-www.goabroad.com has a lot of information about teaching abroad and lists hundreds of programs. It can be a bit overwhelming, but if you poke around for a bit, you can find really useful info. Also, if you have an idea of the country/countries you’d like to teach in, you can search by country or city.

-Through Dave’s ESL Cafe or just by searching around the blogosphere, try to find someone who is already teaching English in a country or region you’re interested in. Getting info straight up from someone who’s there is key. Helped me immensely. If you find a school or program you like, email them and ask if you can contact some of their alumni to get more unbiased info.

-If you don’t have connections in your desired city/country, it may be worth it to search for a program that promises/offers/aims to help you find a job. Very helpful!

-”not to mention that it actually trains you to be an English teacher, which is not as easy as it sounds”– I couldn’t agree more! The TEFL course is rather intense; not only are you expected to pick up skills like classroom management, error correction, time management and lesson-planning in four short weeks but you’re also overloaded with the basics and complexities of English grammar–which is a lot harder than it sounds! My university educated classmates and I couldn’t have labelled an auxiliary verb or diagrammed a sentence in the present perfect tense before the course, and it took many months of teaching to actually feel comfortable explaining grammar.

Of course- teaching English isn’t all grammar and technicalities. But the ‘easier’ stuff (vocabulary, slang, pronunciation etc) comes more naturally. If you’re serious about teaching English, I’d highly recommend it. TEFL etc is intense, but definitely worth the time and money.

Thanks!