freelancing – TEFL in Colombia

When I was collecting essays for More Than a Gap Year Adventure, I had a chance to have Zoom chats with many amazing ELT professionals from all over the world. Even though their career stories are quite different, there is a personal trait that all of them have in common, and that is being proactive. If you want to succeed in ELT, things are unlikely to fall into your lap. You need to be ready to work your way up and overcome all kinds of obstacles. The following quote from the book really sticks out and demonstrates what I am referring to:

Fatime Losonci in More Than a Gap Year Adventure

When I read this passage from Fatime’s text for the first time, it all felt really familiar. I have sent a huge number of emails and messages that never led to anything, so I know what it’s like. Tiago Bueno, another contributor to the book, told me about a similar experience when applying for jobs. I wonder if this is what everybody in ELT has to go through. Is it all just a numbers game? Do we have to rely on quantity and hope that one of our many emails will be replied to?

Since I’m a very organised person and keep a lot of spreadsheets documenting my activities in ELT, I thought it would be interesting to take a look back on my career and share some data with you. I’ve been in this profession for seven and a half years, so this is going to be a long post, but I hope it can help us reach some kind of conclusion.

My first attempt at finding a job in Medellín
I moved to Colombia in July 2017, a month after completing my CELTA. My objective was very simple: I wanted to find my first TEFL job in Medellín. Sounds simple, right? Well, it turned out to be a complete fail.

I don’t think my plan was too bad. I googled language institutes in the city, sent them my CV by email, and told them I was available for in-person interviews. As expected, most of them never even responded. A few of them told me that they would keep my CV on file. Three institutions replied quite quickly and invited me for an interview. The first one was with a university, but the position they were looking to fill was actually for their partner school and involved teaching kids, which was not what I was interested in.

The second interview took place at a language academy in the city centre. The initial chat with the director went well and I was asked to deliver a demo lesson and take an English test a few days later. I aced the lesson and was offered the job on the spot. We shook hands and I was supposed to get the documents needed for my visa applications in a few days’ time. And guess what I got next? Crickets. The school stopped responding to my emails and left me wondering what had happened. This was the first of many negative experiences with Colombian institutions that I’ve had here. I was not surprised to read about the school’s closure a few years later.

Anyway, after a month of pointless waiting for the documents, I decided to apply for a volunteer position in Villa de Leyva that provided a stipend of enough money to live on. The school in Medellín that had offered me the job eventually got back to me and wanted to resume the hiring process (still without producing the required documents), but it was too late and I left the city with a sense of disappointment. I also received an email with another interview invitation from a Medellín-based academy, though when I found out about the miserable hourly rate the school offered, I decided to give that ‘opportunity’ a pass. When I started blogging in 2020, this bad experience led me to write my very first blog post titled Everybody wants to live in Medellín.

Medellín-based institutions contacted: 63
No response at all: 86%
Rejections: 6
Interview invitations: 3
Contracts signed: 0

Landing my first full-time job
Things went quite smoothly with the volunteer assignment and I started working in Villa de Leyva in the middle of September. The workload wasn’t that heavy, so I had enough time to think about my next steps. I knew the project was going to end at the end of the year, so I quickly updated my CV and began sending emails to language centres in Colombia. My approach was a bit smarter because even though I wanted to go back to Medellín, I also decided to contact schools in a number of cities, namely Bogotá, Cartagena, Ibagué, Manizales, Armenia, Tunja, Pereira, Bucaramanga, and Cali.

Having some experience on my CV seemed to do the trick and I managed to land three interviews via Skype: with a language institute in Bogotá, a university in Cali, and Centro Colombo Americano Manizales. The last one allowed me to teach my demo lesson via Skype, after which I was offered a full-time contract that I happily accepted. Two universities in Bogotá invited me for an interview in January, but I had already made the decision to move to Manizales.

Institutions contacted: 108
No response at all: 92%
Rejections: 4
Interview invitations: 5
Contracts signed: 1

Speculative applications
My first year at the language academy was extremely useful in terms of gaining experience and becoming a better teacher. Even though I had no reasons to leave, I wanted to take a look at other options. I contacted local universities in Manizales, which would potentially be an upwards move. I thought that having a CELTA and some relevant experience with teaching in the city would be enough for them to be interested in having a chat with me. I was wrong.

Institutions contacted: 4
No response at all: 100%

Moving to Bucaramanga
The main reason I started looking for a new job at the end of my second contract in Manizales was money. After getting my Delta Module One certificate in 2019, I asked for a pay rise and was offered just a tiny increase that wouldn’t even cover the inflation rate. At that moment, I knew that staying at the institute would be a waste of time, so I contacted language schools in other cities: Pereira, Bucaramanga, Medellín (including the newly-opened International House branch), and Ibagué.

I felt that I was making steady career progress and adding the first Delta module to my CV made me stand out a bit, and my success rate did indeed improve. I got one interview invitation from Ibagué and two from Bucaramanga. I opted to fly to Bucaramanga where I attended both interviews. The one at the local branch of Centro Colombo Americano was more impressive, and even though it seemed like a sideways move, I switched to being hourly paid with a much better rate, which meant working fewer hours. The COVID-19 pandemic hit the world just three months after my move to Bucaramanga and in the following year and a half I completed my Delta, started this blog, and learned how to teach online.

Institutions contacted: 12
No response at all: 67%
Rejections: 1
Interview invitations: 3
Contracts signed: 1

Returning to Medellín
My time in Bucaramanga came to an end when I found out that having a full Delta and excellent feedback from students did not merit a pay rise. I started looking for positions that were more aligned with my professional profile and sent my CV to five institutions. As expected, the results were pretty good and just one place (a university in Ibagué) never responded to my email. The British Council in Bogotá didn’t have a suitable vacancy for me, but my priority was moving back to Medellín anyway.

I attended three online interviews (with International House plus two universities) and all of them resulted in a job offer. In the end, I chose IH since they offered me a chance to work on a freelance basis, deliver online classes with IH Bogotá and do some in-person non-teaching work with IH Medellín as well. Four and a half years after starting teaching, I finally began making real progress in terms of money and professional reputation.

Institutions contacted: 5
No response at all: 20%
Rejections: 1
Interview invitations: 3
Contracts signed: 2

Looking for private students
Of course, one of the most important principles of freelancing is having multiple streams of income, so I decided to set up my own teaching business shortly after moving to Medellín. I knew I was good at teaching but the problem was I didn’t have any private students. What I had was: (a) the experience of teaching hundreds of people during my time in Manizales and Bucaramanga and (b) access to their emails and phone numbers. I made a list of those who had already finished all levels at the language institute and contacted them with an offer to attend an advanced course (either one-to-one or in a group).

I knew that most people probably wouldn’t be interested, and that proved to be the case: more than half of my emails / WhatsApp messages were left without a response, and 65% of those who replied didn’t take the advanced course with me. There were quite a few cases of people accepting my offer and then completely ghosting me, which was a bit discouraging. Fortunately, I still managed to get enough students to get my business started without having to use third-party services. Some of the students also recommended me to their friends or relatives, which helped me a lot at the very beginning.

Running my own courses has been a very rewarding experience and I’m proud of being able to make this work. I still teach a steady number of lessons per week, and I haven’t had to look for new students since 2022. In fact, I have to keep saying no to those who have heard about my classes through word-of-mouth recommendations.

Potential students contacted: 158
No response at all: 56%
Rejections: 30
Instances of being ghosted: 16
Students who accepted my offer: 24
New students gained through recommendations: 6

Freelance opportunities
In 2023, I finally stopped relying on speculative emails and actually applied for two non-teaching freelance positions that were advertised online. One was with Oxford University Press and the other one with another big name ELT organisation. I felt that I was a strong candidate for the former role, and after a lengthy recruitment process I started working for OUP as an independent contractor in May 2023, almost six years after becoming an English teacher. I work on an assessment-related project and it has been a brilliant experience so far thanks to the amazing people from OUP who I am in touch with.

The other organisation sent me a polite rejection, which was a bit disappointing, but when I saw who eventually got the role, I immediately understood why I wasn’t considered. The person was much more qualified for the job and completely deserved it. I don’t want to digress too much, but I have to say that I don’t think it’s helpful to take every rejection personally and make baseless claims of discrimination on social media, which is something I have seen happen lately. Sometimes you just have to say fair play and accept that you are not the most important ELT professional that has ever lived and there are actually more suitable candidates for the role you applied for.

Positions applied for: 2
Contracts signed: 1

Looking for book contributors
Thanks to the fact that my freelancing work started producing decent income, I suddenly found myself with more free time than when I was an employee. This blog helped me in terms of visibility in the online ELT community, and I’m sure it was the main reason why I managed to collect 23 essays for More Than a Gap Year Adventure. There were a few complications and even one instance of being completely ghosted after what I thought was a positive Zoom meeting about the person’s essay topic – by the way, this is why there aren’t any guest essays written by professionals working for Colombian institutions in the book; I did try hard, but it wasn’t meant to be. That said, my overall experience with inviting people to contribute to the book was very good, and I’m really happy with the final result.

Potential contributors contacted: 62
No response at all: 37%
Rejections: 13
Instances of dropping out of the project: 3
Essays collected: 23

More freelance opportunities
One of the best things about being your own boss is being able to choose how you’re going to spend your time. After finally publishing the book, I took a short breather and then started looking for something that would push me to learn something new. Thanks to LinkedIn, I found about two assessment-related positions with Cambridge University Press & Assessment and British Council Global Assessments. I received a positive response from the latter and signed a short-term probationary contract after a 6-week training process.

Positions applied for: 2
Contracts signed: 1

Main takeaways
To a certain extent, trying to get a TEFL job is a numbers game, and this is true especially at the beginning of your career. Not surprisingly, contacting institutions and people that have no idea who you are is tough. According to my experience, most of them will never reply and some of them will even let you down in a way that isn’t very pleasant. And you know what? I don’t care. Sending a hundred speculative applications and getting a job is a much better result than having no job after applying for just a few positions advertised on an online job board.

The good news is that your odds of succeeding significantly increase if you are willing to make your own luck. Once you get relevant experience, obtain advanced qualifications, and build up your reputation in the ELT profession, you will find it easier to achieve something meaningful. At that stage of your career, you can be more selective when it comes to doing what you like, and being able to stop relying on quantity is a realistic position to aim for.

► If you’d like to read more about career development in ELT, I recommend that you get a copy of More Than a Gap Year Adventure, a collaborative book featuring thought-provoking essays written by experienced professionals.

TESOL International Association is a community of ELT professionals. This association is involved in numerous activities, including publishing TEIS News, which is a newsletter edited by the Teacher Educator Interest Section. When I was asked to contribute to its latest issue, I was more than happy to say yes. You can read my article here, and I recommend that you check out the other contributions as well.

The importance of teacher-led CPD (TEIS News)

I decided to focus on teacher-led CPD, which means taking responsibility for your own development as an ELT professional. This topic is close to my heart because I’ve managed to make decent career progress while living in Colombia, a developing country in which you’re not likely to get much support in terms of CPD if you work for a run-of-the-mill language academy. With the exception of a month-long holiday in Europe, I’ve continuously lived in Colombia since 2017, and I hope that my article can provide some hope to those who wish to develop professionally without having to move to another part of the world.

The TEIS News article is based on my own experience, and I’d like to take this opportunity to provide more details about my own journey. I have no problem admitting that the COVID-19 pandemic was extremely beneficial for my ELT career. Yes, I didn’t enjoy the lockdowns and not being able to travel freely, but I spent those two years working on increasing my chances of succeeding in our profession.

First of all, I was able to finish my Delta from my living room. There aren’t any Module Two providers in Colombia, so I originally planned to do the module in Mexico and actually had my interview with IH Mexico right before the pandemic reached Latin America. I managed to complete my M2 with this course provider a year later fully online, which was extremely convenient in terms of reduced costs since I didn’t need to pay for flights and accommodation. The only Delta module that now requires you to do something in person is the first one, which involves taking the exam at an authorised centre. Fortunately, they are usually easy to find in major cities.

IH Mexico runs the fully online CELTA as well, and being able to get Cambridge qualifications from home without worrying about a huge time difference is a great opportunity for those who don’t have any course providers in their location. Having just a bachelor’s degree and a generic TEFL certificate usually isn’t enough; you need to do much more to stand out, and holding an internationally recognised qualification is usually a step that can’t be skipped.

It has to be said that high-quality courses or degrees aren’t cheap, especially for someone who gets paid in Colombian pesos. What I will mention here is that it is necessary to consider the return on investment. Getting a Delta costs a lot of money, but if you play your cards right, it will open some interesting doors for you. In my case, the Delta gave me the confidence to start freelancing and looking for my own students. It also helped me land some very interesting contracts with institutions, so even though it took me a while to figure everything out, the results were pretty impressive: when I checked my bank account two years after obtaining my Delta certificate, I realised that just one month of my freelance work can generate the same income as what I used to earn in half a year as a language academy employee.

I’m certainly not an advocate of reckless spending, but sometimes it’s necessary to bite the bullet and spend a lot of money on your qualifications. If you’re stuck in an entry-level job, you know that things are never going to change unless you take action. A calculated risk can lead to some significant changes: these days I need to work just 10 hours per week to earn more money and be much happier than when I was spending 30 hours a week at the language institute and doing a lot of lesson planning at home. Since I’m my own boss, I normally choose to work more, which allows me to lead a very comfortable lifestyle.

The attitude shift caused by the pandemic means that you can do a lot of stuff remotely and there’s no need to be based in one of the big ELT markets. If you have the right visa and access to the internet, you can live in a small town in South America and teach students from other countries without using a middleman. You can work as a contractor for organisations based in another country, which comes with some obvious benefits. You can run your own in-person or online courses for local students as well. The opportunities are out there, and it’s important to keep emphasising that being a language academy employee is not the only career path for English teachers.

Finally, don’t underestimate the power of your online presence. I’ve met a lot of brilliant ELT professionals thanks to this blog, and it always feels nice to receive positive messages about my posts. Also, without TEFL in Colombia, I wouldn’t have been able to convince the amazing guest contributors to help me create More Than a Gap Year Adventure. If you are thinking of making progress in your ELT career, I recommend that you get a copy of the book since it contains a lot of useful advice that may have a very positive effect on your development in the profession.