Does My Age Matter (If I’m Not So Young)?

I’ll leave the definition of “not so young” up to readers.

Once again, as far as getting a job, age may well be less a factor in TEFL than in other fields at home: you won’t be getting real benefits anyway!

Sarcasm aside, most employers not only recognize that many people would like to take a year “off” from their regular lives and live abroad and teach, but depend on this – meaning that if they limited themselves to people who had decided to make a career out of teaching EFL many posts would go unfilled. Also, many employers don’t offer salaries or conditions which are appealing for a long-term career.

Older EFL teachers should not have issues getting students’ respect from the get go, as in many cultures age and respect go hand in hand (though that’s not to say you can’t lose it if you don’t earn it).

If you are past a certain age, and especially if you’ve moved around a fair bit to teach, various people may feel the urge to ask you why. On the one hand, this is likely genuine interest in you and perhaps even some sense of “that’s pretty cool.” On the the other hand, it gets repetitive, and many people doing jobs in their own country would take a similar question to be intrusive or presumptuous.

I think honesty and straightforwardness paired with a professional understanding of how much to share is the best policy. If you like the opportunity to live abroad and work in a variety of locations, and don’t mind taking a break from your regular life at home…there’s certainly nothing wrong with that. Is the rational underpinning for all older teachers’ positions as simple as that? Of course not, but whose is, really?

So, being not-so-young: another factor which should not stop you from getting into TEFL.