If your dream is to live in another country for a while to submerge yourself in its culture, expand your knowledge of the world and its people, have a great adventure and support yourself at the same time, there isn’t a much better way to achieve it than by becoming a teacher of English to speakers of other languages.

Spoken by twenty percent of the world’s population, English is already the second-most-spoken language on the planet, following the family of Chinese languages. And because English has become the common language of multinational business, of diplomacy, of the internet, of science, of tourism and of media, increasingly more people who don’t already know English need and want to learn it. It’s easily the most commonly studied language in the world, far ahead of French in second place.

Countries throughout the world are actively seeking teachers who are native English speakers in particular, offering opportunities for you to travel and work in Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan, China, Spain, Greece, Somaliland, Croatia, Brunei or Brazil and other points across the map. Even if leaving home is the farthest thing from your mind, there are many options to teach English as a second language in the United States to children and adults alike in both public and private settings.

Whether you take off for a foreign country or teach right around the corner from where you live now, your students are going to give you an education right along with the one you’re giving them. There’s no other teaching setting where you’ll have the chance to interact as personally with students from such a wide spectrum of national and cultural backgrounds bringing their own perspectives to the process and expanding your horizon to new and different ways of thinking about things.

To learn about the requirements of the job and how to start, read on.

What You’ll Need

Having a clear grasp of the English language yourself is essential, naturally. But knowing how to speak a language isn’t the same thing as knowing how to teach it. The academic discipline is known by several names: teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) and teaching English as a second language (ESL), but they all mean essentially the same thing.

For teaching in schools, particularly in the United States, you’ll need a masters degree. Don’t let that be a roadblock, though, because if you’re currently teaching a different subject or working at a different kind of job entirely you can continue in your present position while you study in a TESOL master’s program online.

What You’ll Learn

While specific topics will vary depending upon the college or university you choose, you’ll study material generally similar to the following:

• Basic concepts of instruction, including theoretical material and practical resources.
• Core concepts for understanding and implementing research in the field, using both quantitative and qualitative methods and designs, historical and descriptive research and program evaluation.
• Effective teaching practices for emerging bilinguals and additive bilinguals (students who already speak two or more languages). This study includes examination of how learning to read, write and speak in a new language is similar and/or dissimilar from the same processes in a first language, as well as cognitive, sociocultural, linguistic and educational perspectives.
• Basic foundations of language analysis, covering linguistic topics common to all human languages along with their grammatical, phonological and semantic aspects.
• Essential components of literacy instruction including phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary development and comprehension.
• Methods of assessment, including diagnostic technique used to identity and remediate specific learning difficulties associated with normal second-language acquisition and development.
• Multicultural education to provide you with an understanding of the challenges you might find in classroom settings that include students with widely divergent ethnic and cultural backgrounds.

Where Else You Can Take Your New Knowledge

If classroom teaching doesn’t appeal to you, you could apply your knowledge in a variety of other types of positions. You might choose to teach English or develop English language materials in a business, healthcare, science or technology context. You might advise a government agency or other institution, be an administrator of an English language program, teach other TESOL instructors or become a private tutor at home or abroad.

In a world so interconnected by events, it’s ever more important for people to be able to communicate with each other in a common language. As a career, it’s rewarding to contribute to that effort. Add in the fact that you can work at it wherever you’d like in the world, and it might just be perfect for you.