Meet the gen Zers finding job opportunities teaching English abroad

Arianna Marie and Zwiwe Dlamini teach English in South Korea. Photograph: Courtesy Arianna Marie and Zwiwe DlaminiView image in fullscreenArianna Marie and Zwiwe Dlamini teach English in South Korea. Photograph: Courtesy Arianna Marie and Zwiwe DlaminiWork & careersMeet the gen Zers finding job opportunities teaching English abroadSome young people are teaching in countries like South Korea as education funding is gutted and recent grads face a tough job market in their own countries

A year ago, Arianna Marie, 25, was struggling to control the students in her Florida elementary school classroom.

She was living with her parents to save on rent and quickly feeling her passion for teaching dry up, even though it was her first job since graduation.

“I was extremely burnt out,” Marie said. “We had a teacher shortage, so all of my classes were overcrowded.”

When her district wanted to transfer her to a new school, she looked for opportunities abroad. Through an English-language teaching job in South Korea, Marie is now living in Daegu, a city in the south-eastern part of the country, with enough pay and benefits that she can save and travel.

The fact that it’s the home to K-pop and K-dramas doesn’t hurt – and in a striking shift, she’s rediscovered her love for the job. “I never have to crack down on behavior issues, and both students and teachers respect me so much,” Marie said. “I actually get to focus solely on teaching.”

Marie is part of a program by the South Korean government that is placing native English speakers with a college degree and Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) certificates with local public schools, as it increases spending on education. Benefits include free housing, flight reimbursements, healthcare and monthly salaries starting at about $1,400.

Graduating with a college degree in the US no longer comes with the stability it once guaranteed. Since the Covid pandemic, the unemployment rate for recent college graduates has been higher than the overall unemployment rate.

For those who have a job, earnings have been rising slower than the pace of inflation. New entrants in US public service jobs like teaching are increasingly leaving the profession, citing low pay and high stress.

Other countries, including Japan and Taiwan, are similarly investing in full-time English-language teachers, attracting young workers with benefits they would be hard-pressed to find in their home countries.

Gen Z is spreading the word. Some English-language teachers have garnered thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram, showing audiences their lives abroad. Marie has been keeping track of her travels, and documenting some of her classroom experiences, on her Instagram account.

The TEFL Institute, which issues TEFL certification courses that accredit English-language teachers, notes that the English-language teaching market was valued at $95bn in 2026, with more than 2m TEFL jobs available worldwide. The market is expected to reach $181bn by 2034, and the Asia-Pacific region is growing the fastest.