TEFL
Foreign teachers through the golden age in Vietnam
Jul
Amy is preparing to return to the US after nearly two years of teaching English in Ho Chi Minh City because the salaries of foreign teachers like him are decreasing.
The 30-year-old man said he chose the wrong time to come to Vietnam, when the golden age of “Western teachers” in Vietnam had passed, competition was getting fiercer, leading to low salaries.
“A teacher can’t make a living teaching at just one center,” Amy said. “It’s even harder for Americans like me.” At a public school, he earns 350,000 VND per hour, higher than the 100,000-150,000 VND at English centers.
After Covid-19, online teaching has become popular as a way to save on facility rental costs and reduce teachers’ salaries. Currently, the education department can only assign teachers to one or two classes. He assessed that this income level is not satisfactory compared to the amount of administrative work outside of teaching hours such as writing lesson plans, reporting, grading papers, discussing with teaching assistants, and attending meetings.
At the end of June, a friend of his announced that their center had lost more than 50% of its students. They could barely recruit more teachers and had to move their office from District 3 to Thu Duc City to reduce rent. In the end, Amy chose to return home.
Stephen Wield, 40, said summer is the time when he has to tighten his belt the most. The American teacher in Tan Phu district had a child last year. His family’s expenses have doubled, but he has not found any English center that hires full-time teachers during the summer break from public schools.
Illustration photo: Pexels
He came to Ho Chi Minh City 7 years ago, realizing that the foreign language teaching market here has many opportunities for native teachers like himself. In fact, Stephen is paid 450,000 VND (20 USD) per hour of teaching, an average of 20-30 hours per week. This income allows him to live very comfortably in Vietnam.
But things have changed, especially since Covid-19 and the economic downturn. From April to August, Stephen only got a part-time job, teaching three to five hours a week.
“There is too much competition as more and more foreigners choose Vietnam as their settlement,” he said. “In fact, they prioritize teachers with good looks, white skin, blue eyes and blond hair, which I do not meet.”
While Stephen continues to post CVs at the centres, his family of three will be living on savings. The American says the cost of living in Vietnam has been rising steadily over the past four years, making his situation even worse.
Foreigners like Stephen and Amy are struggling to find work. A survey by the TEFL teaching community , which has 50,000 members, shows that the number of jobs has decreased by 50% in the past year. A representative of the English Teaching Jobs group, which has 55,000 members in Ho Chi Minh City, explains that the English job market for teachers with TESOL, TEFL, and CELTA certificates in Asian countries is decreasing.
Debra Mann, administrator of the TEFL teaching community, said the reason was that the number of students at the centers had decreased, forcing employers to cut back or be more selective. She first came to Vietnam 7 years ago and noticed that the centers were competing to recruit Western teachers, but this is no longer the case today.
In addition, the collapse of the Apax Leaders English center chain has undermined parents’ confidence. They need clearer evidence of their children’s progress and are not willing to spend large sums of money.
The number of native teachers in Ho Chi Minh City has skyrocketed in recent years, creating fiercer competition. “The pie is being divided,” said Debra Mann. Some are considering moving to other markets such as Japan, South Korea, China, and Thailand.
Jenny Petrova brought her 12-year-old son to live in Vietnam, never thinking that for nearly a year she would send out 100 job applications everywhere without receiving any response.
“I feel lost,” said the 43-year-old Russian woman in Tan Binh district.
Last summer, Jenny went to Ho Chi Minh City to visit her cousin and quickly fell in love with Vietnam because of its warm climate and friendly people. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in education, completed a TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate, and has 7 years of experience, so she believes she will quickly settle into life in Vietnam.
“But I was wrong, the job market here is too harsh,” she said. In the first three months, she searched for work through websites and social media groups but only received a few jobs that paid hourly, which were unstable.
After half a month, Jenny’s anxiety grew. She wanted to find a permanent job and support her work visa. Every day, she sent two to four emails to employers in all fields but still received no response. Jenny was only invited by a few schools to be a teaching assistant or to teach in place of sick teachers.
The room where Jenny Petrova and her mother live in Tan Binh District, Ho Chi Minh City, at noon on June 9.
Thinking that there would be more competition in big cities, she turned to the suburbs of Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh City and Ninh Binh. Last month, she received two job offers. One place wanted her to sign a contract for 100 teaching hours per month, with a salary of 8 million VND, but they promised to pay her an actual salary of 33 million VND, but Jenny said “there is no basis to trust them”.
Another place wanted her to do a 10-day internship in a remote province, paying for her own travel and accommodation. They also wouldn’t pay her for the hours she taught. She refused, despite her dwindling savings.
Meanwhile, in the apartment in Tan Binh district, Jenny divided her remaining savings to maintain the most basic living standards. She calculated that the rent was 6 million, and the two of them could only spend 1 million per week on food, education, and transportation. Jenny taught herself Vietnamese to increase her chances of getting a job in the future.
“I really love Vietnam and want to stay here for a long time,” she said.