Getting a TESOL or CELTA certificate may be the way to go if you don't have a degree in teaching already. It's your call, BD.

I DO agree strongly with YOU, SC.

If one is teaching small kids, he or she should be required to have at least a TESOL or CELTA. I'll even say one should be required to have a bachelor's in education to teach the youngest kids. I say this because my TESOL program devoted only one afternoon to teaching kids (a scant two hours), so a TESOL probably isn't sufficient when teaching 5-7
year-olds. Maybe a CELTA is.

How is the issue of teaching young learners covered in CELTA courses, SC? Do you believe it to be satisfactory?

You must be talking about teaching jobs in South Korea. Yes, SK jobs I've seen and applied for don't require a TESOL/CELTA. Most of these jobs involve teaching at least SOME young learners. If anyplace should require at least a cert, it's SK. They should go even farther.

My hogwan in SK gave me a pretty intensive interview, but no actual teaching evaluation. This is odd, as I was expected to teach adolescents. Evaluating those entrusted to teach young learners is critical, in my opinion. My hogwan didn't evaluate me or the other two farang on the staff. They were more interested in getting us up in front of the classrooms as quickly as possible. This is a minor reason I left there.

I've noticed something else in TEFL. Everybody seems to 'know a friend who taught in Thailand'. Curiously, all those friends have since gone elsewhere or home. If it WERE such a great place, why'd they leave?

I left the US because I'm sick of the right-wing economic nazis, with their nazi-like patronage system, more or less taking over. Indeed, I wonder why somebody would leave a place he actually LIKES in Asia only to go back to the US and live in that.

You could stay here FOREVER if you really wanted to. Obviously these 'friends' didn't like it enough to really want to.