 Hi guys, Linda here from ITTT. Welcome, welcome. We're back again this week for another live session. And this week's topic is all about the TEFL interview. And the topic is 10 questions to ask before accepting a teaching abroad job offer. So these are 10 questions that you should be asking you as the EFL teacher should be asking your potential or future employer before accepting and before signing that contract. So just to make sure that you're all on the same page, that it is a legit job and that you're accept, you know what you're getting yourself into basically and you know what the job entails. So yeah, this is a really good topic for anyone who wants to go and teach English abroad of course. Also sometimes if it's a remote or online teaching position might be some similar stuff to ask. But mostly these questions are for someone who is moving abroad to teach and they will really help you make sure that you are you know accepting a good teaching job abroad and kind of what to kind of think about what questions to think about because there's some things maybe you are not even thinking about in the moment when you're doing your interview or in the application process. So that is that. If you can see me, if you can hear me clearly please leave just a high in the comments. And I also want to know where you are watching from today. I'm always very curious if you've seen this before you know that I always ask where are you watching from today. I myself I'm in South Korea and it is 1030 a.m. Friday morning. So I'm in South Korea. What about you guys? What about you guys? Where are you watching from today? What time is it? How are you doing? Let me know in the comments. And if you can't see me, can't hear me, if there are any technical issues also please let me know so that I can get those fixed and then we can have a smooth live session today. With that being said, also guys don't forget to like and subscribe. If you're like our Facebook page and subscribe to our YouTube and all the other socials you are really you get the most information possible when it comes to TEFL TESOL and teaching English abroad. On our Facebook page we share a lot of content that job offers for example teaching job offers very interesting for today's topic but also things like teaching materials that you can use in your classroom for teachers, worksheets you can print out just other kind of course information. We have so many different types of courses if you've taken one before or if you've seen our website you know so sometimes it can be difficult to navigate which course is right for me so we also share that on our Facebook page and also on YouTube of course and then whenever we do go live you are notified and you know when it's happening so that you can join but even if you can't join we always turn no we we always keep our live sessions in our playlists both on Facebook and on YouTube so you can watch the replay you can watch it later if you don't have time today no problem also if you leave comments on the videos we get back to you later on as well and if you're listening to this as a podcast episode thank you so much for the download and yeah we also have a podcast so every time we have a live session we actually turn our episodes into podcast episodes or live sessions into podcast episodes so if you're interested in you know just the audio only format of this session you can google or well whatever podcast platform you use you type in Teflon TESOL podcast by ITTT and that will show up there as well so that is kind of there oh lorado is back hi lorado from Botswana 3 38 am oh my gosh great looking forward to another interactive session thank you so much for joining lorado i really really appreciate it i hope you're having a good night i guess good morning early morning night awesome cool very very nice uh oh also first that maybe we have oh wait here we go this is the slide yes that's the right one so we also have a 30 discount a 30 discount code today um only during our live sessions we share a discount this big okay so that's very special only for you guys so if you have not taken a Teflon or TESOL certificate yet this is a great incentive maybe to get started and to do so so you can scan this qr code you also throughout the entire live session you find this qr code in oh my gosh here in this right hand upper corner there um you can scan it you can scan it right now or i also have a link for you let me share the link with you and also if you're listening to this as a podcast episode you can find the link in the podcast description but yeah this is the link right here so you copy paste this link and it will lead you to the application page and then you'll see at the top congratulations you get 30 off of your Teflon course something like that so you know that that's the right link and then whenever you are ready whenever you have decided which Teflon course you want to take you can do so with this link and save a bit of money because we all love saving a bit of money and then we can use that money when we go abroad to travel to have fun and all of that at least that's what i would do all right well good then also a quick introduction just for me if somebody's watching this for the first time um and wondering who is she my name is Linda i'm a language teacher i'm a travel writer i'm also a content creator i'm a Tefl expert i'm many different things and let me just make this bigger so you can read the slide but um or actually maybe this uh so i have my own website also at linda goes east.com and maybe i'm just gonna remove this banner so it doesn't look that weird okay so linda goes east because i've been interested in asia for a very long time i've lived in asia pretty much since 2012 so if you're interested in moving to asia for teaching english or just traveling in asia you can also reach out to me and you can go to linda goes east.com there's a lot of information for this particular part of the world i'm originally from germany slash the us my mom is german my dad's american and i'm based in south america no south korea why did i say south america because i want to go there that's on my mind i'm based in south korea for um since 2015 so for eight years already and before that i also lived in china i taught english there and then i moved to korea so if you're interested in china korea other asian countries go check out linda goes east.com or also also my um instagram feed instagram at linda goes east for info and that is that and then the other side of what i do the um tefl tea so marketing side um actually before i moved to korea i took a tefl course and that tefl course was from ittt and that's kind of how i found out about ittt and i started working for them as well so um i just did a google search for tefl certificates and i found ittt and i loved what i was seeing i like the reviews i like the content um and then i took the course and then i kind of ended up working for ittt as well so and ittt if your new stands for international tefl and t-cell training and um yeah we are leading tefl and t-cell course provider worldwide we've been around since the 90s um and lots of different course options online courses in class courses as well and then a combined course option which combines both things um so check it out teflcourse.net for all the options and to get started and like i said don't forget to like and subscribe so you never you never miss anything and again 30 off i shared that link i'm going to share that later again as well the 30 link um and then yeah amitava hi amitava amitava says hello linda how are you fairing now i'm extremely sorry for missing your previous live session last friday the 14th that's all right don't worry i missed you there as well actually thank you i'm doing very well thank you so much how about you how about you how are you doing amitava thanks for being here now i really appreciate it thank you so much i know you guys have a busy schedule as well you can't join every week i get it that's fine no hard feelings okay let's do this way all right yeah so like i said today we're going to talk about wait tefl interview 10 questions to ask before accepting a teaching a broad job offer and these are 10 questions that you should ask your potential employer when you're doing your interview or before like in the interview process right during the interview or after we're going to talk about that as well how you can kind of navigate that but that is today's topic and then before we do that though i want to give you a quick tefl interview checklist so for your interview things um that are very important that you can do to just have the most positive experience the most positive interview experience is possible and then we jump into the questions so first of course find a quiet and well-lit spot in your house most um maybe i should say that too but most tefl teesaw teaching job abroad interviews they take place via skype or zoom so online so you want to make sure that you have a quiet and a well lit spot so have some light preferably natural light like i'm sitting in front of a big window natural light is coming in that's what you want to get so you look as good as possible also before the interview make sure that you test your skype or zoom or just internet connection and make sure that your earphones are working and that your microphone is on and working all of these things before you start and make sure that you're online at least like 15 minutes before the interview starts so that if there are any issues that you can fix them before um i don't know about you but this happened to me before especially also before my live sessions i have a very similar checklist actually for these live sessions um but sometimes there would be like an update a windows update or this update come in and i'm like oh no i'm supposed to go live so that's why it's important to be early to get all of these issues fixed if there are any then of course make sure you dress to impress you should wear um basically similar stuff to what you would wear um if it was a face like an in-person face-to-face interview so just wear something nice and also keep in mind that non-verbal communication is important especially now with all the zoom and skype um just smile you can use your hands especially as a teacher it's very important that you have good non-verbal communication body language you smile you look approachable that's very important and also remember that you must communicate well especially for an english teaching position they part of the interview is also to hear you speak right what kind of english you're speaking is it very clear your pronunciation is good um will students be able to understand you so just make sure you do that of course use proper grammar where possible all of these things so this is our checklist before um i want to jump into the questions but let me know if you would like a whole in-depth live session about the tefl interview in general we can go in depth of all of these things how to prepare um how to set up your space all of these things like more in-depth we can also do a live session about that let me know if you want that and then i can prepare that and do it for you as well we could talk all about that because i think having a good interview is of course can be you know a determining factor whether or not you're getting the job or not right so it's very important that you are as best prepared as possible when it comes to interviewing so let me know if that's something you would like to hear about but with that being said we are jumping into our oh that that's also what i wanted to say so today's topic is the 10 questions that you should ask your tefl employer but i also did a previous live session about the 15 most asked questions in a tefl interview from the employer to you so i highly recommend you check that out that's from a previous live session i'm gonna share the link to this live session with you guys in the comments right now so you can check it out so these are questions that you if you are or when you are interviewing for a teaching a broad position are likely going to be asked okay so check out this link right here that's the link to the live session and then you can see all the questions that so you can prepare right so today's video or today's live session in this previous live session they kind of go hand in hand you want to be aware of all the questions that you should ask but also that you are getting asked so then you are really good prepared very well for your interview okay then we are jumping right in 10 questions to ask before accepting a teaching a broad job offer and as always if there any comments any feedback any questions throughout this live session feel free to just leave a comment and then we can talk about it also at the end there will be as always there will be a Q&A session where we can talk about other things you can ask me questions about other things not related to today's topic so that's the plan for today and let me have some coffee and then we can get started okay perfect amitavu says yes linda at least i would definitely want to have an in-depth conversation discussion about the teflon interview process in the near future in deep okay noted and i'm going to prepare that for you because it's also going to tie in very well with today's topic so maybe we can do that next week already we'll see but i am going to prepare that definitely and then have that for you great all right jumping in with question number one what you should ask and they are also not in any particular order okay random order not from most important to least important or anything like that so we're going to start off with what type of visa do i need this is something you should ask during the interview process and beforehand also you should already do a little bit of homework and kind of know what kind of visa you need so learn about the country's work visas what kind of visas they have and then take note of the different rules and requirements and then the employer when you ask that the employer should be familiar with the process right they should say the same thing that what you found out before and it should align because they should know what they're doing because when you get a teaching English abroad job most of the time the employer so the school they will help you with the work work visa okay so they should know what you should do and what you should prepare if an employer says that you need only a tourist visa to teach be very wary okay some employers they may be illegally avoiding taxes and they don't want to cover any visa costs and then put you you your rights at risk as a result and if you do that if you're like okay yeah i'm just going to work with the tourist visa some countries it's okay so do your research in some countries that is legal you can do that but in many countries i would say the majority most of the countries for teaching English it is not legal to work on a tourist visa and you need a proper English teacher visa work visa whatever the name is in that country and if the employer says oh yeah you can just work on a tourist visa be careful because if that comes out um yes the school will have to pay a fine usually but you also you will have some legal issues who might even get kicked out of the country um you know never deported basically you get deported you might not be able to come back so be really really careful this is a big um issue and that's one of the most important things you should ask about visa things and you know if it will help you if the employer will help you or not and all these things and a good employer will help you with that and they should know the right visa type and what you need so this is question number one very very important and don't forget to ask that and just more so for checking the employer's vibe you should do your homework before like i said research what visa you will need and then still ask the employer to make sure they say the same thing or if they say oh you can just work with the tourist visa walk away walk away that would be my tip so this was a quick one but let's talk about number two number two question number two you should ask is what's included in my contract so talking salary and benefits and all of these things accommodation whatnot so tefl salaries as we know by now i'm sure they often depend on where you're teaching and for how long um where as in the country the city also what type of school public school private school university international school they all typically have different salary ranges so again before that already do your research so you kind of know the salary range for the position that you're applying for similar positions you can find this information either on our FAQ section uh we have a very vast FAQ section pretty much we have so many FAQs how much can i earn teaching english in blank and then cut all the countries so go check that out you can also just google that and read different um articles about the topic um you can also find you know blogs of people who are currently uh living and teaching in this country and either reach out to them if they don't have it on their website or just read their blogs and firsthand accounts and things like that so just make sure you already kind of know the salary range and again check and see if that matches with what the employer then says um and also clarify whether the salary stated is pre-tax or not right sometimes some countries they do it differently they say you know however they state it pre-tax or not also noteworthy a lot of countries actually in the middle east they have tax-free salaries so if you're applying in a middle eastern country also ask about that you know is the salary tax-free um can you tell me more about that all of these things that's very important um and then try to or learn to look at your compensation your salary as a total package okay um for teaching english abroad this mostly does not only include your salary but it also includes um insurance housing lodging airfare vacation days um all of these things so make sure you um ask for that you know what's my okay now we talked about the salary how about the the whole total compensation package what is included you know is there insurance what about housing what about airfare all of these things and then also the last point and especially for first time teachers this might be a little bit difficult but be prepared to negotiate right and i feel like i see this a lot with teachers really really eager to go abroad to teach and they just take the first job offer they get right without negotiating without anything they just take it all right oh thank you um be prepared to negotiate for any additional benefits just to sweeten the deal you know you can negotiate anything you can ask well they can just say no that's that's the worst that happens so be prepared to negotiate don't be shy um just really try and stand your ground and see you know what the best deal you can get right the best deal you can get sometimes they also have um if for example you stay for a year and you sign on for an additional year a second year and so on you get a bonus all of these things talk about that um sometimes if they do not provide housing then you would get a housing allowance every month that's also very common so just know that and then ask you know oh i heard a lot of schools for teaching english abroad they provide housing how about your school and then they will let you know okay good i think that's all about that if you have any questions about this particular section let me know and then i can come back to it maybe i forgot something but i think that's the most important stuff then we are moving on to question number three and this is who pays taxes and how okay so clarify right from the beginning who's responsible for any tax obligations because some countries do it differently so some countries they actually deduct a percentage of your net income from every paycheck right uh while others they don't have any income taxes so again you can ask especially in the middle east with the tax-free situations or also um i know that u.s citizens they have to file taxes back home even if you work abroad and you don't live in the u.s you still have to file your taxes in the u.s so that's something they might not be able to help you with but um they might know from previous teachers that they've worked with um it can kind of give you some info in some places like korea for example a portion of tax deducted is refunded to you at contract completion or actually rather when you leave the country when you leave the country so this would be is this the pension i think that's the pension scheme might also be a severance there's two in korea a severance pay and then the national pension scheme so that's also something you should ask about um some countries you pay into the national pension scheme but then um when you leave you can actually get all of that money back and for korea depending on how long you teach there even i think if you just teach one year you get about two thousand dollars back or two and a half it depends but um your employer should know about that should inform you and should help you with that so tax issues as always and there's also with taxes especially for u.s citizens like we said because u.s citizens have to file taxes back home as well there are a lot of like support groups on facebook actually um i know there is a facebook group for example for korea there's also even services um specifically for u.s citizens living abroad who can help you with your tax filings if you've never done that before and all of that so don't be scared there is a lot of support a lot of other experts and you can with this kind of stuff if your employer doesn't help you or can't help you um you can always ask your co-workers or any other um experts that you meet while living abroad and they are usually more than welcome and more than no more than happy um and welcoming in helping you with that kind of stuff okay perfect then we're jumping into question number four and this something we just kind of touched on already but what are my housing options so very important like i said in the beginning there are a lot of teaching english abroad schools contracts that actually offer free housing um so during the interview process clarify with your employer whether housing is provided or not and also ask if it is provided then ask if is you'll be sharing a space or do you have your own place and also if you could see maybe some pictures so you can kind of get an idea of what it looks like what does the kitchen look like what does the bathroom look like a lot of different countries have different kitchens different bathrooms um in different parts of the world so just either that you can tell them oh you know do you have a different option this is not what i'm looking for or just kind of also to minimize maybe culture shock and it's actually funny because i'm in this group facebook group for um teaching english and korea and i remember seeing like somebody post before oh they just arrived in korea in their teacher apartment in their teacher housing and they posted a picture of the bathroom and a lot of bathrooms in korea especially in older houses or very small apartments they would have um not a enclosed shower but it's just basically a shower head in your small bathroom and the whole small room is your shower basically and so they were posting that and they were totally shocked and they were asking if this is normal and why they give them why the employer gave them such a weird bathroom such a weird apartment with this bathroom and stuff and everybody was like well welcome to korea this is what it looks like um you know something like that so um yeah ask for pictures and then you just can also get prepared you know okay this is what it looks like or also size wise you know depending on what you want to bring um things like that and if they do not provide any housing then your employer should always be able to recommend local resources or just help you with your housing search i remember when i moved to china for my job um my employer helped me and took me to different apartments to look around and see which one i like they just they didn't provide housing but they just helped me with the apartment search so that's also very good and then in another chinese apartment where i lived it was shared shared housing um so yeah really different options make sure you just know i think the overall uh the thing that the the the biggest thing you should remember is don't assume anything don't assume anything so don't assume oh it's gonna be like back home or oh it's gonna be like this uh apartment from the that girl that i saw on tiktok don't assume anything it's better to ask as many questions even if you think they're dumb questions they're no dumb or stupid questions um make sure you just ask so that you really know what you're getting yourself into especially with things like housing right um you want to make sure you live in a good space and you know um if you're paying for it if they pay for it you know make make sure you know all of that before you sign the contract and then you can also if if there is another job offer and for example job offer a they don't provide housing right job offer b they do provide housing well maybe you know depends on what you're looking for maybe the one with housing is the better one you just need to know these details to make the best possible decision basically all right perfect uh question number five how will i travel to and from class so this is also once you know about your apartment if they're like yeah we provide housing then um this would be the next question to ask well how will i travel to and from class right is is the is the housing provided within walking distance usually i will say it is um especially in korea um i my teacher's apartment in korea yeah i i walked like five minutes to school so usually it's very close it's in the vicinity but it might also not be again don't sue assume anything don't assume anything it might not be um yeah and then remote regions they could require you to have a car or a bike so if it's if it's really remote um just make sure you ask or you know what what's the public transportation look like of that city are their buses are is there subway are there trains um things like that you can ask um and then also it's possible to negotiate any kind of transportation costs before you accept the job so um a lot of teachers actually they get a transportation allowance so every month either the school you know a lot of cities they have these bus and subway um passes monthly passes monthly transportation cart things like that so some schools they provide that for their teachers some don't so make sure you just ask and see what you get and what you don't get or maybe this is something you could also negotiate right because sometimes transportation costs they can also be very costly and very expensive so if they don't give you a house if they don't give you housing maybe at least they could provide a transportation card every month something like that all right amelio hi amelio tuning in a little late today but here i am hello from barcelona hi how how how's the weather in barcelona is it very hot i've been hearing like horror stories of heat waves in europe at the moment what's it like in barcelona just taking a few maybe a few moments here as like a break because this is um we're halfway through now question number five so let's check in and i just want to ask you guys if you had any questions i keep scratching my nose i apologize i think i said this last time but it's very humid um in korea and i don't have um air conditioning in this room i have a fan behind me and i also have cats so there's a lot of little cat hairs stuck to my face because of this humidity so i apologize but anyway just checking in so far we covered five questions now if you guys had any questions or if you wanted to add something um i know many of you have already taught abroad or are currently teaching english abroad um so maybe share what it's like for you i always try to share what it was like for me um or if there's anything not clear that i said until now let me know and then i just want to say this one more time we do have a 30 percent 30 discount code off of all ittt teflon t-sol courses i'm just going to share that again in our chat so you can check it out and you can get started with your teaching adventure if that's if you're ready to do so oh wait i shared it in a wrong chat here we go so it looks like this it ends with fb live minus linda and again if you're listening to this as a podcast it is in the podcast description as well and yeah just waiting a couple more seconds here maybe to see if any questions are coming through and if not then we're just going to move on to question number six and again emilio because emilio said um tuning in a little late um you can always watch the replay um all of our live sessions remain in our playlists both on facebook and on youtube so you can always go back and rewatch and um even if you leave a comment like i said we will get back to you as well later on so yeah oh and also maybe if you have any questions um you want to reach out to ittt and our team our email address is courses at courses at tesall minus taffle.com so you can always email us and then my colleagues they will get back to you you can schedule a consultation check out which course is right for you or which country you could go to teach all of these things um but yeah all right then we're just going to move on to question number six again i'm going to keep my eye here on the comments if anything's coming through i'm going to share that i'm going to read it and i'm going to answer the question all right question number six that you should ask during a during the interview process before you commit to a teaching job is how many international teachers are at your school so because there's a lot of um a lot of schools where either uh if it's a really small school you might be the only foreign teacher there so if that's the case you need to ask yourself are you comfortable with being the only one is that okay for you or do you think you wouldn't really like that um some schools like i said have only one foreign teacher if it's especially if it's a smaller school however big schools they usually have several international teachers um so it depends you know if you think you don't mind being the only foreign teacher there that's cool but if you're like i don't know if that's so good for me um maybe then that job would be enough for you um if so at my school where i taught my first year in korea was a rather big school and we had nine or ten foreign teachers and they were from all from all all different parts of the world so it was really interesting and really fun lots of cool people so that definitely helped you know especially as a first time teacher i imagine and you know you have a lot of um culture shock as well you're kind of just discovering the new environment so then if you have other foreign teachers there it really helps right um so that's good but if you're like hey i don't mind being like the only one what an adventure that's really cool too and you can always find an expert community in pretty much every city every place um outside of work as well so it's also not that bad of a thing and um the last part here or the last point here is says ask to speak to them so if they already have a lot of different foreign teachers you can always ask to just speak with them oh can i reach out to one of them before i make my decision you know you can ask them and well how do you like teaching at the school what do you think so that's also very common that you can speak with one of the teachers currently teaching at that school and kind of ask them about what it's like what the school is like before you make your decision so it's very common so you can also do that um great and Emilio says it's about 27 degrees Celsius 81 Fahrenheit now which is not bad it gets worse than that this time of year trust me okay at 27 is that that bad okay nice very nice cool 27 degrees in Barcelona like right now now it's but it's it's night time it's also very early where you are right Emilio we're really late also three a.m what time is it Emilio why what are you doing up so early i just realized that anyway so that is that how many teachers are at the school so that you can get an idea because if you just accept the job and then you're like oh yeah i'm gonna have all these cool co-workers and then you get there and they're like oh what you're the only one it's like oh i didn't know that so just ask that and then you know to avoid any kind of shock all right question number seven that's also very important and i think a lot of maybe new teachers or just teachers in general they don't ask that and that's very important to ask so what teaching resources are available to me okay so will you have to plan your entire curriculum or are lesson plans provided um both could happen so i my school where i worked in i think both china and korea they all had um curriculums and they provided us with lesson plans and all the material but sometimes of course you have to prepare additional things right but there are also some schools that do not have their own curriculum and they basically give you the whole entire freedom to come up with your entire curriculum your own entire curriculum for the whole school year so that can also happen so just be aware right uh ask that and then think you know well well what what you know what do i prefer if you can make your own curriculum it's also very exciting you have a lot of freedom you can put in everything that you want to put in right so that's really good but it's also more work maybe but then the teaching hours might be less so also ask that right to teach i don't know if this is actually a question covered this should also be a question we'll we'll get back to that but um yeah that's important so what teaching resources are available a do you have to plan your own lessons are the lesson plans provided um again don't assume your employer will provide the same teaching equipment you're used to back home so if you've already been teaching or just you from your own school time um don't assume anything don't assume you have the same equipment as back home right it might be totally different um and then you can ask you know find out if the school has a library with english books or not if they have a computer lab if they have photocopiers tv's projectors smart boards it's kind of ask them you know how what yeah what teaching resources are available what what is there in a classroom so you kind of know what you can use and if it's the same maybe what you've done before or if it's different you might have to adjust all of these things so just so that you can kind of picture um the school setting better so you're better prepared again and you're not you're not arriving there and they don't have anything and you're you're shocked or something you're overwhelmed because you expected all of these things like back home might be different great oh and also maybe something about the um teaching resources so if you have to plan your whole curriculum um you know there's so many resources online where you can download entire lesson plans you can download entire curriculums um you can definitely do that you know it saves you time and they're usually pretty good so you can do a google search for these kinds of things even with the level the kind of topics that you want or even this is something we covered a couple weeks ago use chat gpt to come up come up with a curriculum right if you don't know what that is or how to use it i did a live session about how to use chat gpt in your teaching daily life and how it can help you so also lesson planning is one of the things that it can do so check it out in our playlist very interesting topic all right Emilio here says it's very early here 4 12 a.m exactly i'm a doctor i work around the clock so i'm usually up this early oh wow yeah i remember you saying that you're a doctor nice oh wow wow Emilio that's crazy 4 12 i'm good for you good for you i hope you're um also getting a lot of rest i know that's sometimes very rare when you're a doctor so just i hope you're taking care of yourself too okay question number eight oh yeah this kind of ties in with that um as well so not only the teaching resources and what kind of equipment you have but also what does the typical classroom look like in terms of students so what types of students do you want to teach right you think about that too what types of students do you want to teach and ask them you know what what kind of students are there so for example what could be different types of students well the age groups right if it's a kindergarten they were a young elementary school middle school high school university the age groups but also kind of the background so i used to teach a english-speaking kindergarten where a lot of the kids um actually lived abroad before so their english level was very high because they lived in english-speaking countries before just other countries and they are used to english a lot so their level was really high however of course that's not the norm right um it could be just lower level there is also one class at our kindergarten where it's kind of a lower level class so ask them you know what what types of students the age groups backgrounds also the subjects what kind of subjects where you teach will you only teach strictly english or is it english or a different subject but in english that can also happen right you're either just the english teacher or you're the teacher teaching in english could be different it's a different thing so at my kindergarten where i used to teach in korea i taught all different kinds of subjects but all in english so we had science we had what did we have reading um writing i don't know kindergarten stuff but also science things and i don't remember exactly what it was called we also had like pe kind of class so you teach different subjects but in english but at the um the private school where i used to teach in china this is strictly only english so grammar reading like a textbook english class basically so it can be different depending on the school ask that and then also very important what you should ask what a lot of teachers don't think about will there be a local co-teacher or will you be alone in the classroom that's also very important right so a lot of times especially um where i used to teach in china and korea and japan also it's very common to have a local co-teacher there so you are in the classroom i used to be like the main teacher this can also be different at my korean school i was the main teacher and then we had a local korean teacher kind of sitting in the back and doing all the admin stuff so they wrote in the students books every day like a report they would communicate with the parents um they would serve them lunch um they every every day the last hour of the day would be the local co-teacher's class so that they would get them ready to kind of leave for the day so they do kind they do those kinds of things but it can also be the other way around where the local teacher is the main teacher and you are kind of just the assistant this is a lot of times um how it is in japan where you dealt the assistant language teacher so the main language teacher the the local the local teacher would be teaching and then you would sometimes um either you know for pronunciation or for the native english side you would come in so it can be different or sometimes you're the only one there you're the only one there and you have to handle everything sometimes so ask for that or ask about that ask about that so you know what you're getting yourself into um and how the setup is that's very important as well good then we have question number nine here how our teaching arrangements determined okay yeah so similar to what we just talked about some language schools they implement a rotational system that allows you to see your students at varying varying frequencies so that was the case in my school I always for the whole semester the whole school semester school year I had the same students right and I would see them Monday Wednesday Friday the other students Tuesday Thursday that's rotational you would see the same students all the time right but other schools they actually run short form courses so you might have a course for a whole month and then the next month you have new students and then the month after that you have totally new students again so it might be like that ask for that or ask about that ask about that what it's like how are the teaching arrangements done at the school how often do you change do you always have new students or do you keep the same students throughout a period of time okay great let me read Emilio's comments here the main reason Emilio says the main reason I want to pursue this teaching path besides the passion I have for it is the need of having a little more regular lifestyle I love my career but sometimes I feel it drains me yeah I bet I bet I can understand that I can definitely understand that maybe also if you really you say I love my career if you really love your career maybe I don't know if this is possible um if you could take like a gap year maybe from your job right and you go abroad for a year and teach English and then after the year you come back to your career if you love it that much I don't think maybe you should give it up I'm not sure but well follow your heart you know and follow your your gut instinct but maybe that's a good option too you just go abroad for a year or two and then you come back to your job um I don't know a lot of companies nowadays they are very flexible with that kind of things not sure I'm not sure about Spain but maybe that's an option you don't have to give it up if you love it all right so this is that the teaching arrangements with the students and last question oh I actually have a bonus question too but question number 10 important can I get everything in writing okay can I get everything in writing that's a very important question to ask so everything that oh I don't know why this is showing up like this I apologize this should not be happening um anyway um anything that you work out through through your interview that is spoken not in writing um make sure that you ask for it in writing if they say oh yeah yeah we'll provide housing we'll provide a housing allowance make sure you get that in writing right those are details about salary housing airfare any bonuses pay time off these should all be addressed in your employment contract at the end right so therefore if they promise you anything if they say yes to something during just a verbal conversation you should make this a really good um idea or tip make additional requests over email or just kind of confirm that over email and then save the employer's response in case there's any future disagreement so if you agree on something just during a verbal interview email them and just kind of mention that again and then they would agree to it or they would also say that again via email then you have it in writing and then you save that and then you know you can show that as proof because you know a lot of times how can I say sometimes uh employers to try to take advantage especially of foreign teachers because they think they don't know the local laws of the country that you're moving to so they try to find sometimes loopholes and it's a business you know teaching English is a business and they try to sometimes they try to do everything they can to get the best deal for themselves and so be smart about it and just ask can I get everything in writing and then anything that's confirmed reconfirm that over email so that you have it that would be my tip and then you can show you have receipts you can show the receipts that's very important okay and lastly bonus or one last tip not bonus question one last tip of course it's kind of the most important tip right so you would negotiate all of these things and then after the interview and everything they will send you the teaching contract and then before you sign the contract you really need to make sure that you read it and you understand every word and especially the fine print okay and once everything has been discussed and agreed upon and then you have it in your contract as well make sure everything you discussed all of your benefits your bonuses your housing airfare everything is in the contract everything that you talked about that they agreed upon has to be in the contract make sure it is in there and once everything looks good you can accept the offer and then sign the contract and then you can start your teaching English abroad adventure so that's usually how it works also have somebody maybe read over the contract a friend a family member if you have to somebody with legal expertise I don't know but actually with this kind of stuff I did a live session in the past that is called teaching contracts what to watch out before you sign so this would be kind of the next part to this live session so check it out there's a lot of things to watch out for all the little fine print things and just make sure you you know what you drink a lot of people you know they're fresh a lot of ESL teachers are young college graduates right and maybe you have not signed that many contracts yet and also you think well must be right if my employer sends me that and I don't know the local laws over there must be okay must be right if I sign it sometimes it's not so just better better safe than sorry so I recommend checking out this live session you can find it in our playlist you can google that teaching contracts what to watch out for before what to watch out for before you sign and watch that I go over everything in detail all of the teaching contract things with examples of real contracts so make sure you check it out and then you're really set and you're good to go to interview to sign your contracts negotiate and then to start your teaching adventure because a lot of times this is something a lot of people just kind of skip over we're so excited you completed your technical course you are ready to go abroad you're so excited you've got this job offer you just sign it so you're there quicker but it's such an important decision do not take that lightly and really be careful that's my advice and with that I think we are yes we are in Q&A now so again we have a 30% discount code right here you can scan it I'm going to share it one last time in the comments as well so you can check it out 30% off your teflor t-sol ports from ITTT we only share this during our live sessions as I mentioned and again if you're listening to this as a podcast it is in the description the link is in the description and then the stage is open for you ask me your questions either about today's topic what we just discussed if something was not clear or if you wanted to add something if you have some feedback or any other question that you have for me today I'm all ears and I am happy to answer I still have a couple of minutes here that I can answer your questions so let me know and then Amitava said they wanted a yeah a live session about in-depth discussion about the whole interview process I'm going to prepare that and that is also coming maybe next week already we'll see how quickly I can prepare that but that is something that will come more in-depth overall teflor interview preparation so that you're you're you're going to nail it you're going to nail your interview but today's session is definitely also part of that right usually this would be asked at the end right do you have any questions for us and then these are the questions that you can ask or just even before interviewing you could email them these questions and then if there is an answer that you really don't like you don't even have to waste your time interviewing right if it's like oh no we don't provide housing that's like okay next if that's something that's you know important to you it depends you can weed them out already before you schedule any interview as always also don't forget to like and subscribe we go live every week this time um so if you like and subscribe then you get notified you see whenever we have scheduled a new live and what the topic is and then you can just easily join and yeah participate and it's all free it's all free free information what's not to like what's not to like all right don't be shy guys I'm sure somebody has a question out there I am ready I'm ready to answer it I'm keeping my eye here on the comment section oh I'm gonna have some coffee maybe there are no questions and then we can just stop for today as well that's all good I'm just gonna give it a couple more seconds as you might know there's always a bit of a delay actually between me um and then you guys seeing it live about a 30 20 30 second delay I heard so just want to make sure I'm not ending it too early when somebody's typing a way of question but yeah also even if I end the live and then you type a question you leave a comment we will get back to you as well so don't worry and as always is this one more no we don't have one more slide but as always you can email us um here I shared that earlier um this is our email address courses at tso-teffel.com so if you have any questions anything you want to know um then we'll get back to you as well so all right and I think there are no questions for today everything answered I'm happy about that too and um I will get the next topic ready for next week and then we can have another discussion more in-depth about teffel interviews and how you nail it um and with that being said I wish everyone a wonderful weekend and stay happy stay healthy and I really appreciate you guys staying on and watching this live session it really means a lot to me I know a lot of you guys are um it's very early for a lot of you guys very early 3 a.m. 4 a.m. so I really appreciate that and a lot of you guys might already be in vacation mode and you're not here um but I really appreciate you guys and I hope I'll see you again next week I'll be here and I hope you too and with that being said I'm gonna say bye and see you next time thank you bye