TEFL Course At Home or Abroad?

With the variety of TEFL courses on offer nowadays, people have the option of training at home or training abroad, and obviously there are pros and cons to each. One decision is the type of course you want to do, but even after that decision is made, you may still be able to decide between a course at home and a course abroad.

One of the main advantages of doing a course away from home is that you won’t have the distractions and obligations that are a part of your everyday life. You can devote all of your energy and time to your course – and you will probably need to (don’t count on hitting up the tourist spots during an intensive course). Conversely, distractions and obligations can be synonymous with friend and family who provide moral support or other help, so while you’ll have to do without this when you start teaching, if you feel you need it during your course, you may be better off doing a course at home.

If you go abroad to a new country, you will spend time figuring out things like grocery shopping, how to work the washing machine, and where to buy normal pens…all things you take for granted at home. But – if you train in the country where you would like to work – you will have the advantage of working with students from that country, and though you might not have a lot of free time during your course for pounding the pavement, there’s no doubt that spending that extra month there will give you an advantage when job hunting.

You’ll also get a preview of that country and can make a more informed judgment about whether you’ll like working there. Granted, if you decide against it, you will either need to choose another destination from scratch or head home, but better now than later. Similarly, you may increase your chances of getting a job being hired by the school where you train.