How to get a teaching job without teaching experience

Are you planning to embark on a new teaching career, but you have no previous teaching experience? Don’t worry! There are many opportunities to get you started on your teaching career.

Teaching English can be an incredibly rewarding career path, giving you the potential to work in exotic locations around the world while also making a real difference to the communities you visit. English language teachers are in high demand, but many people can get stuck with the first step – getting hired without previous experience and without a teaching-related degree. While it’s certainly easier to find a job if you have teaching experience or a degree in education, there are lots of potential ways to get started without having either of these.

In this guide, we’re going to explore some of the different things you can do to make yourself more hirable and to help you secure your first teaching job.

Get your teaching certificate:

If you want to start teaching, you’ll need to invest in some initial training. Employers will want to know that you understand the basic grammar rules of the English language, that you know how to plan effective lessons, and that you can prepare engaging activities for students.

This is where a TESOL certificate can be extremely useful. TESOL stands for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, and is a type of teacher training course which focuses on how to teach the English language to non-native speakers.

TESOL (also known as TEFL) courses can be completed in various ways – online, at a center near you, or overseas. Traditionally, people would study such courses at centers in person, but nowadays it’s more common to earn your TESOL certificate online through an accredited provider. After successfully completing your course, you’ll earn your TESOL/TEFL certificate which can be used to show schools that you understand the theory and concepts behind teaching.

If you wish to further boost your employment prospects, after earning your TESOL/TEFL certificate, you could explore gaining your TEYL certificate (Teaching English to Young Learners), or could look into completing a more advanced CELTA (Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) course.

Getting your TESOL/TEFL certificate:

If you haven’t yet enrolled in an accredited TESOL/TEFL course you can do sowith the button below. Our 120-hour course can be completed online at your own pace, and gives you a dual-accredited certificate upon completion:

TESOL/TEFL course

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Look out for schools with orientation training:

Over the last 10-15 years the spread of technology has lead to great developments in both public and private education systems around the world, and most good schools have well-developed orientation training for new teachers. Schools like EF (found across China,  Indonesia, and Russia), i2 International Institute of Education (China), Shane English (China, Thailand, Japan, and Taiwan), and HESS (Taiwan) all have such orientation training for new teachers.

This often involves a 1-2 week period where the school will introduce you to the materials that they use in their lessons,  let you watch lessons from other teachers, and even co-teach a few lessons before you start teaching on your own. This makes it easier to study teaching theory online and then get classroom training upon arrival at a school.

If you’re concerned about having limited teaching experience, then it could be a good idea to check with any potential schools to see what kind of orientation training they have upon arrival.

Start tutoring in your local area:

One of the best and easiest ways to improve your hiring prospects is to get experience by tutoring local students in your area. This will help you not only gain teaching experience that could be listed on your resume, but you’ll also be able to see whether teaching is something that you enjoy doing!

While you might not be aware of it, there could be lots of local opportunities to gain tutoring experience. You can start by offering private lessons to your neighbor’s kids who struggle at school or even your nephew who needs help with his homework. Even starting small will help you gain a new perspective into what teaching looks like and decide if this is the career you want to pursue. This is also a great way to earn some money in your spare time as well as help a few kids to get better grades! Win-win!

If you live in a country that doesn’t speak English as a native language, then you’ll have a great advantage here as you’ll be able to offer ESL tutoring services. If you live in a native English-speaking country then it could be more challenging, but you could still help younger students with general English work (improving their reading and writing skills), or could potentially tutor other subjects depending on your other skills/interests.

Aside from tutoring young learners, you could also explore teaching adults if you have a University in your town/city. Universities/colleges can be great places to find clients as they’ll often have overseas students that might need help understanding the contents of their lectures/textbooks, or might need help with their assignments.

Here are a few tips on how to find kids to tutor in your local community:

  • Ask your neighbors, family, and friends if they know of someone who needs a tutor for their child.
  • Put up an ad on the local marketplace website. You can also join a local tutoring marketplace, such as Wyzant.com.
  • Go to the local school and ask if they need someone to help with tutoring. Schools usually have a list of available tutors that they recommend to parents whose kids need some help.
  • Check out university message boards, language exchange programs, international student groups.

Volunteer to teach:

Another great way to gain some teaching experience is to volunteer to teach abroad. Volunteer teaching programs vary from teaching English to local kids to giving classes in different subjects, such as math or computer programming. There are a lot of options when it comes to volunteer teaching abroad. It can also be a fun adventure, especially if you’re someone who likes to travel and learn about other cultures.

Teaching English is however the most popular option on the volunteer teaching market. Most schools do not require you to have previous experience, but having your TEFL certificate (or another teaching degree) can increase your chances of being hired.

One of the drawbacks of volunteer teaching programs is the cost. Most high-quality volunteer programs charge some sort of program service fee, which usually includes new volunteer training, transfer from and to the airport, accommodation, and food. The cost of such a program will vary depending on the location you’ve chosen. In some countries, such as India, the cost of a 4-week volunteer teaching program can cost around $500, while in other countries, such as China, it can cost as much as $1,500.

Here are a few websites where you can browse and find volunteer teaching jobs: 

Even though you need to pay to participate in a volunteer teaching program, they can still be great opportunities to gain teaching experience as well as to travel and live in another country!

Don’t worry if you aren’t in a position where paying to volunteer overseas would be possible. It’s also often possible to find community centers in your country where you might be able to volunteer your teaching skills. You could also search online for local immigration/refugee charities and either send them an email, call them up, or visit in person. They’ll often have people of all ages, adults and young learners, that might be able to benefit from your language skills.

Start teaching online:

Online teaching can be a great way to jumpstart your teaching career without any experience or even without a teaching-related degree! Online teaching has been booming in recent years and there are more and more platforms and schools that offer online classes to their students.

Similar to regular tutoring, online tutoring can be an excellent way to gain experience. You’ll learn how to build rapport with students, earn a reasonable part-time income, and the experience you gain here will usually have higher recognition than with private tutoring as you’ll have a contract with a company (sometimes schools will ask to see examples of contracts if you state that you have previous teaching experience).

If you’re planning on teaching online, make sure that you have a computer with a well-functioning webcam, headphones with a microphone, and a good internet connection (some platforms require you to have cable internet, as WiFi can sometimes be unreliable).

Here are a few online teaching platforms where you can apply to become an online language teacher: 

Applying with online teaching companies:

If you’re new to teaching then it can sometimes be a challenge to apply with different online teaching platforms. To help you get started you could review our guides here: Applying with DaDa, applying with italki, applying with Magic Ears.

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Land your first teaching job:

If you’re wondering whether you can find a teaching job without any previous experience, the answer is yes!

While you might think that getting a job could be a difficult cycle where you need the experience to land your first job but you need to land your first job to get the experience, you can absolutely get hired if you approach the challenge with a sensible strategy.

Strategy for securing your first job:

  • Get your resume and introduction videos prepared with our Ultimate ESL Resume Guide.
  • Look for areas where you can gain volunteer teaching experience
  • Put some time into tutoring (in person or online)
  • Focus on schools that have orientation training
  • Explore countries that have lower requirements first, then set more competitive countries as a medium/long term goal

If you’re serious about embarking on a teaching career, gaining some initial experience as well as getting certified will help you increase your chances of getting a well-paid teaching job, whether it’s in your hometown or abroad. There are many opportunities for you to do so, so don’t be afraid to take the initiative and be creative! Teaching can be an amazing career that can take you to new countries and provide you with new experiences and new challenges every single day – but you do need to put some planning and time into getting that first job.

After taking time to go through the strategy above, you could explore potential job opportunities to apply for online. One of the best websites where you can find teaching jobs around the world is TeachAway. Just keep in mind that when applying for teaching jobs abroad, make sure to have prepared a great teaching resume that highlights your strengths and shows that you’re a great candidate for the job! (stay tuned for next week’s blog post where we’ll help to show how to make a great resume)

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