 Hey everyone, Linda here from ITTT, back this week with another live session. Very excited to be here. Happy New Year everybody, 2024 and that's exactly what we're going to talk about today. Top 5 trends for TEFL, TESOL, teaching English in 2024. So super excited to be here. Thanks so much for joining me today. I hope everybody had a wonderful New Year's and it's kind of slowly getting back into the regular like daily life routine. Me too. The holidays were great, but kind of I'm also glad to kind of fall back into my routine and get things done and just excited for the new year and everything a lot is going to happen this year. And yeah. Happy New Year everybody, don't forget to like and subscribe so you're always up to date what happens with us here at ITTT, with our live sessions, all the other content that we share. We are live on Facebook and on YouTube and we're also available as a podcast. So thank you so much for the download if you're listening to this as a podcast episode. And then I also want to know, as always, where are you right now? Where are you guys watching from? Let me know in the comments. Let me know if you can see me, hear me clearly. Last time we added Instagram to the thing. So we had a couple of issues in the beginning and I actually decided to drop Instagram this time because I also think the screen with my slides and stuff is just too small on Instagram. I don't think people are going to be able to read it. So let's just focus on Facebook and YouTube for now and then we're not going to have any technical issues anyway. But that's just that. And yeah, let me know in the comments guys, where are you watching from today? How are you doing? Are you new here? Are you a regular viewer? Just a quick hi would be also enough. I appreciate that. I always like to know who I'm speaking with, of course, and I want to have like a conversation. I don't want to just sit here and, you know, like a professor give like a lecture. That's not me. I have I like to have a conversation with you guys. You ask questions. I try and answer them. We're also going to do that, of course, especially, you know, toward the end, we always have a Q&A. But feel free to just drop any questions that you have throughout the live session. And I am keeping an eye here on the comments. So yeah, then let me have some coffee. I think I have something on my throat today. But I think we're we're going to be OK. Just bear with me if I have to cough a little bit. It is the season. It is cold in Korea. I'm in Korea, South Korea. It's 1030 a.m. Friday morning. So I'm excited to hop into the weekend. But yeah, let me know where are you guys at? What time is it there? Is it Thursday still? Is it already Friday? What are you doing? How are you feeling today? Let me know in the comments. I really appreciate that. And we also have a 30% off discount code. So if you're not yet Teflor T-cell certified, and this is one of your goals for this year to start teaching English to get a certificate. This is my New Year's gift for you guys. So 30% off. You can scan this QR code or I also have a link for you. I'm going to share that in the comments section as well. It ends with FB live minus Linda. And if you're listening to this as a podcast, you will find the discount code in the description. It is a different one for the podcast, but it also is 30%. So you know, and yeah, it looks like this. So you can copy paste this link and it will get you a 30% discount off of any Teflor T-cell course from ITTT to kickstart your Teflor T-cell teaching journey in 2024. And that really ties in very well with our topic for today as well. We have Abdallah here. Hi, how are you doing Abdallah? Where are you watching from? Good to see you. I see you're on YouTube. Great. Where are you watching from today? What country? I'm always very interested to see where people are from because I love traveling. I'm going to give you a quick intro about myself in just a second and you're going to see that I love traveling. I've been to many countries and so I always want to know where you guys are from. Amitava. Good morning. Good to Morgan. Linda. How are you faring in the New Year 2024? I'm doing great. Thank you so much. How about you? How are you doing Amitava? Did you celebrate and ring in the New Year? Was everything good? Also Anna. Anna Karina. Happy New Year. Happy New Year Anna Karina. Thank you so much for joining. Where are you from? Where are you watching from today? All right. I know Amitava is in India. Kakota, right? Amitava is a regular viewer. But I think Abdallah watched before as well. I'm not sure about Anna Karina. I think Anna Karina might be a new viewer unless... I don't recognize this name right now but happy New Year. Thank you so much for joining. Oh, Merida. Mexico. Cool. Nice. Great. I have not been to Mexico yet. I used to live in San Diego for a short period of time but I never made it across the border and I'm so sad about it. Hopefully one day Abdallah says watching from Ciro. Ciro? Ciro? Where is that? What country is that? I haven't heard about the city. Cool. It's a cool name. Interesting. All right. Crystalline. Hi. Hi, Crystalline. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. All right. Cool. Well, I think we have some new people here today. So I want to give a quick intro about myself so you guys know who you're dealing with. Why I'm here? So my name is Linda. I'm a travel writer and content creator. So I do many things working remotely and do many different projects and these are my two main projects here. So travel writing, content creation under my own name. Linda goes east, east because I've been in Asia since pretty much 2012. I live in China and I've been living in South Korea for the past eight and a half years and yeah, if you're interested in that part of the world in Asia, South Korea, China. I also have a lot of Japan stuff on there. I visit Japan also a lot because it's so close to Korea. You can check out Linda goes east.com. There's a lot of info there about traveling to Asia but also moving and like teaching English there and stuff. So if that's your area as well that you're interested in, I highly recommend you reach out. You check it out. There's some good stuff there. Also over on Instagram at Linda goes east. I share a lot of content and I'm originally from Germany slash the US. I'm a dual citizen. My mom is German. My dad's American. But like I said, I am based in South Korea. So, yeah. Oh, Dallas's car. Do you mean Cairo? Maybe Egypt? Cairo. I think maybe Cairo. I've actually been there. It's cool. I've been to Egypt once long time ago. I want to go back so bad but it's really a beautiful place with the pyramids and the history. It's amazing. So okay, cool. Egypt, I think. And then, yeah, so this is the one side travel and content creation and then the other side why I am here for the Teflon T-SOL marketing side of things. So I started out like many of you guys interested in teaching English. I wanted to teach English in Korea. I had already been teaching English in China and I was like, I want to go to Korea. I want to get a Teflon T-SOL certificate to get a higher salary, enhance my chances, all of that. So let me just Google Teflon T-SOL courses and I found ITTT and I took their courses and we started kind of working together and I started or I ended up working for ITTT in the end and it happened ever since. It's been many, many years and I really still enjoy it a lot. So I learned so much about the industry, about the field. It's ever-changing. It's always exciting. So yeah, that's why I'm here. And ITTT stands for International Teflon T-SOL Training and the website is TeflonCourse.net and we are one of the leading Teflon T-SOL course providers worldwide. All certificates are accepted, accredited all around the world. Me personally, I have many certificates from ITTT that are all have always been accepted by employers where I applied. So no problems there. And yeah, that's a bit about me. And I guess now we can jump into today's topic. And I'm just going to put this up so don't forget to like and subscribe, right? So you stay up to date. But yeah, let's talk about the five top trends for Teflon, for T-SOL, for teaching English in 2024. I know many of you guys want to start teaching English in the new year. You might already be certified or you might be at the beginning of this journey where you're not yet sure which course to take. Wherever you are in this Teflon T-SOL journey, this is the right life session for you to join. And I hope that we'll take something away from today that will help you for this year to navigate the industry and this new transition. And yeah, as always, feel free to reach out to me as well. You can send me a DM at Lindegos East. You can also email us. I'm just going to put that up right now with any questions that you might have. So this is, oh, that opens and then why does it say opens it in your tab? Let me get rid of that. Here, this is what it looks like. Courses at T-SOL minus teflon.com. If you have any questions about ITTT's courses, about how to get started with all of this, email our team there and they will be able to help you with any questions. And like I said, if you want to talk to me, you can also over here, send me a DM at Lindegos East on Instagram. And without further ado, Crystal Lee says, Woodward, I get to finally this year to go abroad and teach. Exciting, exciting. So you need to know these five trends that are transpiring in 2024 for this industry. And let's have a quick overview of what we're going to talk about. So these are the four main areas that we're going to talk about. Basically a work environment shift, teaching opportunities and destinations, government initiatives and cultural integration, and professional development and entry strategies. So these are the four areas where we see kind of changes this year or a special focus on this year and some opportunities for you guys. So that's what we're going to talk about. And the first one here is the work environment shifts that I want to get into. So this is a topic that we talked about and covered before as well in one of the live sessions. So the rise of digital nomads. We've seen this last year already. We've seen this in 2022 already, but it is only going to increase more in 2024. So taffle teachers adopting a nomadic lifestyle, teaching while traveling, and to facilitate that more and more countries are offering a digital nomad visa kind of schemes to support these people and welcome these people in. So here's a list. I hope it's not too small, but all of the countries that are currently offering digital nomad visas. And what's very exciting actually this year from January 1st, South Korea also has a digital nomad visa. So it's brand new. It's fresh. It has been in the works for like the past year, but they finally announced it, that it is happening January 1st. And you can actually come to South Korea and get a digital nomad visa and stay in Korea for up to two years, I believe. It is one year and it can be extended to another year. So if you're interested in pursuing this kind of a lifestyle where you mostly would teach online. So again, digital nomad visas, they typically are handed out to people who are registered, either self-employed or work for a company that is not registered in the country that you are wanting to go to. So if you work for a US company and you want to go to Korea, that's fine. But if the company is a Korean company and you want to work in Korea as a digital nomad, that doesn't work. So it has to be a company that's not from the place where you want to teach in or where you want to live in. So a lot of options here all over the world. As you can see, the list is long. It is only going to get longer in 2024. So this is a very popular thing people are doing right now, adapting this nomadic lifestyle, moving abroad. And we've all heard about co-working spaces, co-living spaces where people hang out and live. Many digital nomads stay in these places for months, right? Maybe three months, four months, five months, six months, up to a year. And then they would move on to a different country. So if this is something that you're interested in, 2024 is a great year to pursue this. More and more countries have digital nomad visas. And I've also done an extensive live session about this topic before. So you can check out our playlist and just search digital nomad. Just put in digital nomad and it will show up with more info about specific countries, the most popular countries. Of course, again, this is currently developing and growing all the time. So there's so many more countries now I might have to do an updated version. If that's something you're interested in, let me know and I'll do an updated live session about this topic with more countries. More countries to be included like South Korea, which is so popular for teachers. But yeah, so this is one of the work environment shifts that we are seeing in 2024, more digital nomadding teachers, right? Then also this kind of ties in with that. So the increased demand for online teaching, right? With digital nomadding, most of these people would then work as online teachers. But again, you don't have to go abroad to teach online. You can also teach online from your own country right from home. So again, this is just increasing online teaching is increasing more a consistent high demand for online teaching persists and opportunities span group classes and also personalized tutoring. More and more online teaching platforms are popping up everywhere. And this is just a list of like the 11 most popular platforms. And I've also done a live session about how to teach English online, how to get started before. So you can also check that out in our playlist on YouTube and also on Facebook and also podcast episode about that. But yeah, we have preply or pre-ply, if education first, Cambly with italki, schema talk, star kid, proto star, tutoring, Lingoda and cafe talk. And I'm actually, I started teaching English online during the pandemic as well. I only had in person classes before the pandemic, but then they all stopped, of course, right? With many, many teachers had the problem. And so I was like, yeah, let me just try online teaching and I'm still doing it. It's fun. It's great fun. It also has a lot of other benefits that we're actually going to touch on in a little bit to tie in with some other trends. So I don't want to say too much, but teaching English online is great for anyone who's really new to Tefl as well. But I'm going to say more about that in just a second. Yeah, and all of these platforms are slightly different. So a big difference between the platforms is that one, they are either a, what's it called, like a marketplace, a teacher marketplace or a full on online teaching school. So an online teaching school would be one that basically like EF education first or star kid. They would provide you with a curriculum and material to teach and would typically also assign students to you. So they would provide you with everything and assign students to you. And often you also have a certain amount of minimum hours that you need to teach on these platforms. So teacher marketplaces on the other hand, like pre-ply, cafe talk as well. I think not sure about Cambly. I think I talk you to schema talk. This is where you basically upload a profile as a teacher. You have a teacher profile. And you list all of the classes that you offer your prices and also your certifications, your qualifications, you list there. Sometimes you can also add an introduction video, which is always really helpful. And then students can browse the platform and decide if they want to book a lesson with you or not. But you have to plan all of the lessons yourself. There's no material provided or anything like that, but there's just a lot more flexibility. There typically no minimum hours that you need to have per week or per month or anything like that. So there's greater flexibility, but it can take a longer time to kind of establish regular students. So these are the differences between the two kind of models that we see in online teaching. And it really depends on what you feel most comfortable with. And also what's really important to remember, you don't have to stick to just one platform unless this is like stated in their policy. But normally you can register at multiple platforms and teach on multiple different platforms at the same time. Obviously you need to make sure that your calendar doesn't overlap. You don't get double booked for any sessions, time periods, but then yeah, that's that. So that's one other trend that we see increased demand for online teaching. And we're going to talk, we're going to come back to this anyway. There is more to that. And then just in general, the adaptation to remote work, remote work is still booming, still continuing. The pandemic induced shift again leads to remote work acceptance also for many employers and companies. And so Teflah educators, they also use more and more online training for global teaching careers. So what I mean by that is that more and more online courses are also popping up and accepted and more and more different online courses. And I just listed our different online courses, the most popular ones down here below. Obviously the price will be even cheaper with today's 30% off discount. But yeah, because of this adaptation to remote work and just the remote work acceptance, online courses are more accepted than ever now as well. They have been for a long time actually, but it's just even getting more and more now as well. We always had the debate between should I take an in-class Teflah course or an online Teflah course, which is more accepted with teaching time and things like that. But online courses are just as accepted even now and there's just more and more opportunities for you as a Teflah educator, as a Teflah teacher to get more training under your belt because of this shift as well. Yep, I think that is that. Okay, good. So this was the work environment shifts, quick review. So the digital nomad situation, right, that is increasing. Then we have the increased demand for online teaching. And with that, excuse me, all of the countries that are offering digital nomad visas now is just increasing even more. Same with the online teaching, you see more and more online teaching platforms popping up and they're hiring more, more and more people taking these online classes or there's a high demand there. And then just the remote work acceptance also with online courses, more and more different online courses you can take. There are even more accepted than ever all of these things. So these are the work environment shifts. Topic number one. If there are any questions, let me know in the comments and then we can move on to the next topic, which is teaching opportunities and destinations. We see some trends related to specific new hot TEFL teaching destinations as well. And that's what we're going to talk about next. All right. So, yeah, so diversification of teaching locations. So this year, especially places in South America and Southern Asia are especially booming and attract more and more TEFL teachers, especially Columbia and Vietnam see an increased demand due to economic growth and English focus. So both these countries have a booming emerging economy and they're also their governments are funding a lot of English education programs. So a lot of schools, they really want to get English teachers into their country, get English, you know, to their population for business for economic growth. So those, excuse me, excuse me. So those two countries, Columbia and Vietnam are especially attractive in 2024 for teaching opportunities. So if you're interested in one of these two regions, you're going to have really, really good chances of landing a really good job there. And here are just two things about those countries. So Columbia's, we just talked about surging demand for English teachers is driven by government initiatives. And this makes it an accessible choice without strict degree requirements. So they don't really have a lot of requirements on, yeah, you need to have a bachelor's degree, you need to have this, this, this. The requirements are pretty low, but the opportunities are really, really good. So with low living costs also, and they offer attractive Tefal salaries. Columbia is an adventure hub for new teachers seeking diverse experiences in a rapidly growing market focused on English proficiency. So if that sounds like something you were into, you're into check out Columbia. And then we have Vietnam. So they also have a booming economy and tourism is really, really important in Vietnam, of course, and also a big factor for their economies. That's why they are also pushing English education and have a constant demand for English teachers. And this is driven by the need for higher language proficiency and they offer rewarding opportunities alongside a vibrant living experience. I've been to Vietnam a couple of times. It's a beautiful place. I could definitely see myself living there and teaching there. It's amazing. However, you do need to have a bachelor's degree and a Tefal certification to come to Vietnam to teach. But if you have that, then there are so many opportunities in 2024 to teach English in Vietnam specifically and also in Columbia. So yeah, these are definitely worth mentioning as two of the hotspots for this year. All right, then we also have continued opportunities abroad. We talked a lot about the online stuff and that online teaching is booming. But in person teaching abroad still remains popular despite this online shift, especially countries like South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam. Again, Vietnam just mentioned that are coveted for culture and benefits. They typically have their attractive countries, fun. Also lots of touristy places, lots of cool places to visit. But they also have attractive salary benefits and are just very teacher friendly. And here South Korea has been a top choice and it's just known for rich culture, heritage and modern cities. It's ideal for Tefal teachers offering diverse job options with benefits like accommodation and travel perks. So that's why Korea is really one of the top choices still and has been for a long time. You get attractive salaries, but you also get a lot of benefits like paid housing, paid airfare, health insurance is great. All of these things you get bonuses, contract completion bonuses normally. You also get a severance at the end. You also pay into the national pension scheme and when you leave, you actually get all of that money back. So this is also very great. And Thailand is a growing Tefal destination. It has been a great Tefal destination for many, many years, but it's also welcoming millions of tourists every year. So that's why English is also very important there. It has a flourishing job market and you can teach anything from kindergarten all the way to university levels. And it's especially accommodating for non-native English speakers with schools offering attractive benefits and support as well. And we're going to talk a little bit about that as well in just a second, I believe. But yeah. So again, we mentioned Columbia, South America. We mentioned Southeast Asia. So we have Vietnam, Thailand. We also have Korea still booming this year. Again, this is the second mention of Korea. We have Korea with the new digital nomad visa. So they also want more remote workers, foreign remote workers coming into the country, but also teaching is still a booming market in South Korea. Lots of opportunities. Yes. And then we have the, yeah, that's what I was just saying. So the non-native English speaker opportunities. Really, really great news and something that we have been wanting for a long time that we finally see some countries welcoming, you know, more and more non-native English speakers. They're not so strict on requirements. Like you have to be a native speaker from one of those seven countries that they always talk about. So they're just broader teaching avenues emerging for a diverse teacher pool, which is really, really great. And Thailand in specifically, Thailand in particular, or Thailand specifically, is changing and is welcoming more TEFL-qualified non-native speakers now. So these are trends observed in the TEFL field and they show that certain countries like Thailand have been increasingly open to non-native English speakers with strong TEFL-TESOL qualifications. So if you have a lot of qualifications, but you're a non-native English speaker, you're going to have better chances this year, especially in places like Thailand where they just become more open-minded, more lenient towards that. And I think that's really, really great news for a lot of people because that's just such an old-fashioned way to look at things with like, yeah, you have to be, or like a non-native speaker is only from one of those seven countries. If you've never heard about this, the seven native English-speaking countries are considered Canada, the US, Ireland, I have, excuse my fingers, Ireland, the UK, South Africa, yeah, Australia and New Zealand. So those seven are considered the seven native English-speaking countries. But of course, we're in 2024 now, so that's not really accurate. So I'm very happy about the shift, very happy about the shift that people are finally like being more open-minded. That's really, really great and that's really something we need in this industry. So I think these are really, really great. Again, as a recap, countries to look out for this year, Colombia, Vietnam, Thailand, especially being more open-minded towards highly qualified non-native English speakers and also Korea still booming. So again, we see South America and Asia. Asia, Asia, Asia is still booming this year as well. It has been, it has always been the booming market. So still continuing. Ray says, hey, when the stream is over, when you have the time, I would like to hear about your experience with ITTT. I'm interested in the program, but I want to chat with someone that has done the program if you have the time. Sure, you know, send me a DM if you have Instagram here at LindaGhostEast. Reach out to me and we can have a chat. I'll tell you all about my experience. Maybe if we have time at the end, they can also talk about it in the Q&A. But absolutely, you can ask me any questions. Okay, we talked about that. Great. All right. So now we're going to talk about government initiatives and cultural integration as a trend for 2024 and TEFL and teaching. So with government initiatives, we just see that more and more countries promote English proficiency via government schemes and offer initiatives to TEFL teachers aiding these initiatives. So what do I mean by that? And we have done several live sessions about these government initiatives. For example, there's the Epic program in South Korea, the Jet program in Japan, the Net Scheme in Hong Kong. We have the TEFL in Taiwan, the English Open Doors program in Chile. We also have the Taepiff program in France or now kept in Spain. So these are just seven of the programs, some of the biggest programs in the industry. But we're seeing, again, a much higher demand. They kind of slowed down during the pandemic. And now, of course, we're two years past the pandemic still booming. They're opening up more spots and also more and more countries are introducing these initiatives. So they're still strong. They're still worth applying for, especially the Epic, the Jet program. All of these listed here are still worth pursuing. They're still competitive, but they're still so, so great when you're in them. Great benefits. Just a lot of support also. Most of these, they will pick you up from the airport. There's the orientation period. You'll have somebody who's like support staff. You can always reach out to the salaries are good. You typically also have more paid holidays compared to people who work for private schools or not in this program. So yeah, that's why these programs are still recommended also in 2024. And the last session that I did, was it the last session? I think it was all of the dates, the deadlines, the dates, the hiring seasons for this year. And I mentioned these programs as well and when their deadlines are and some of them are coming up in January. So if you're interested in applying for one of these, check out the deadlines on their official websites. You can go back to my live session that I did about that. Either it was the last live session that I did. I think so it's the one, the latest one in the playlist with all of the dates. So you make sure that you don't miss these. If you want to apply for one of these programs or also the hiring seasons to know for this year in the different countries and regions. Check out this previous live session because it's going to be very helpful. You don't want to miss any of these important dates, especially when you're entering this job market this year and you're applying. You really need to know when to apply, when are the best seasons at the time. So definitely recommend that. Good. So then we have the next point, which is just cultural immersion and travel. So definitely educators, they use teaching roles for cultural immersion. Of course, this has been kind of always the way to seek diverse cultural experiences alongside teaching duties. And that's just continuing, right? We still teach English abroad to also explore the world. But you just need to be a little bit careful when you're applying and you're interviewing. You should be excited to move abroad to a different country and about the culture and things, but don't sound like that's all you want to do. You just go to this country, you just apply for this teaching job so you can travel and explore the world. That's not what they're looking for, right? So yes, you can be excited. Yes, you want to have an interest in the different cultures and in travel, but especially during your job interview. Don't make that your top priority because the schools, they want to hire somebody who's obviously serious about teaching. So if they kind of get the vibe that you're just coming to have a good time to travel and explore the world might not be the ideal candidate for that. But this is still going strong and a lot of these government initiatives here, they're actually having or they include like cultural integration programs. So they will often include language courses. They will often include like fun like experiences tours, cultural events and things like that. So we're also seeing that more and more this year as well. Yeah. And the last point I believe out of today's life session is the professional development and entry strategies that we see in this year. Trends and shifts. So there's definitely the emphasis on experience. And I told you when we talked about the online teaching in the beginning that we were going to come back to that and this is this. So initial online teaching. If you're pursuing that it demands practice and experience. So they do always want to have people with experience but online teaching companies they offer valuable starting experiences. So for anyone who wants to start teaching English professionally abroad or also online teaching English online is a great way to get started and to get experience. A lot of people are following that. They want to start teaching. If you know like I want to start teaching English next year. This year can be your year where you pick up online teaching and you get your initial experience under your belt. It's going to look really, really good on your resume. If you're applying for in-person teaching later to have online teaching experience first. You can really fine tune your teaching skills. You can make money and you have experience. Again, it is it depends on the region where you apply to some regions like we talked about with Columbia, Vietnam. They have a huge demand. But if you're applying to one of the teaching programs these government initiatives popular areas with just high competition and a lot of other fellow teachers applying you need to stand out. And people with this kind of experience are just preferred and going to have an edge. So that is one strategy to get more experience under your belt with online teaching. And we also see the freelance tutoring trend more and more. So there's a growing trend of setting up individual online teaching platforms and TEFL certified individuals attract global students through freelancing. So what that means is you would start out as a online teacher working for one of the platforms that we talked about in the beginning. But then the kind of the bad thing about those is that they take a commission, they take a cut from your salary, right? So you're thinking like, well, I can just set up my own like online school or online platform or online website. You just open up a website and offer your classes there and 100% of the money will go to you. You don't have to give anybody a commission. So this is another trend that we see more and more people do the freelance tutoring. You set up your own teaching platform, quick website offering your services and you avoid the commission that you would have to pay to these platforms. So how this works is typically there's a lot more work involved because we talked about the platforms that basically either assign students to you or obviously they give you a platform. They advertise for you, right? They advertise for you. They assign students to you. So you have to do very little marketing work. But when you have your own website and you do the freelance tutoring route, you need to set up a website and you need to spread the word, right? You need to do your own marketing either on social media or word of mouth, friends, anything. And then the reward will be bigger than the online teaching platforms. And a lot of people are doing this, especially in 2024, combined with the digital nomading and things like that, the remote worker visas, all of that thing. So a lot of people just want to break free from these platforms that are sometimes charging a big commission and people don't like that. So this is another trend that we see more and more with freelance tutoring, setting up your own online tutoring business. Yeah. And these are all the trends that I wanted to mention for 2024. So yeah, I should have added a little recap slide here. I'm realizing now, but let's just recap the last, the professional development points so we don't forget. So basically we talked about these experience emphasis on experience and a great way this year to get experience is to take up online teaching, right? Or you can also get experience by teaching somebody in your community. If you have like, yeah, you can find student in-person students as well. If you're like, hey, I don't really like online teaching. I want to teach face to face. You can also find people in your community that you can tutor and get experience that way. And then what we just talked about the freelance tutoring side. So that's another trend, people setting up their own freelance tutoring business online to avoid these high commission fees that these online teaching platforms are typically charging. And there we go. So maybe I have this slide here in the beginning with all the points. Yeah. Here they are. This is what we talked about the work environment shifts, more digital nomads, but also in-person teaching abroad is still booming, especially in places like Thailand, Vietnam, Korea, Columbia, think South America and Asia. And then we have the government programs, the government initiatives that are still going strong, still worth applying for. But keep in mind those deadlines, those dates. So go back to the previous life sessions for those dates so you don't miss any deadlines when applying for these programs. And then the professional development, the emphasis on experience, freelance tutoring. And also one important point here from the teaching opportunities and destinations, the openness, more opportunities for non-native English speakers. That's I think my favorite part that they're just opening up and are more inclined to hire from a wider teacher pool. So these are our trends for English teaching in 2024. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope there's something you took away from today. You learned something and then we can open up our Q&A session and you can ask me your questions. Let me get this slide, the Q&A slide, not this. Oh, if this is the last slide, it's going to always do that. And I'm just going to leave this slide open here. So we see the discount. I'm going to share the discount link again for you guys. So again, we offer a 30% off discount code today for anyone who's not get TEFL certified because again, I didn't mention this, but along with the experience that is preferred. Also people who are TEFL and TESOL certified are of course also preferred. And it's more important than ever, more important than ever, right, to have a certificate. All right, this is the code or you can scan the QR code. Same or copy and paste this link. And then I'm ready to take on any questions that you guys have. Could be anything related to ITTT, TEFL TESOL, today's topic, if there's something that you didn't understand, or maybe there's a trend you observed that I didn't mention. Let me know. I like to have a conversation with you guys. So let me know what you think. Let me know what you think about these trends. Is this something that you also think aligns with your professional personal goals? Let me know. Ask me your questions. We have a couple of minutes left here that we can spend on asking questions. So don't be shy. Leave a comment. I see there's people watching over on YouTube and on Facebook. So let me know. Don't be shy. Don't be shy. If you don't want to ask here live in front of everybody, I also understand that. And you can always reach out to me via DM here on Instagram at LindaGhostEast. Just send me a message and we can have a chat in private. But other than that, we're all friends here. So no need to be shy or worry or yeah. We're all cool. We're all cool here. So just ask away. Ask away, ask away. But isn't it crazy already? It's January 5th where I am maybe it's January 4th for you guys. But it's 2024. Time goes by really fast. I always recommend kind of making and I talked about this too with in the previous live session about the deadlines to having seasons. Make yourself like a timeline, you know, map it out, draw it out. If this helps you, I always really like to do this, the old fashioned way, like on a piece of paper, map everything out, write a list of all the things to do, all the steps to take. So you just kind of stay focused. And you know what to do and how to reach your goal. That's very important, I think. Yeah. I'm going to wait a little bit more. Ray says, are you with Yahoo or Gmail when I contact you email? Okay. You can contact me here infoatlindegoseast.com. That's my email. You can reach out to me infoatlindegoseast.com. If email, if you prefer email over like Instagram DM. Hi, B Huang says, why can non-native teachers teach abroad? I mean, there are so many native speakers available. Why shouldn't they, you know, why shouldn't non-native speakers teach English abroad? I actually think non-native English speakers sometimes make for better teachers because they have learned English and they know the grammar usually much better than native English speakers and they know exactly the struggles with English language learning versus a native speaker, to be honest. Native speakers oftentimes cannot really relate what it's like to learn English. They have no idea. So that's a huge plus for non-native English speakers because non-native English speakers or teachers, they have also learned English. They don't know exactly what's the hardest part or they can just relate to their students much better. So B Huang says, I know, but a lot of schools prefer native speakers. I know, and that's what we're going to, what we just talked about too with trend that a lot of countries now are kind of changing their perspective and they're more open and welcoming to also qualify non-native English speakers because I think they see that too. So that's a lot of benefits of hiring non-native English speakers. I think it should probably be, every school should have like 50-50 native speakers and also non-native English teachers, in my opinion. They both have benefits, right? But yeah. So I mean, a lot of schools, some countries still prefer hiring native English speakers even tied to visas where you have to be from one of those countries that we mentioned. It's a very old fashioned way to look at things and every school should just be able to hire the teacher that they want to hire, whether this person is a native speaker or a non-native speaker. They should just be able to choose for themselves and not have any visa regulations dictate who they can hire and who not, who they can't. I don't know. Yeah. But native speakers and non-native English speakers can certainly teach English abroad just the same. Why not? Yeah, but that's a good point. All right. Well, I'm just going to give it a couple more seconds here to see if any questions are coming through. I don't want anybody not to get a chance to ask a question. So if there's someone still, you know, you're thinking of something, don't be shy. Just type it in the comments and I'll try my best to answer it. Or you reach out to me personally. I also have our team that you can reach out to here. Where's the email address courses at tsalminusteffel.com. The other, the, all of our course consultants, they will be able to, you know, help you with what course you should take, depending on what your goal is, what country you want to go to and things like that. Or if there's something you want to talk specifically with me, you can reach out to me at info at LindaGoesEast.com. Or at LindaGoesEast on Instagram. Just send me a DM. I always read my DMs. And I'm always happy to connect with you guys. So let's hear your options. Okay. Race is how long do the discounts last after each stream? So the discount actually never expires. It never expires because we know like it sometimes takes some time to figure out which course is the right course for you. So I just recommend kind of saving this link, copy and paste it, save it somewhere on your computer, you know, somewhere or like on your phone where you can find it later. So once you're ready to sign up for the course, you click on this link because that's the important part. You have to use this link to get the discount code, right? So but it does not expire. But this is the only time where we share 30% off. Discount codes is during the live streams. So this link is the only one. We have other discounts like on the website, Christmas discount, New Year's discount, but they're not 30%. So make sure you use this one. And it will say when you use this link, it will say it will lead you to an application page and it will say at the top, congratulations, you get 30% off or something. And so if it doesn't say that, then you didn't click the right link. So let me know. If it doesn't say that, I'll help you out. It's very important that you use this link. Good question. Okay. Well, as always, thank you so much. Oh, Amitava has a great comment here. Okay, Amitava, I just hope that they do not discriminate between the so-called native and non-native speakers and that too in 2024. Also, when will this ugly process of opting for native speakers and the Almighty have made all human beings equal, irrespective of language, skin color or creed? Yes, I agree with you, Amitava. I know. And I think with these trends from today, we see that, you know, people are changing their minds and it is getting better. And there's still a lot of countries where non-native English speakers can teach and are accepted. And it's not, it's only, it's not that many places that really 100% only hire native English speakers. It's only a handful of places. I think there's more opportunities for non-native. So if you have really good qualifications and all of that, there really shouldn't be anything that hinders you from having a good career as an English teacher, even if you're a non-native English speaker. But I agree. Sure. That stigma does exist. Yes. But it's getting better. I feel like also, as we see with Thailand, with the trends, it is getting better. So let's keep an eye out for that. All right. Well, good. Don't forget to like and subscribe so you're updated and you get notified whenever we go live. Don't forget to use this code if you want to sign up for a course. And yeah, reach out to me if you have any, any questions. I'm always here for you guys. And then I want to wish everybody again, a happy new year. And let's make, let's, let's try and achieve our goals in 2024, whatever goal you have. I'll try and support you. And yeah, I hope to see you all again next time when we go live and stay happy, stay healthy. Happy new year from me and from ITTT and have a wonderful weekend ahead. All right. Thank you so much guys. Bye.