Teaching in South East Asia without a degree.

I am currently finishing off my TESOL certificate over the next few weeks. My girlfriend and I are planning on traveling through Asia in June 2012. She has a degree, but I have a Diploma (from UNITEC). I have been told you can teach without a degree, but was just wondering if anyone is currently teaching over there without a degree, or has done in the past year or so. Also does my Diploma count towards anything or do you have to have a degree and that's it?
Your feedback would be much appreciated.
Thanks

I don't think anybody will tell you they are teaching without a degree. (at least in a public forum) But there are some places that do advertise that a degree is not necessary. But those are very few. In China, many institutions are also asking for 2 years teaching experience. Again you have to look at the ads. It also doesn't hurt to just try. Trying is the best why to find out.

Hello Donald! I am the Director of Eastern Canada TESOL for Global and am based in the Toronto office. We regularly send people to China for job placements - and they have no degree and no job experience. Their English must be perfect and several employers insist that the graduate hold a Global TESOL Teaching certificate (as three women discovered when they took our class after being rejected by a Middle Eastern employer claiming their other institution was not recognized, and promptly placed in a teaching job within a week of completing our program). The degree is required in some cities in China but is not in others. We know where we are going to place people at the time they apply to take our training and we know the employers that have hired our grads for many years - they know we deliver good quality grads.
The Diploma is also helpful as is previous teaching/coaching experience. Our job guarantee is what attracts people to us since we follow through - although we cannot guarantee any specific country.
Hopefully, this information is of some assistance. Please email me should you wish some further information or help with placements.

Jim Pellegrini, Regional Director
Global TESOL College - Toronto Office
toronto@globaltesol.com

I've discovered that teaching without a degree in China is more commonplace than I expected but don't come to China trying to land a job without a Z visa. Some cities will require that you go back to your home country to apply for a Z visa and you must have a job offer to obtain the visa. Other countries like Taiwan prefer to interview teachers face to face and you don't have all the visa hassles that you will find in China or Vietnam.

Hi Jere,

Please send me an email so that I can ask you a question that is non-forum related. I tried looking for a pm option or email a fellow member, but to no avail, I did not find one.
Thanks.

jmteakles@shaw.ca

Hi Jim, sorry I didn't get back to you earlier. Been in Guangzhou to renew my passport and just got back today. I will write a thread about renewing passports for American citizens. Not as painful as I thought.

I really wish the forum here had a PM option or some way to contact fellow students directly. Perhaps the powers-that-be at GTC are reading our posts about this.

Here's my email : frostspeed@gmail.com