TEFL blog » Blog Archive » Read your TEFL contract

Here’s a story which should serve as a warning to all of us about the importance of reading the contract before accepting a job. Jamie Doom writes about an ESL teacher who agrees to help out at an “important cultural exchange celebration” only to find that she has signed up for a kickboxing tournament…

Hopefully noone reading this has experienced a “misunderstanding” of such magnitude, but although this story is, (I hope!) fictional, it does highlight an important issue. It is all too common to see stories and forum posts on the web from teachers who have arrived at their new school, only to find that things are not quite what they expected, with “extra” duties or financial costs that they weren’t aware of when they signed up.

Sometimes, no matter how careful you are and how many questions you ask before accepting a job, this is unavoidable - sadly, there are a number of schools across the world who seek to exploit and deceive. Disreputable businesses exist as much in TEFL as in any other industry.

But you can certainly minimize the chances of being caught out, by thoroughly researching the school that offers you a job. Talk to other teachers at the school (if the employer has nothing to hide, they sould have no problem giving you contact details for one or two of their current teachers), join TEFL forums, do a search for the name of the school on the internet…

Here are some things which should set alarm bells ringing:

• Are they willing to offer you a job without speaking to you first?
• Are they unprepared to put you in contact with current teachers?
• Are they expecting you to accept a job offer without seeing a contract?
• Are they asking you to send them money?

Above all, read the contract carefully and ask the employer about anything which is unclear. A reputable employer should be only too happy to answer any questions you may have.

For a more detailed guide to finding your first TEFL job and what you should look for in a contract, have a look at our Introduction to TEFL.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 10th, 2007 at 9:07 am and is filed under ELT & language issues, Jobs, schools & career. You can leave a response to this entry.