Not only is it possible to teach English abroad without any prior experience, it is actually very common as only around 10% of EFL teachers currently working had a teaching job before their present employment. As demand is so high in many areas and there are often not enough teachers to fill vacant positions, having previous teaching experience is a luxury that most employers are not in a position to ask for.
Do I need to know my student's language to teach English abroad?
No. In the vast majority of cases in every part of the world your classroom will operate using a method known as total immersion. This modern approach to language teaching simply means that nothing but English is spoken in the class for the entire lesson. The purpose of this method is to recreate the experience that language learners would have if they moved to an English speaking country and were surrounded by the language daily. As this is unlikely to happen in reality for most students, it is up to the teacher to bring this environment to their class within the context of every individual lesson.
Will completing a TEFL course really help me to teach English?
As mentioned, teaching experience is not necessary to start a new career as an EFL teacher, but that doesn’t mean that any English speaker can walk into a classroom and teach the language successfully. To do this you will require a certain set of skills and knowledge that needs to be learned before starting out and further practiced once you secure a teaching position. To learn all the required aspects of a language teacher you need to complete a TEFL certification course that covers basic skills such as lesson planning, grammar awareness and classroom management. Once you have these bases covered there will be nothing standing in the way of your new life as a fully qualified English language teacher.
