Job Prospects in Brazil, Peru,???

[ELParoo]

Hello there,

I was wondering what the job prospects for somebody like myself are.

So here we go, i am a 23 year old English man. I graduated last year and have since got 6 months experience working as a teaching assistant at a primary school. I lived in Brazil for over a year and speak Portuguese fluentnly (Probably irrelevant). I am going to do the TEFL course in the next couple of months.

Right then, the countries that i would most like to teach in are Peru, Indonesia and Brazil.

What are the chances of me getting a job in these places?
Does anybody have experience of working in these countries and if so how did they find it?
Also, if i complete the course by May, what is a reasonable date to expect to be working abroad.

Thanks, Kam.

[Lucas]

It's fairly easy to get a job in the 3 countries you mention. Brazilians have a good level of English and nationals receive teacher training for free at university so many schools (Especially in the big cities) require that you have an advanced certificate and that you also have some teaching experience.
Many people obtain a job while completing their TEFL course, so you can start working as soon as you finish the course.

[ELParoo]

Thanks for your reply, that sounds very encouraging.

What is the best way to get a job? Just fly over and look or secure one here first? I'm not too savi when it comes to understanding these things. My prefered place would be to go to Indonesia, so that is very good to hear that it's fairly easy to get a job out there. I was under the impression that it would be difficult.

[Alex Case]

I think Lucas might have been a bit too encouraging, although I'm no expert on these countries. The only recruiter for Peru I know in the UK is Saxoncourt, and they demand a couple of years' experience (whereas they recruit for Japan with zero experience). EF recruit for Indonesia from abroad, but they are not generally recommended, and especially not in Indonesia (from reading reviews online and 2 teachers I knew who worked there- admittedly not the most representative sample). I think in Brazil you might find a preference for American English. In all those cases, going out there might be your best option but you might find that means working illegally on a tourist visa and having to do visa runs. If I were you, I'd do a year or two in Europe or East Asia and then try for those less popular destinations after, but again, no expert on these

[ICAL_Pete]

Finding work in Peru without actually being there is not so easy. There are quite a number of large language chains and smaller single schools operating in Peru but they tend to collect their teachers from the local supply as it were rather than advertise online. By all accounts casually work can be picked up quite easily.

Likewise in Brazil. If you are there you stand a much better chance of finding work, especially of course in the big cities.

Jobs in Indonesia are advertised online, especially chains like EF, but again, if you're there in person it can help a lot.

Because of this, perhaps your best bet is to get over to the country of your choice and start (literally) knocking on school doors to see if they have work available. This can be a bit daunting but it you have enough money to see you through a few weeks and an open return flight if things don't pan out, it could be the way to go about finding work there.

Of course you may be lucky and find work through an online ad. Alternatively you could try trawling the net for schools in those countries and emailing them all on spec to find work. I did this once (though not for the countries you mentioned) and ended up finding a fantastic job in Australia who just happened to need someone when my email dropped in their lap!

[systematic]

I wholeheartedly support the advice Alex has given. In particular, do Google EF , English First, and see what other people are saying about them in the forums.

[GracefulLion]

Hi systematic;

I'm new to TEFL.net, but have your post such as those here in this thread most informative.

I'd like to bend a couple of questions your way as you have the first-hand experience and expertise in the country I'm most interested in teaching English in.

Would you mind dropping me a line privately if you can? As I'm new I don't yet have the ability to contact you directly.

Much obliged-

Ron :)

[systematic]

Feel free to post any questions you have in any of our respective forums. The answers we give are generally of interest to most of our readers.