3 things nobody tells you about teaching English abroad
Ask ten people how someone becomes an English teacher abroad, and at least eight will assume it starts with an education degree, ends with a shoebox apartment, and pays just enough to survive. All three assumptions are wrong, and not in the small-print kind of way.
I got my first TEFL certificate in Thailand back in 2010, paid way too much for it, and spent the next decade watching people talk themselves out of teaching abroad over myths that don’t hold up anymore. Here’s what actually decides whether you can do this, because it’s rarely what people think.
This isn’t a program for people chasing Instagram photos of a whiteboard and a ring light. It’s a real hiring pipeline with specific, verifiable salaries in specific countries, and once you know which myth is actually false in each place, the path gets a lot more concrete.
1. You need a background in education
Most schools abroad don’t care what your degree is in. Thailand’s Non-Immigrant B visa and teaching license require a bachelor’s degree in any subject at all, paired with a TEFL certificate, and South Korea’s EPIK program runs on the exact same rule. Nobody’s checking your GPA in art history.
That distinction matters if you’re worried a business degree or a philosophy degree disqualifies you. It doesn’t, as long as the country you’re eyeing only checks for a degree, any degree, not a teaching background.
The catch isn’t your major, it’s your passport and your paperwork. A handful of countries skip the degree requirement entirely: Colombia doesn’t require one at all, just a recognized TEFL certificate, and Cambodia is nearly as relaxed for non-degree holders. If you’re picturing a locked door because you majored in the “wrong” thing, that door was never actually locked in half of Asia’s biggest hiring markets or most of Latin America.
2. A TEFL certificate is just a box to check
This one flips the other way. Schools increasingly expect a real, accredited 120-hour TEFL course, and in 2026 more of them want to see in-person or supervised practice-teaching hours, not just a certificate you skimmed over a weekend. Job ads that used to accept “any TEFL” now specify the hour count.
I learned this the expensive way: I paid around $1,000 for an in-person course in Thailand back in 2010, only to realize years later the same accredited 120 hours was available through myTEFL’s online course (Use code NINA50 for 50% OFF) for a fraction of that (yes, I’m still a little annoyed about it). If you want the shortcut I didn’t have, my full review breaks down what’s actually worth paying for, and this guide covers the no-degree route if that’s the bigger question for you.
Psst — thinking about actually doing this? I put everything I know about leaving the U.S. for good into one no-fluff guide: visas, jobs, country picks, the works — grab it here.
3. It doesn’t pay real money
This is the myth that keeps the most qualified people away. Government-run programs pay real, structured salaries: South Korea’s EPIK scales from about ₩2.1 million to over ₩3 million ($1500-$2000) a month depending on experience level, plus free housing, and Japan’s JET Programme pays a starting annual salary between ¥3,360,000 and ¥3,960,000 ($20-$25k), plus a housing subsidy, airfare, and pension enrollment. That’s not backpacker money, in my opinion, that’s a real salary with a safety net most entry-level jobs abroad don’t offer.
Thailand and Vietnam pay less on paper, but the cost of living drops right along with it, which is exactly the trade I made when I first started teaching in Thailand. Thailand’s visa options make it one of the easier places to actually stay long enough to make that math work, and that’s before you even factor in how far a modest paycheck stretches there. This isn’t lounge-in-Bali-forever money, but it’s also nowhere near the “just enough for ramen” reputation the whole gig still drags around.
So which myth was actually holding you back: the degree, the cert, or the paycheck? Whichever one it was, it’s less true than you thought.
