's basically it. All right, then we have a question here from boss. What is this barfios? Okay, barfios maximas. I love it. Barfios maximas. Are Americans still welcome in China? Yes, they are. So we at ITTT actually work with a lot of different recruitment companies. And we have a lot of connections and a big network with recruitment agencies and schools throughout China. And they are still eager to hire Americans and other foreigners as well. Definitely. So positions are out there. And if you look on our website, actually tefilcourse.net and then in the header menu, you'll find sort of in the middle, it says jobs. And if you click on that, you'll actually, you can scroll down to in-class jobs in China. You can click on China. And then you see all of the available positions. And they just come in every day pretty much. They are very, very recent positions. And yeah, we are working with recruiters and they search really for qualified teachers year round, right? China is just a very big market. Yeah, you're welcome. Great. Okay. All right. Then I think this was all about the first point. Let me see. Yes. Okay. So the second tip, what you can do, and this is something that I mentioned kind of in the beginning, choose the right destination. This should actually be choose the right destination. Okay. So if you don't have any experience yet, any teaching experience, like I mentioned in the beginning, Asia, South America and Southern and Eastern Europe are actually great options if you don't have any teaching experience. And like I said, I'm sort of an Asia expert. I've been living in Asia, teaching in China and Korea for a long time. And I've worked in many different schools. And most teachers there are probably like more than half, I would say 60%, 70% actually came with completely no experience. Fresh of the boat, they didn't have any experience. And schools also liked that, especially if you start working at like a chain, there are a lot of actually big chain private schools throughout different countries in Asia. And they all have their own like internal system, they use their own books, their own, their own like interactive like platforms and stuff. So actually they like people who don't have any experience because they can basically mold and shape them into their desired teaching style, if that makes sense. So from that point of view, they actually think it's a good thing that you don't have experience, they can still mold you and shape you into the kind of teacher and the kind of teaching style that they want you to teach. So that's something to keep in mind. And then something also what you need to know if you're new to teaching English abroad, the biggest TEFL job markets in the world are China, still China and also Japan, South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. So those are actually the biggest. And as you can see, all of these are in Asia, right? So again, Asia is just a great market for teaching English abroad. But if you really don't want to teach English in Asia, I'm not forcing you to go there. I mean, you can still go somewhere else like it says in the first point, South America is also really, really great and Southern and Eastern Europe. So yeah, you don't need to go to Asia. But also what I mentioned, so if you want to go somewhere else where it is more competitive, you can just do a year teaching English somewhere in Asia where it's easier to get a job and it's just an easy way to get experience. And after this year, you move to the place where you actually originally wanted to go. That's also something a lot of people do. The third point here, many countries, they require teachers to have a bachelor's degree. So it's important to do your research about the requirements to make sure that you're eligible to teach in the country where you want to teach in. And this is also where, again, where this sheet comes in handy that I shared earlier. It also says whether or not a degree is required. This is over here. So you can also check that out. And again, a degree means a four year degree. Sometimes a two year associates degree is also okay in some cases, but generally speaking, they're talking about a four year degree. However, if you don't have a four year degree and you don't have teaching experience, you can still find positions teaching English abroad here if there's a degree required. No, teaching experience required. No, sounds good. So it looks like Cambodia might be a good choice for you. So this is why I shared the sheet and you can really have a look. Good, Laura says, which countries accept two year degrees? Yeah, good question. Let's have a look. Where here? It should be, no, it's not on the sheet. It just says preferred or not. So some, it's kind of rare, I will say that. It will specifically say that in some cases, two year degrees are okay. I would suggest just doing as much research as you can if you have like a country or maybe you can tell me if you have a country or a couple of countries that you're interested in going to and you only have two year degree. And then maybe I can help you in maybe that way. If you tell me the countries or, you know, if it says yes for China, it's a four year degree. For Korea, it's also a four year degree. For Japan, I think it's a four year degree. Yeah. And then obviously where it says no, then those countries, they would be also happy if you have a degree and if it's also just two years, that's fine. So, yeah. Oh, what is CTPR? Okay, CTPR. Yeah. CTPR is a certificate in, what is it? Of course, now I don't know. Teaching practice recognition. Teaching practice recognition. Hold on. Where did you read that? Hold on. CTPR. Certificate of teaching practice recognition. So, that is basically if you are already Teflor TESOL certified, but you are lacking teaching practice, then you can take this 30 hour CTPR course on top of that. And this basically shows employers that you have completed six hours of teaching practice, right? Because the online course does not, yes, practicum, right? Because the online course does not include any teaching practice because it's online. So if some countries, they require that, then yeah, you can do that on top of it. All right. Laura says, I'm working towards my Bachelor's of Science in Information Technology from Oregon Tech, Class of 2024. I'm interested in Japan. Okay. I think Japan and your are Teflor certified with 120 hours. I think Japan actually might be possible with a two-year degree. I think that I have read something and they also have the JET program. So I think it might be possible with a two-year degree, yes. Or you can wait until 2024 and then you definitely qualify for it if you have a Bachelor's degree. But actually with two years, I think it might be possible. So please check that out in more detail. I'm not 100% sure, but I think I remember reading something about that. Oh, Niso says, four-year degree. We in the UK only have three-year ones unless it's part-time or to do with medicine. Interesting. So yeah, I mean, as long as it's a Bachelor's degree, yeah. I think in America, it's usually four years, right? A Bachelor's degree. But yeah, if it's in the UK, it's just three. I mean, that's just how it is different, right? Culture difference. But if it's a Bachelor's degree, if it's the same level as a Bachelor's degree, then that's fine. Interesting. I didn't know that that's in the UK. It's only three years. Interesting. Okay. Learn something. Cool. Okay. All right. So that's that about the destination that was the number two tip here. And then we're going to have a look at tip number three, which is, prepare your TEFL CV, right? As with any job application, the right CV or resume without any errors and nothing is the key here to landing a great position, all right? And a TEFL CV, if you have worked before in a different job, you need to adjust your CV accordingly because a TEFL CV is just a little bit different. And I actually did a live session about this topic in the past, not too long ago, about how, I don't remember exactly what it was called, but about TEFL resumes. So you can check that out in our playlist. And that, obviously that live session goes into much more detail than just the slide, but yeah, all the key components of a good TEFL resume that is getting you hired. So here, key things to keep in mind for a TEFL CV or resumes, definitely that there should be no, there's no room for errors, right? There cannot be any spelling errors and grammar errors, anything like that, because you are applying to be a teacher, right? So if you make spelling mistakes and grammar mistakes, it's not a good look, okay? And then also contrary to, for example, in the US or in other countries on a teaching resume, especially if you're applying for a position in a different country, right? Especially in Asia and other countries, you need to include a lot of personal information, actually. So also contact details, obviously, but actually, I mean personal details. So your name, your date of birth, sometimes even your height and your weight, it can be actually quite extreme, especially if you're applying in Asian countries, I know in Korea, it's like that for job applications, they want to know your height, your weight, your date of birth. And sometimes even your parents' jobs, it's pretty crazy, actually, very different. So just don't be shocked, that is very normal. And you should also include a professional photo of yourself, okay? So a photo is definitely 100%, you're going to need that on your resume. Also something that is different from other countries in the West. We do need a photo and this cannot be any like a selfie you took somewhere while you were traveling, it needs to be a professionally taken photograph. So I recommend going to a photo studio and letting them know you need a professional photo or you need a photo for a resume and they usually, they will know what to do and they'll help you out. Also make sure that you add in relevant skills and qualifications, what always looks good is language skills. If you speak any other languages besides English, that always looks really good because if you're a language learner, that is a huge plus for a language teacher. That means if you have learned a language yourself, you know what it's like to be a language learner, that is just a huge bonus for a teaching job. And then any kind of experience abroad, right? If you don't have any work experience, any kind of experience that you had abroad, maybe you did, even if you did like backpacking through somewhere, you can add that in or if you did like a summer camp somewhere or like an exchange with school, anything, any kind of experience abroad will be a huge plus that kind of shows that you are able to adjust to a new situation, you are curious about other cultures because the worst thing that can happen for a school or a recruiter like this, they spend a lot of money on the hiring process. Some of them especially in Asia pay for your airplane ticket, they pay for your housing, they pay all the visa fees. So it's very expensive to hire someone from abroad. So the worst thing that can happen to them is they hire you, they spend all this money, you get there and then you are unable to adjust to the new culture and the country and you just up and leave, right? That's the worst thing that can happen. Then they just wasted all that money and they need to hire a new teacher. So very annoying. So something like this will look really, really great on the resume and kind of ensures them that you are the right person and you're not going to do that. And believe me, this happened before. I've met a couple of teachers who could not handle the culture shock and they just left. So that can be very annoying. And then also again, any experience related to teaching if you do have, you know, if it's not like professional teaching, you can put any kind of experience tutoring if you tutored somebody, even if it's your little sister, put it on there, you know, make it sound nice. Or if any kind of experience leading a group, if you had in university or you did like a project with a group and you were kind of leading the group, that always looks really good as well. Anything like that, if you don't have any proper experience, work experience, teaching experience, you can find something to put on there. That sounds nice. All right. Here we have, oh, Laura, I wanted to click on that first. Laura says I'm learning Spanish and Japanese. So that, yeah, that looks really, really great. And especially because you said you want to go to Japan. So if you already put that on there, then it's a huge plus, right? Because that shows you are interested in that country, in that culture. So first of all, you want to go there. You are already familiar maybe with the culture through your learning, and you're not going to have culture shock and leave. And you're able to communicate. So huge plus. And you can kind of feel for your students who are learning English because you're learning Japanese. So that's very, very good. Oh, and you are tutoring Japanese now. Yeah, that's great too. You can put that on the resume as well. That is going to look really, really good. Maiden, hello. Maiden says, definitely shop around for a professional photographer as their fees can vary greatly. I had my head shot done today at a great price. Oh, awesome. How much did you pay? But that's, is that an LA? How much did you pay for that? Yeah. So I mean, again, prices very greatly. And I found that Instagram is a great resource for that, especially if you live in a bigger city. You can kind of search photographers through that. Or yeah, LinkedIn might be good. A good place to start. So yeah. Laura visited Japan in 2018 and 2019. Awesome. Great. Yeah. I think you're on a good path to go to Japan for sure. Sounds very good. Good. Yeah. So this was tip number three to just check your resume and polish it to make it look better if you don't have any teaching experience. And then we are, was this the final one? I think I said four tips, right? And then once you've done all that, you will apply for jobs. Okay. And first thing to know if you are an ITTT course graduate, all of our course grads, they get lifetime job assistance. And I'm going to explain a little bit more about what that means in just a second. And then you can look for jobs on suitable online job boards, for example, like I just mentioned, LinkedIn is a great place to start. ESL Cafe is like a oldie, but a goodie, a go-to. Jubal and there's lots of different ones more. There are also some specific ones specific for the country, right? So you can have a look around. I also did live sessions about, for example, specifically, if you are interested in Asia, I did a live session about teaching English in Asia. And I cover all the most important countries and different websites where you can find jobs. You can also go with EFL recruitment agencies who operate worldwide. Now, I know that some people are kind of very wary about EFL recruitment agencies, recruiters, because there are so many horror stories of recruiters out there. But actually, recruiters are really good. And I have used recruiters in the past. They know the market very, very well. They know all the locations. They know all the schools. And the best thing about recruiters is that you as the teacher do not have to pay a single penny for a recruiter because the school hires the recruiter and the school pays the recruiter, not the teacher. So this service comes at zero cost to you. If there is a recruiter that you contact and they want money from you, then walk away. This is a scam. All proper EFL recruiters and also recruiters that we work with here at ITTT, ITTT. I can't say this today. Anyway, all the recruiters that we work with, they do not charge the teachers. The schools pay for the service. So what do you have to lose? And you should use a combination of all of these things, not just one way to find a job, but a combination. You look on job boards, you look on ITTT website, you contact us, you work with recruiters, and you also do your independent job search, all of these things. And then you will have a good pool of different jobs to choose from. That's usually the way to go about. And I think next up is the lifetime job. Yeah. So this is how lifetime job assistance works at ITTT. If you've taken a course with us, all of our course grads, they have access to this job support and it never expires. So even if you're not teaching right away, if you're teaching say in a year, in two years, in 10 years, it doesn't matter, you can still come back to us and say, hey, I'm a course grad. Can you please help me? And what this job support includes, basically, it includes access to our database of potential employers. It includes exclusive leads on unadvertised jobs. It also includes advice on constructing a high quality CV or resume and also advice on writing cover letters. So really, it sets you up in the best way possible to start this job hunting journey. And we also provide assistance with planning, try lessons for job interviews. This is something that we see sometimes, different schools, they want their applicants to maybe teach like a 20 minute mock lesson to see their teaching style. And we can also help you with that and prepare you for that because it can be quite scary, right? So this is ITTT job support. If you're a course grad of ours, this is what you will get and it never expires. Okay, and then I have some bonus tips for you guys. So this is something I mentioned in the beginning, take advanced and specialized TEFL certification courses. Why? Because the standard 120 hour TEFL course is standard. Everybody has it, right? You need to stand out from the crowd to have better chances of learning your dream job. So take those specialized courses, teaching English to young learners, teaching business English, teaching online, get the advanced courses, more hours, the more hours you have, the better if you don't have any experience, okay? If you don't have any experience, what you can also do is volunteer teach to boost your resume, right? There will be opportunities to volunteer teach, doesn't even have to be teaching English, it can be teaching anything, volunteer teach to teach like basketball or whatever in your community or yeah, volunteer teach English to people in your community. You will always find some opportunities to do that and that just looks really, really good on your resume. Or another great way that I actually personally love and recommend is online teaching. So if you're completely new to teaching, you want to go abroad, but you don't have any teaching experience, what you can do from the moment that you start your TEFL course, you can start teaching online even before you get your certificate, right? You can do that. And that's just a great way to gain initial experience, especially in recent years. Online teaching really just moved up to the same level as in-person teaching. It is valued just as much. So I think that online teaching is a great way to get experience and it's valued nowadays just as much as in-person teaching. And then another great tip that I have for you is to join online forums and Facebook groups for networking. So you can find literally, and I mention this all the time, Facebook groups, you can find a group for anything on Facebook, right? I'm in a lot of groups like English teachers in Korea, English teachers in China, even English teachers in Seoul, you can go really, really narrow wherever you want to go. You can find a group and they share job offers, they share current trends, they share tips. In a lot of these forums or Facebook groups, when teachers are leaving, what the schools will actually do, first they will ask the teacher who is leaving if they know anybody who wants to fill this position after they leave. And what a lot of these teachers do, they take to Facebook and to these groups. So they will share, hey, I'm leaving this year in September and my school is looking for someone to replace me, feel free to send your application to blah, blah, blah, blah. So this happens all the time. This is a great way because that's, again, the schools have to pay for recruiters. So if they can save some money and they first take to Facebook and see if they can find someone through that. So they can save that money for paying a recruiter, right? Some schools do that smaller schools that don't have a lot of budget. They really like doing it this way. So those are just bonus tips on how you can find a job. If you don't have any teaching experience, how you can enhance your job search, your resume, and it will all work out for you, I hope. I hope you guys learned something today and you can use these tips for your TEFL job search. And again, Maiden gave us an answer to the headshot question for, yeah, it's actually number three for the professional photo. So Maiden paid $75 for a professional headshot today. So that's a good price. Actually, that is a really good price. I think that's pretty decent, but he or they have seen some headshots priced at $300. So it really depends. Do your research, but definitely make sure it's a professional photo. It's the first impression. It just looks better. Don't use a selfie for this, okay? All right. And then we did the bonus tips. Yeah, this is how you can contact ITTT if you have any questions. And also, I want to share this email address with you guys if you want to reach out to us directly with your questions, your concerns, anything. Email us courses at tsell-tefl.com or if you want to reach out to me personally, you can also do that. Reach out to me on Instagram, at Linda Goes East, and I will get back to you if you have any questions you don't want to ask here in front of everybody. Totally cool. And then yeah, we are in the Q&A part of today's live session. So this means you can ask me your questions, anything about teaching, about TEFL, about TESOL, about anything you want really. So now is your time. I still have time to be on here. So yeah, I want everybody to have the opportunity to ask away. There are no stupid questions. So don't be shy. I love answering your questions to the best of my ability. I also don't know everything, right? So, but I'll try my best to answer based on my experience and what I've learned over the years. So, all right. All right. So ask me your questions. And yep, here. Question time. Let me know. Oh, and Laura says, I have videos of myself on YouTube and TikTok teaching Japanese. That's so cool. Awesome. I actually want to start learning Japanese. I actually learned first, that's kind of how I became interested in Asia. I studied Mandarin Chinese and then I met my husband who turned out to be Korean. So I, that's kind of how I got involved or introduced to Korea. So I also had to learn Korean. And now I just really want to learn Japanese because it's just kind of, I think it's going to close the circle for me. It's just going to make sense. So what's your, what's your TikTok handle? I want to check it out. Teach me Japanese. Yeah, I cannot read that. I'm sorry. I just started learning Hiragana, but it's just so, I just, I just don't have enough time to do it at the moment. And that's the thing about Japanese because they use three different systems, like three writing systems. Why? I wish it was like Korean where they just have one, but no, it has to be three. So that's quite challenging. So I need to really sit down and really do Hiragana and Katakana first before I can do anything. But yeah. Okay. Oh, Laura Kimmich 469. Okay. I'm going to check that out. Awesome. I'm excited now. Cool. I'm going to check it out. Let me say that, Laura Kimmich. What was it? 469. Okay. 469. Cool. I'm going to check that out. And I hope I learned, I learned Japanese faster with you. I hope. Awesome. Great. Ah, Daniel. Dennis is saying Linda, I'm just stopping by to say hi and thank you for the info provided. I always learn something new about the English teaching industry. Yay. You're welcome. Thanks for your comment, Daniel. It's good to see you. Oh, I'd made it so I had a question, but forgot. That's all right. Maybe you'll remember. I'm like that too. I'm like, oh, I want to ask this. And then there's other thoughts coming in my head. And then I forget. I know. Laura said, thank you. Yeah, welcome. I'm going to check out your channel right after this and then start learning with Laura. Great. Awesome. Do you have any other questions about TEFEL, about TESOL, about teaching, about whatever? Let me know. I still have some time here. And again, there are no stupid questions. Feel free to ask. All good. And I'm just checking if I forgot to mention anything. I don't think I did. Oh, maybe I should share this 30% off link again, right? So again, we do have 30% off, right? It says that right here. I forgot to say that again. So you can scan this QR code, get 30% off your TEFEL or TESOL course, or you can use the link that I'm sharing with you guys now in the comment section. Looks like this ends with Facebook live minus Linda. So you can copy and paste this link and fill out the application and you'll see a 30% discount off of your TEFEL or TESOL course from ITTT. ITTT. Why can't I say that? I've been working for this company for years and now suddenly I cannot say it anymore. Oh my God. ITTT. I always feel like I'm missing one T, but I already said, it was all you three T's. I don't know. Anyway, this is the link. Yeah, if you're not yet TEFEL certified, TESOL certified. It's a good place to start. If you have any topic suggestions about upcoming live sessions, what you would like me to talk about. Also, please let me know. I'm always looking for new topics, right? So let me know if you have any suggestions, ideas. I'm all ears. All right. Made in. I completed my units for the one hour and 20 hour TEFEL course and I'm working on the summative tasks to complete the course. Thank you for your assistance and we'll continue watching to learn more. That's awesome. Congratulations. You made it. Wow. Congrats. That's awesome. Are you taking any of the specialized courses after? Oh, yeah. Laura says more job opportunities for those who have AA and AS degrees. Yeah. That is, yeah. I mean, you know what? For South Korea, they actually had a teaching program. So they have the EPIC program, English program in Korea, which is similar to the JET program in Japan. So it's a program that places teachers into schools in South Korea and they had a program called the TALK program teaching. I forget what it was called, like what it all stands for, but the TALK program was actually specifically targeted at people with associate degrees. So two-year degrees, they would accept people with two-year degrees, but because of COVID, this program disappeared or was discontinued so they don't have this program anymore. So that's a bummer, which it's kind of a shame because I think associate, if you have an associate's degree, you kind of need to look at probably job, like you can't quite look at, you don't quite qualify for the jobs that require a bachelor's degree, right? In some countries, it's just a preference, like an employer preference, but in some countries, it is a requirement for the visa. So if you don't have a bachelor's degree, you're not going to qualify for the visa. So people with associate's degrees are really kind of in a gray zone because you don't fall into the category of bachelor's degree, but you also are too qualified for the no-degree category. So it's quite difficult. Yeah, I know. But I also think actually associate's degree is something very American. I know a lot of countries don't have that actually. It starts with a bachelor's degree, so maybe that's why. Yeah. You're welcome, Laura. I hope I make sense. I just ramble sometimes. Maiden says, thank you. I signed up for teaching young learners. Awesome. Yeah, that course will be very helpful for you. Okay, then we have Alice asking, is the TESOL TEFL course hard? Maybe Maiden can answer this question because Maiden just completed the course. Maiden, was the TEFL course hard? So in my opinion, it was actually not that difficult. When I took the course, I was working full-time. I was already teaching, working full-time. So it took me probably four months to complete the course. So I was working on a couple of units every week. But I found it quite easy to work through and then I passed. I don't remember my passing grade or anything, but I mean, I passed. I did not have 100% on all the tests. It wasn't super easy, but I passed with a decent score. So it was good. Thank you, Laura. Thank you. I appreciate that. Good night. Good night, Laura. Thanks for being here. Then Alice says, is it hard to get a teaching job in Mexico? It depends where you're from, but Mexico is actually a very popular place to go for U.S. American and Canadian teachers because it's close to home. And they have a lot of teaching positions there. It's very, very popular to teach in Mexico. So it's actually not that hard. And I heard that also applying for the work visa there is quite easy. It's quite a good destination to go to, for sure. Daniel says, question. Does showing up on Instagram or TikTok teaching English add value to our qualification as English teachers? Oh, do you mean like if you set up an Instagram or TikTok channel teaching English? I mean, it can't hurt, right? If you stay professional and you don't do anything weird on there, then I think that's a big bonus. If you're really successful, I think that's that shows that people like your teaching. And I think that's a good idea. Yeah. I think if I got that right, then yeah. So you're talking about making a English teaching Instagram account or TikTok account? Sure. If it's really successful, I would even put that on my resume if you have like, you know, 10,000 followers or like more from 10,000 followers and onwards. Why not? I mean, influencer is a job nowadays. So why not put that on your resume? No, Alice, you're all good. You're all good. That's what I'm here for for your questions. Okay. Alice says, how do I get a visa to work there in Mexico? Okay. I'm not 100% sure. I have not worked there, but from what I have learned over the years, it always says that it's quite easy for Americans to work in Mexico and to get a work visa. So what I would do is first of all, maybe look for teaching jobs in Mexico, or you can even contact recruiters, English teacher recruiters for teaching in Mexico, and they will be able to answer your question about the visa, or you can just contact the Mexican embassy near you and ask them about this visa. Okay. Those are my tips. And they will be able to answer that 100% for sure. Maiden says, it can be difficult in certain areas, but that is all dependent on your background and experience. ITTT has tutors to help as well. I'm trying to get hired as assistant language teacher. Okay. So all the course, right, we asked about the course. So Maiden says, the course can be difficult in certain areas, but it depends on your background and experience, right? And you have tutors, right? So if you worry that, oh, maybe it's too difficult to take the course alone, you always have the option of adding tutor support. That's the beauty of our courses. And you, when you choose tutor support, you're not alone. You have a professional ITTT Tefl tutor by your side. So if you don't understand something, you can ask your tutor to explain that better, explain that more, help you out. So that's actually a good point. Thank you so much Maiden for that. Okay. All right. Let's maybe take one or two more questions and then I am out. Let's see. One or two more questions. And then I'll be leaving or we'll just stop right here if there are no more, no more questions. Let's see. But yeah, thank you so much guys for all your questions today. It was really, really great. And I think we had a lot of new faces today, which is also really cool. So thank you, Ellis, for joining today. And Laura, really, really cool. A lot of questions Maiden, of course, and Daniel came in and we had Niso, really, really nice. Borpheus Maximus was here. Zayed asked a lot of questions in the beginning. We had another Linda. We had Ollie. We had Sandra from Los Angeles. We had Abby, Amitava, Hackmatula. All of you guys, thank you so much for being here today. And yeah, Daniel also says that's what I wanted to say. I mean, no, we're dancing there. So everything remains professional. Yeah, I mean, then that I think that's a great idea. Yeah. Why not? You should go for it. And maybe it's it's maybe it becomes so successful. This could be your full time job. You don't even need to do any real, not real teaching, but like in class teaching, right? Who knows? You'll be the next TikTok English teacher star. Oh, and Alice is asking, how often are you live? So we are live every Friday at this time, every Friday. So please like and subscribe. So you don't miss any of our upcoming lives. I see you're watching on Facebook. So just like our Facebook page, but we go live every Friday around this time. Yeah. All right. Next we have Shreejti. Oh my God. I'm probably butchering this name. I'm so sorry. Shreejti. What about Indian ESL teachers finding a job abroad? Yeah. I mean, as long as you're qualified, you know, why not? Why not? And also what I think is really cool, what a lot of people don't know. So the Epic program in Korea is a big teaching program. And normally they only hire people from seven English speaking countries. India is not part of it, but they have this special clause or loophole for Indian teachers. So if you also have a, if you have a bachelor's degree, if you have a TEFL certificate, and if you also have an Indian teaching license, you also qualify for the program. So I think that's really, really cool. So yeah, if you have a university degree, if you have a TEFL certificate, there's nothing really standing in your way, even if you're Indian. Why not? Of course. Hey, Luciana. Good evening. Hey, Luciana. Here in Brazil, your life is 11 PM. Oh, cool. Now here is 11 AM in South Korea, where I am. Great. Maiden says, I learned more about the English language in grammar with this course. My BS, bachelor's in science, is in fire administration. Wow. So anyone can learn in pass. Exactly. That's actually the beauty of our course that there are no previous, no previous experience in teaching or anything is required to take a TEFL course. It's really from the ground up and every unit builds on the previous one. So even if you have no idea about teaching English, you can take our course and you can learn and pass. I think this is really great. Thank you, Maiden, for sharing that with us. That's really good. Luciana says, hello, dear. Great to see you, virtual hug. Oh, thank you. We're actually about to say goodbye tonight, Luciana. I'm sorry. But we are, we will be live again next week, same place, same time. So I hope to see you here again. Again, if you have any topic suggestions, please feel free to share and you can always watch the replay of this live session. And then you can also leave comments. And we will actually get back to you to your comments under the video even later. So no problem. Okay. If you have any questions, you can just leave a comment. We will get back to that. All right. And then I think I'm going to say goodbye now. So thank you so much, everyone, for your support, for your questions. We had a lot of new faces today, which I love. We had a lot of regular faces today. Also, so thank you so much for always being here for joining. And I hope to see you all again next week as well when I will be back with another topic. And I hope with more of your questions and it's so great. So thank you guys. And then I'm going to sign up and I'm going to say bye bye until next week. All right. Thank you guys. And have a good night. Have a good day. Have a great weekend wherever you are. And I hope to see you all again next time. Thank you. Bye.