Just because you speak a language doesn’t over-qualify you for an ESL/EFL job: There’s a lot more to it, and people that know what they’re doing have a much better chance of getting a job, and being successful at it. And there’s nothing worse than saying that you’re “good enough” to teach abroad. All students deserve well-educated teachers.

So ask yourself – What sort of expertise do you have in linguistics: phonology, morphology, syntax, discourse, semantics, pragmatics? How about socio- and psycholinguistics, such as first and second language acquisition in regards to human development, or personality, cognitive, biological, and socio-cultural factors that impact language acquisition? How about the interface between language and culture? How’s your academic grammar? Do you know much about teaching literacy, reading, vocabulary, writing, grammar, speaking, and listening skills? How about valid assessment tools? How about general learning theories and human development?