TEFL

The TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) industry has been rapidly expanding across the world due to the ever increasing importance of English language skills in a global economy. David Crystal OBE, one of the world's foremost authorities on language, claims two and a quarter billion people speak English - of varying degrees of course - with roughly 1 billion actively studying English in language schools from Azerbaijan to Vietnam.

In the last decade, the TEFL industry has grown dramatically leading to the development of language programmes for a wide variety of learners' needs - Business, Academic or for specific age groups like younger learners. Within the TEFL industry, EF English First is the company with the largest reach in terms of student numbers, numbers of schools and countries it operates in.

When economists talk about "invisible earnings" they are referring to trade in services, transfers and income from overseas assets which make up about 50% of the UK's total credits. Research from the British Council indicates the TEFL industry is currently the eighth largest source of invisible earnings for the UK and is rapidly expanding with thousands of people, like you, training for a year or a career in TEFL. This means a multitude of employment opportunities in TEFL teaching; TEFL management and support services such as marketing; and English language publishing (sales, materials development, etc).