When To Do A TEFL Course

If you plan on working at a language school, know that these tend to run much like schools in general: from September to June with a summer break. Exact dates or norms can vary country to country, as do hiring times, but it makes sense for schools to hire teachers to start in September.

I personally did my course in June and finished in July – I didn’t know how long it would take me to find a job; I preferred being on a tighter budget for a bit with a longer window for finding a job to feeling pressured to find a job in a month.

As luck would have it, I was offered a job by the school I’d visited in Sarajevo right at the end of my course, and they asked me to start in August for one month of intensive classes. It won’t necessarily take you a month to find a job, but having more time also gives you a chance to travel and unwind from the TEFL course.

Many TEFL courses run all year though, and plenty of schools do hire teachers in the middle of the year, especially in larger cities. Choosing to do a course at a non-peak time may give you the advantage of being in a smaller group. It might also mean that you have time to find a job and then return home to sort out the paperwork in time for the upcoming year. In that case, you can even leave stuff at the school and return with even more (but I advise strongly against this).

So don’t despair if you are thinking of teaching and it’s past September. There are different advantages to doing a course at different times of year.