On 11/01/06 9:03, in article ,
"DDT Filled Mormons" wrote:

I know a few people teaching here in Italy, and they do just fine. You
also need to be mother-tongue English too if you want to have a
chance. Actually, none of the guys I know even have their TEFL
certificate I don't think! The most important thing seems to be being
presentable, and having the right bits of paper to work.


We have a personal friend who teaches English to foreigners
as a regular professional activity in Boston. She currently is
on a Fulbright to Bulgaria doing the same. But she is employed
institutionally, not freelance. She tried freelancing it in Paris
for about 3, years and it did not provide enough income. She had
regular working papers so that was not a problem and professional
credentials.

The problem is that one works normally through language schools
who hire on a temporary contractual basis. So one is contractual, not
really an employee of the school. So one might get a contract for so many
courses and hours per week, once that contract period is over you have
to find another contract. You might get several contracts with several
schools. For a while One is not paid for non-contract periods
and the demand for teachers drops to zero, certain periods (like the
summer) and one is unemployed. No paid vacations, etc. Of
what the students pay, the school gets the lion's share, the teacher
gets a small share of the total income.

It is hard to get over 20 hours of week teaching assignments. While
sometimes the per hour rate looks good, the yearly income is not.

On the other hand if one can get hired by a corporation or some other
institution, one has a full year's income, paid vacation, medical
insurance etc. And probably not as heavy a teaching schedule.