Online Resource: Dave’s ESL Cafe

Dave’s ESL Café is probably one of the most well-known TEFL sites in existence, and can come in handy for many of the steps along the road to getting and doing a TEFL job.

There are message boards for several different locations, as well as a General Discussion board and a Newbie Forum (good for training questions). New members are accepted regularly – though sometimes there seem to be gaps when you have to wait a week or two to be approved – and once you join you can post and ask or search for country-specific information in the appropriate forum. Some location forums see more traffic than others, but members seem to work in a variety of countries and appear quite helpful and willing to give advice.

The job boards are divided into the China, Korea, and International Job Boards, although a lot of Korea job postings find their way to the international board anyway. While you can search by country, the postings are arranged with the most recent first. There seem to be more job postings here than on other sites, but because it’s such a popular site and it’s relatively easy to reply to a job post, there may be more competition for these jobs. There are also apparently a larger and larger number of Korea postings from recruiters in contrast to schools themselves (and discussions in the Korea forum about the pros and cons of finding a job in Korea via a recruiter).

It’s also possible to post your resume.

Other boards include Stuff for Students, Stuff for Everyone, and an Idea Cookbook for teachers. You don’t have to be a member to submit ideas or activities here. I’ve personally used the lesson plans available for the movie Shrek, and was quite impressed.