​University graduates are increasingly turning to Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) as a career because they cannot find good jobs at home.

Moving abroad to teach English has become the only viable option for many graduates, according to The TEFL Academy, a Sussex-based international business that trains more than 6,000 TEFL students a year, two-thirds of them graduates.

Director Rhyan O’Sullivan said: “We have seen a 30 percent increase in applications from graduates over the past 12 months. There is a whole generation of people coming out of university with no career path. For a lot of them, doing a TEFL course is their only hope of getting a decent job. It’s sad that graduates struggle to get jobs in the UK, but taking the TEFL course gives them hope and makes them instantly employable.

“There is an incredible amount of work in TEFL. The British Council estimates there are one-and-a-half billion people worldwide wanting to learn English. That’s one in seven people on the planet. In China alone, there are 400 million people learning English right now and many millions more in south-east Asia and South America. If you learn TEFL, you’re guaranteed a job!”

Liam Riley, 26, graduated from university with first class honours in English and Creative Writing.

He said: “I found it very hard to get work. I was looking for anything in the media but ended up working as a freelance journalist for a magazine in Liverpool. I also worked part-time in a bar to make ends meet. It was tough. I was on minimum wage and living hand to mouth.”

Liam decided to take a TEFL course because it was his “best chance of getting work”. “I thought that if I did TEFL abroad for a year, I would be more employable when I came back,” he said. “I took a weekend course followed by 100 hours of online tuition. The course was comprehensive and prepared me very well for work as a TEFL teacher.”

He quickly landed a job as a TEFL teacher in Suzhov, near Shanghai, China. “I wasn’t able save up any money back home, so I thought I’d come out to China where I could secure a job and save money,” said Liam. “You can save here because the price difference compared with the UK is astronomical. In China, I get paid between £1,000 and £1,100 a month and can live off around £500.”

Moreover, he finds his job more fulfilling than his UK work was. “I really enjoy the work here. It’s brilliant!” said Liam. “It is so different from back home. I have been promoted in my job already. I was a basic teacher at Jenny’s Palace English Teaching Centre. Now I am Assistant to the Head teacher.

“It’s fantastic. It takes some time to get used to! I am fortunate where I live. You have the comfort of a large ex-pat community and can explore the old-style China. I’m very lucky!”

Craig Crowther, 25, who graduated in 2013 with upper-second class honours in media and politics, said: “I got it into my head that I wanted to do TEFL. Employment circumstances in Britain were not great. They are not good now but they were even worse back then. I did not want to have no job after I graduated.”

He says the TEFL course he took gave him the “basic tools and techniques to fall back on until I could build my own portfolio of skills and abilities”.  

“It gives you the confidence to feel you can do it,” said Craig. “I went off to Shanghai in China for six months. I also went to Bangkok for a year. I was teaching three-year-olds to 14-year-olds. We played a lot of games!”

Craig said: “You get a split of people in TEFL - one demographic who are doing it for the travel and experience, and one demographic who can make a career out of it. China was interesting from a cultural perspective but wasn’t a place I wanted to stay forever.

“I have friends who are teaching at universities as a result of doing TEFL – one at the University of Munich and another at the University of Istanbul. Often people end up with a successful academic career out of it.”

Craig is now working in a new media job in Berlin. He found it through contacts he made while teaching English in Bangkok. He said: “Even if you do not want to teach forever, it provides connections and opportunities.”

Margarita Ruszkowska – currently teaching in Vietnam – found she could only get dead-end jobs when she lived in Brighton, East Sussex. 

She said: “I became bored because you can’t progress or learn if the company does not want to invest in you. I decided to quit my job and realised that I wanted to travel more. I signed up for a TEFL course in January 2015.”

Margarita’s dream came true remarkably quickly. She took a weekend TEFL course and decided to complete the online part of the course while travelling in south-east Asia.

She said: “It was a good course, covering the basic methods of teaching. I loved it! For me it was the solution. You have a year to complete the course online but I really cracked on with it. I completed my online assignments by the end of May while still travelling – and got a distinction!”

 “I was in Vietnam when I finished the course,” added Margarita. “I met people who were teaching there and they helped me get in contact with the schools. I went back to the UK to pack up my things and returned to Vietnam to work. “There are plenty of jobs – they are desperate for English teachers. I have ended up working in four or five schools, including a couple of secondary schools, a kindergarten and a Korean school where I teach English to mothers. You get paid from 15 to 25 dollars an hour, although I spend quite a lot of time riding between jobs on my scooter. It is very different from the UK where it is hard to get good jobs. 

“It’s tough to get decent jobs in the south of England. Brighton is challenging for jobs, especially decent ones in which you can progress in your career.”

She said her current life is a huge improvement on being jobless for five months in Brighton in 2011, working on minimum wage in a call centre and taking other dead-end jobs. 

Margarita added that TEFL is a great way into work but she stressed that candidates needed to be genuinely interested in teaching English as a foreign language.

“I hope they take the job seriously,” she said. “It is interesting work and you gain life experience. I love working with children. I could probably teach TEFL anywhere now.”

This article appears courtesy of The TEFL Academy.

By David White

Whether you are studying at an international institution for a semester, a year, or your entire college career, you will undoubtedly run into some technical, geographical, cultural, and academic challenges. Fortunately, major advances in technology and social networking have made the transition from one culture to another a bit smoother than it may have been in the past.

If you are planning on studying in a foreign country, consider downloading some of the following apps before setting off on your journey:

1. Google Maps
One of the most obvious challenges for an individual who is traveling in or moving to an unfamiliar place is navigating the terrain. With Google Maps, you can view a map of your city or town, receive and print directions from one location to another, and even navigate with turn-by-turn directions that utilize your smartphone’s GPS function. Google Maps can also detect your location, and then suggest restaurants, stores, and other conveniences that are in your vicinity.

2. Skype
Although technology has dramatically changed the ways in which we live our lives, there are some travel items that remain difficult—like overseas telephone calls. If you are planning to use your current cell phone while studying abroad, it is important that you speak with your provider to ensure that you will be able to do so, and that it will not cost you a significant amount of money.

Whether or not you will be using your cell phone very often, consider downloading the Skype app for your computer and smartphone. This app will allow you to make international video calls for free, so long as all parties have a Skype account.

3. SoundNote (or a similar app)
As a college student, you will be taking notes quite frequently. While this may seem like a simple task, dividing your attention between listening and writing can be challenging. This, of course, is even truer when you are taking notes in a second language. 

With the SoundNote app, you can take notes while the app tracks what you write, and also records the lecture or presentation. When you refer to your notes at a later time, you can simply tap on a word or phrase, and SoundNote will bring you to the precise point in the recording to which your notes refer.

4. Google Translate
If you have been accepted to an international university, you have likely had to pass the TOEFL or otherwise demonstrate proficiency in a second language. Nevertheless, there is a strong chance that you will have moments when you struggle with certain words or phrases.

When this happens, the Google Translate app is great for translating words or phrases into your native language. It is also capable of translating signs or other printed text. For example, if you pointed your smartphone at a street sign, the app could translate the text on the sign into many different languages.

5. Meetup
Relocating to a new city—even for a short duration—is challenging for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that you will not know many people. Luckily, the Meetup app might be just the app you need to help you get settled in your new home. Like Google Maps, Meetup uses your GPS to find social groups and events near you, based on information about your interests that you provide. 


David White is a contributing writer for UniversityTutor.com, the world's largest global marketplace for finding independent tutors. 

​By Tom Jager
​
Studying abroad can be really difficult, especially in the first couple of weeks. There are many obstacles that a foreign student needs to overcome in order to fully adapt to another culture and another language. Furthermore, the most difficult part is adapting to the new system of studying which may be a lot different from their home country. 

Luckily, the Internet offers many resources that will help all of those who are either struggling to adapt or just want to learn more and feel better about being in a different country. Here are a few important ones that can help you.

Grammar Up – learn English grammar and test it
In order  to study in an English-speaking country, you need to arm yourself with impeccable grammar.  Grammar Up is a website that provides interactive test for testing your grammar and through which you can also learn new and interesting things that exist in English grammar. Furthermore, all the examples on this website are taken from the famous English books, which will allow you to learn about the literature as well – and what is a better way to learn about a culture but from the books?

Sounds – speak like a native speaker
This tool helps people from non-english speaking countries who had come to study to an English-speaking country. It is simply named "Sounds“ because it basically provides information and practice on how to properly pronounce English sounds. Why is this important? Well, people with an accent may sometimes mispronounce certain words and, thus, cause the hearer to misinterpret those words. You do not want your words to be misinterpreted when you study.

Elevate – practice all language skills at once 
Based on the newest discoveries in cognitive sciences, Elevate provides the user the ability to train their brain in order to achieve better communication and better analytical abilities. In other words, Elevate trains your reading, speaking, listening and writing skills all at once through entertaining games. The study has shown that people who used Elevate to train their skills improved by 69% when compared to the people who did not use the application.

Google maps – know your way around
I am certain that most of the people reading this article are familiar with Google Maps, but it is still a very powerful tool that it is worth mentioning. If you have a Google account and you study in another country, you might want to see what are all the options that Google Maps offer – and there are dozens of them. If you have the app installed on your phone as well, you will have no problem getting around the world at all.

Google translate – translate anything to your native tongue
While we are on the subject of Google, Translate tool is also worth mentioning. Although still not perfect and not really suitable for translating phrases or sentences, Translate will help you by translating individual words. Word groups will be somehow robotically and unnaturally translated, but you will still be able to deduce the meaning. 

Eventbrite – see what interesting events are happening in your environment
The best way to understand culture of a certain people is to expose yourself directly to its most traditional festivals. Luckily, Eventbrite scans your location and shows all the nearby events that may be interesting for you. Furthermore, there is an option to filter out things that you are not interested in and just see what you might attend. Eventbrite also lets you create your own events and buy tickets for the already existing ones.

MoneyWise – keep track of your expenses
One of the biggest problems that students from another country encounter when studying abroad is how that other culture views and handles money. Furthermore, if those foreign students have someone send them money from their homeland, it can take up several weeks before they arrive. Therefore,  MoneyWise is a GooglePlay app that will let the students keep detailed information on all the possible expenses, incomes and outcomes that they have.

These are just a few resources which you can check out and which will eventually help you overcome all the barriers that may exist while studying abroad. Whether you have a cultural barrier or a language barrier, just remember that practice will solve everything, and now practice is made a lot easier with these apps.

Tom Jager is professional blogger. He works at Write My Essay for Me.  He has a degree in Law and English literature. Tom has written numerous articles/online journals. You can reach him at G+  or Facebook.

By David White 
​
No matter what stage of life you are in, moving is a very stressful experience. This is only compounded when you are moving to a new country to begin your education as an international student. 

In all the anxiety, excitement, and activity of planning your first year of study at an American college, it is easy to forget about certain things, some of which are critically important. If you are preparing to start your first year as a student in the United States, it is worth your time to make sure that you have planned and prepared for the following:

Logistical considerations
Moving from one country to another—even temporarily—is a complicated and, at times, arduous experience. In addition to securing housing, ensuring that your belongings arrive safely, and acclimating to a new environment, there are several items that your host government and school will expect you to secure.

The first is your passport. This form of identification allows you to travel between countries. Passports are issued by your government, which means you will need to determine which department oversees this matter. Keep in mind that passports can take several months to arrive, so plan accordingly.

The second is a visa. In addition to your passport, a visa enables you to be in the United States for a specific purpose (such as an education) for a specific period of time. Failing to apply for a visa (or failing to meet its conditions during the school year) can affect your status as a student, so you absolutely must coordinate with your government and school to ensure that you are in good standing.

Academic considerations
By now, you have likely realized that not all educational programs are alike. A college in the United States, for example, could have very different expectations than a college in another country. If you have already been accepted to a school, it may be helpful to review curricula or syllabi from the college to begin familiarizing yourself with the general requirements.

Curricula and syllabi can sometimes be found online, but if you cannot locate them, a representative from your school may be able to help you. These documents will give you a sense of what types of books or materials you might use, how particular classes might be structured, and what types of assignments you might complete.

Cultural and social considerations
Depending on where you are traveling from, the culture and social environment of your school could be very different from what you are used to, so it is worth exploring the area (if only digitally) before you arrive.

In many cases, students will visit a college before accepting an offer. However, for international students, this often very difficult or impossible due to cost, distance, and so on. If you are not able to visit your new city or town before arriving for your first year, investigate whether the school has any information on the area. This might include materials about local restaurants and attractions, or resources like a library or cultural center. You might also learn about activities or social groups that you might be interested in joining.

Finally, most colleges have a center or representative whose job it is to help international students acclimate to their new surroundings. If you have not spoken with this individual or department yet, you may wish to reach out to introduce yourself. Depending on your circumstances and experience, the international student affairs representative or office may be the best option for helping you with tasks like joining campus groups and navigating your new environment.

David White is a contributing writer for UniversityTutor.com, the world's largest global marketplace for finding independent tutors.