12 Tips for Cheap Flights to Latin America

Updated 21 February 2012

1. Track airfare through sites like Yapta and Airfare Watchdog.
2. Use air miles. Many airlines are part of the same programme such as Star Alliance or One World.
3. Look at airlines that specialise in flights to Latin America.
4. Book in advance or very last minute.
5. Stay over a Saturday night.
6. Buy your ticket on between Wednesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon.
7. Travel on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Saturday.
8. Ask about promotions.
9. Try a variety of travel dates.
10. Use Low Cost Carriers (LCC).
11. Fly during the off-season.
12. Check Farecompare for more tips and tricks.

Other Tips for Low Fares
Search engines like Kayak, Air Treks, Air Deals, Side Step, Just the Flight, Opodo, Airbrokers, and BT Store are good. Farecompare has a airfare history chart. Look at layover times and the number of connections. Sometimes it's worth paying more if it means less waiting time and fewer flights. Check to see whether taxes are included and what their refund policy is.

Low Cost Carriers / Budget Airlines
LCC means basic. You can find some great deals, but you often have to pay for extras, such as meals, blankets, pillows, checked luggage, choosing your seat, etc. They often have stricter baggage allowances, nonetheless LCCs are great for saving money.

• Attitude Travel
• Budget Airline Guide
• Fly Budget
• Money Saving Expert
• Sky Scanner
• Which Budget
• Wikipedia Low Cost Airlines

Latin American Specialists
Avianca, Intra Tours, Exito Travel, Fly Latin America, LAN, Delgado Travel USA, Trafico Peru, and Peru Explorer specialise in flights to Latin America. If you're coming from the UK, try Cheap Flights UK. If you're flying from the US, try Airfare Watchdog.

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Budgeting Tips for Teachers Abroad

Updated 12 February 2013  

Things That Your Employer Might Provide
The Middle East offers the best teaching packages with higher salaries and a lot more perks and benefits than the ones you'll find below. What's the best country to teach in? has more information.

• Pre-Paid flight
• Furnished housing
• Meals at the school
• Settling-in allowance
• Settling-in loan
• Transportation allowance
• Medical / health insurance
• Contract completion bonus

Your Start-up Budget
Costs vary depending on where you go and who you will be working for. Some countries prefer to hire teachers who are already in the country, such as Taiwan and Japan. In that case you'll need more money to survive until you find a job and get paid.

• Flight: Around $1000, depending on where you're going.
• Housing: Don't forget that many places are completely unfurnished. Some places require the first and last months' rent, key money (a deposit), or real estate agent fees. In Korea you pay key money and the first month's rent. Key money varies widely. The more key money you put down, the lower your rent. If you put enough down (usually $80,000 and up) you live there rent free for two years. Think of budgeting about $400 to $800 dollars for rent. In China you'll probably have to the pay first and last months' rent, plus the realtor fee. Rent is around $250-$500 a month. In Japan key money is more like a bribe that you pay to the apartment manager and realtor. This fees varies between 2-5 times as much as 1 month's rent. Rent can be from $500 to $700 a month.
• Meals are often cheap if you eat the local food. You can also eat cheaply if you cook your own food.
• Transportation: Often if you buy a bus / subway pass, you can get a bit of a discount on the local transport.
• Travel: Be sure to budget enough for all the flights, transport, and meals. Checking out make money to travel for more ideas.







• First month: You probably won't get paid until you work for an entire month so bring enough money to live on.

Saving for the Future

Are you ready for the future? Budgeting in the Fun Stuff has a quick test for you to take. Getting rid of debt, spending less than you make, getting insurance, and setting aside money will help you. Some people are able to build a nice nest egg while teaching overseas, especially those in the Middle East, parts of Asia, or international schools.

The best advice is to diversify. There are lots of ways to save: CDs, ETFs, mutual funds, index funds, Roth IRAs, traditional IRAs, stocks, bonds, high interest savings accounts, property, and the list goes on. Check out eToro, Vanguard, Etrade, ScotTrade, and Fidelty. 20 Something Finance, Money-Zine's Index funds, and Smart Passive Income's free ebook are good places to start.

Creating a Budget
Think about all your expenses: rent, food, transport, going out, cell phone bills, etc and then allocate how much money you need for each item. Create a savings section on your budget and cut down on unnecessary items, such as coffee or clothes. Try creating a "treat" section on your budget where all the extras like shopping or nights out fall can go. Go for quality not quantity. Instead of buying a $3 every day buy new shoes for $50 once a month.

Look over your budget and see where you can cut back. Try bringing your lunch three times a week? You can then put that money into your savings account, towards your retirement, credit cards, or paying for a large purchase like a car. If you can save $15 a week that's $780 a year. Creating a budget is the easy part but sticking to it is the hard part. When you go out only take the money you need.

One thing that's helpful is separating your money. Use envelopes: one for rent, another for bills, such as water, phone, etc. Paying with cash is probably the best thing to do. Although it's hard at first it gets easier and you'll find you have money left over at the end of the month. For more ideas check out 10,001 ways to live large on a small budget and budgeting tips from self-made millionaires.

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Teaching Writing to ESL and EFL Students

Updated 18 February 2012

You might also be interested in

• Grammar
• Listening
• Pronunciation
• Reading
• Speaking
• Vocabulary
• Writing

Basic Tips

• Teach the writing process: (pre-writing, writing, editing, and proof-reading). Start with pre-writing, so that students can get their ideas down on paper. Graphic organisers, outlines, notes, brainstorming, and lists are some ways.
• In class: Allow plenty of time for the students to practise.
• Daily: Short writing assignments, such as diaries, free writing or poems don’t take up much time.
• It's the little things: Pay attention to vocabulary, structure, spelling and punctuation.
• Variety: Try to teach different things such as descriptive, persuasive, information, narrative, or creative writing. Things like writing an essay, letters, articles, description, reference letter, review, story, persuasive essay, guidebook entry, informative essay, email, job application, compare/contrast, notes, opinion, phone messages, or leaflets are also possible.
• Involve your students: Make it personal and make sure there’s a real life reason for writing. Keep the age, level, and reason for learning English in mind.
• Use comics. Erase the words, photocopy the blank comics and have students fill them in.
• Read: Don’t forget to have students read, it'll help them with their writing.
• Organise your lessons. Make a binder with worksheets and students’ work.
• Portfolios: Have the students create a writing portfolio.
• Music: Try playing music while students are writing.
  
• Make a question rule: Tell your students that before asking you for help first they have to ask two other students to help them.
• Organise the classroom: Dictionaries, thesauruses, grammar books, and other reference books are great for writing.
• Go online: Tell students about online resources such as Purdue's OWL. Some good websites for teaching writing are Outta Ray's Head Writing Lessons, Scholastic, and Teaching Ideas.You can also find good lesson plans online.
• Examples: Look at good and bad examples so that they know the difference and can see what they should and shouldn’t do.
• Feedback: Don’t forget to give feedback in the form of a class discussion, group correction, a meeting with the student, or written feedback.

Ways to Correct Writing
Many teachers dread correcting writing. It takes a long time, students don't really look at your corrections, and worst of all you're not getting paid for the extra time. Try drawing their attention to their mistakes and have them fix them. This saves you time and students will learn more.

• Focus on one area: Only correct one part: organisation, register/style, grammar, vocabulary, spelling/punctuation, etc.
• Use rubrics. They make grading much easier and help students know what they did well and what they need to improve.
• Use correction codes: For example "gr" means grammar, sp means spelling. Have the students correct their mistakes.
• Don't correct anything: Instead make general comments at the end. Tell them what their strengths and weaknesses are.
• Highlight mistakes: Then have the students correct them.

General Test Taking Tips

• Read and follow instructions. It only takes a minute or two and can save you a lot of time.
• Forget cramming. It wouldn't work. If you don't know the information a couple of days before the test, you simply don't know it. You should study a little every day. Don't try to learn everything the night before.
• Eat breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day and is necessary to help you think.
• Bring your materials. Have your pencils, erasers, watch, and ID ready the night before.
• Go early. Make sure you leave your house ahead of time so that you get to the class a few minutes before the test begins.
• Pace yourself. Don't work too slowly or too quickly. If you finish early go back and check your answers.
• Check your answers. Make sure you haven't made any simple mistakes.
• Don't panic. It's just a test. The worst you can do is fail.

Specific Test Taking Tips for Writing

• Keep to the word limit: Let your students know that they shouldn't waste their time counting every single word. They should count how many words are on one line then multiple it by the number of lines they've written.
• Answer all the questions: There are usually a few questions that need to be answered in each writing task. Make sure you answer all of them and allocate enough words for each section.
• Make an outline: Time is limited for writing exams, but that doesn't mean that you shouldn't take the time to plan. Creating a basic plan or outline is necessary for you to organise your ideas.
• Write legibly: Your handwriting doesn't have to be perfect but the teacher needs to be able to read it.
• Proof-read and edit: You should always re-read what you have written and fix the mistakes. If there are no mistakes see if you can make some simple changes to make your paper better.

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Learning the Local Lingo

Updated 18 February 2012

When moving to another country, learning the language can mean adjusting to the lifestyle or remaining an outsider.

Things that Impact Language Learning

1. Language difficulty: Here are the world's most difficult languages. The Foreign Service has also ranked them. Here's language ranked according to difficulty for native English speakers.
2. Necessity: What do you do in those countries and are you likely to encounter English speakers?
3. Location: If you're in a big city with people who speak English, you will have less motivation to learn the local language.
4. Personal reasons: Can range from length of stay, to motivation, to relationships, etc.

From bucultureshock.com

Media for Language Learning
Assimil, Fluenz, How to Learn Any Language, Memrise, Michel Thomas, Pimsleur, and Rosetta Stone are popular.

• Watching TV or movies is very useful. Put on closed captioning so you can listening and read at the same time.
• Listening to the radio will also help you get more accustomed to the language and its accents.
• Emailing, forums, and chatting are also good.
• Reading helps a lot. You can learn grammar and vocab as well as useful expressions.

Language Partners
These are a great way to meet the locals or you could find another foreigner and just spend the entire time trying to talk in the target language. You can talk about family, local news, or just practise reading aloud. You can find language partners on Conversation Exchange and italki.


More Language Learning Tips

• Post-its. Putting up little notes can help you learn about things around you.
• Practise, Practise, Practise. Don’t give up.
• Use different learning styles. 
• Read aloud. Just looking at the words won’t help you when you have to have a conversation. After a while, you’ll notice that the words come out faster, you’ll have less of an accent, and it will increase your grammar and vocabulary.
• Stop translating. Although it may seem easier to think in English and then translate to the target language, it’s way too confusion, takes a long time, and some things simply don’t translate. Make a point of thinking in the language you’re using.
• Read more about learning languages in learning the local language while teaching ESL and all Japanese all the time. Although it's geared towards Japanese, it still has tons of language learning tips.
• Read part 2 of this series: learning the local lingo while teaching ESL.

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Working Holiday Visas and Short-term Jobs

Updated 12 September 2014  
Au Pairs/Nannies: Transitions Abroad Au Pair and Transitions Abroad Au Pair in Europe are good places to start getting information about au pair and nanny jobs. The French Embassy has information for non EU citizens applying for Au Pair Visas. Nannies and governesses are often taken on vacation as well. Just think about being paid to go skiing in Chamberyl.

• AIFS
• Au Pair in Spain
• Au Pair World
• The Best Au Pair
• Bonne International (Russia). Ty contacting kazachka on Dave's.
• Duke and Duchess International
• Eden Nannies
• Easy Au Pair
• EU Au Pair
• Find Au Pair
• French American Center
• Governeur International (Russia)
• Great Au Pair
• Great British Nannies
• Great Nannies
• House Carers
• International Au Pair
• International Au Pair Association
• JCR Aus
• Ms Poppins
• Nanny Agency
• Nanny Jobs
• New Au Pair
• Planet Au Pair
• Royal Nannies(UK)
• Simply Angelic (UK)
• Wind Connections (Switzerland)
• Valday Service (Russia)

Camp Instructors: Summer and winter camps are also an option in Asia as well as the UK, Ireland, Spain and Italy. Summer and winter camps also has good info. Ask about salary, accommodations, teaching materials, air conditioning, number of children per class, days off, and airfare.

Cruise ship work: It can be grueling and the hours are long but you'll get a chance to take a free cruise. Sixth Star and Peace Boat have good reputations. You can find more info on the Lonely Planet forum.

Farm work/picking fruit: It's hard work but you'll build muscles. You can find your own work or try going through an organisation such as WWOOF.

Governess: See above for au pair/nannying. Many of those companies also place governesses.

Sports instructor: Meditation and martial arts are popular so if you practice these you might be able to find a job.

Teacher: China, Japan, and Korea often have short contracts. Footprints Recruiting and Interexchange have short-term positions all over the world. Some companies such as Language Solutions in the UK, Qatar Aeronautical College in Qatar, Bell Libya in Libya, any contractors for Qatar Petroleum, and Westgate in Japan offer short contracts. If you'd like to head to Europe read Europe for non-EU passport holders. You might also look into teaching a foreign language. 

Tour guide:You'll have to do a bit of research ahead of time but you could also freelance easily.

Tutor: See above for au pair/nannying. Many of those companies also place tutors.

Waitress / Waiter: Be aware that some countries don't encourage tipping and others have a kitty system.


How to get a Working Holiday Visa (WHV)
Laws about work visas change often so be sure to check with the embassy of the country you want to work in as well. If you've got a passport from the EU you should be able to work in other EU countries. Please see the official EU expansion website for more info.

You're not going to get rich doing this. It's a chance to experience the culture and language while being able to work legally. Some countries have tax exemptions for working holiday visa holders. Expect to earn about $700 to $1000 in Europe and about $1000 to $2500 in Asia.

You usually have to be between 18 and 35 and you might also have to be a student or have graduated recently. Working holiday visas don't entitle you to take any independents with you. Most programmes require you to apply in your home country and prove that you have enough money to support yourself. WHVs are usually good for 3 to 24 months. They usually they have an application fee between $500 to $1500 usd. Some WHV programmes only allow you to participate again if you go home for a certain amount of time. WHVs are for people who can't get easily get permission to work in a specific country.

Recommended Programmes and Articles

• Europe for non-EU passport holders.
• Visa help: CIEE, Find A Gap, Gap Year , Gap-Year, i-to-i Travel, World Teach, and WHV Makers .
• Forums: Boots N All, Expatica.Gap Year, The Student Room
• AIESEC offers internships from 6 weeks to 18 months in various countries around the world.
• Any Work Anywhere has information about working holiday visas and what choices are available to you.
• BUNAC has WHV and internship programmes.
  
• Gap Year 365 is a good place to search for a programme.
• Geovisions has placement for volunteer, conversation, teaching and au pair / nanny positions.
• Live Work Play has info about working holiday visas.
• Season Workers has a variety of seasonal jobs available.
• SWAP is for Canadians wanting to go abroad.
• Working Abroad's placement fees are high. It's not worth paying the fee for the teaching English jobs.
• Youth.Gc.Ca is for Canadians wanting to go abroad.

Where To Go

• Americans can work in Australia, Britain, Canada, France, Ireland, Korea, New Zealand, and Singapore.
• Australians can work in Belgium, Canada, Chile, Cyprus, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Malta, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Sweden, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, the UK, and the US.
• Britons can work in Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, and the US.
• Canadians can work in Australia, Austria, Belgium, Chile, China, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Latvia, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the US, and the UK.
• Irish can work in Canada, Korea, and New Zealand.
• New Zealanders can work in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Japan, Korea, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, the UK, and Uruguay.
• South Africans can work in Canada.

Country Specific Programmes

• Finland offers Americans the chance to teach English or do an internship if you're over 21 and either a college junior, senior, or have graduated in the past two years. Australians can also work there.
• France offers assistant teaching positions for a variety of nationalities. Look at the French embassy in Washington. Those from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and Korea can also work there.
• Japan has working holiday exchanges for people from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Korea, Germany, the UK, Ireland and Denmark who are between 18 and 30.
• Korea has a programme for those from Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Ireland, Japan, New Zealand, and the US to work there. You should also look at the Mofat website.
• Spain has teaching assistant programmes for a variety of nationalities. Applications start in November and run until April. They also allow those with passports from Canada and New Zealand to work there.
• The UK allows those with passports from Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, and the US to work there. The UK has a youth mobility scheme which is part of the Points-Based Immigration System.

This article has also been featured in the ELT Times.

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