This is a touchy situation with me. I am a professional teacher with a university degree in teaching English, and I have experience teaching. Although I understand peoples desire to travel the world and see new places and meet new people -- I wish they would find a way to do it other than going from school to school teaching English. I dont care if you are a native speaker of English, that does not mean that you know how to teach! Maybe a few of you do, but most of you traveling adventurers do not. And please stop telling us about your one month crash-course in teaching English that earned you a TEFL or CELTA certificate. Teachers spend years learning their profession and have several hundred hours of practicing in front of a class before they are allowed to teach on their own -- not twenty hours! And please, dont have the audacity to tell a professional teacher that your certificate is the educational quivalent of his or her university degree.

As long as the backpack crowd is roaming the world and looking for a way to fund their travels -- the profession of teaching English overseas will be unprofessional and poorly paid.