CHAPTER 1: PRELIMINARY DOCUMENTS
Before starting, I would like to clearly highlight that every case, nationality, school and location may set a different scenario. Here I am just reporting my own personal experience as an Italian expat after teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) for about 3 months in Bien Hoa, approximately 30 km away from Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon).
Mandatory for everybody, nevertheless, is the onerous items checklist you need to comply with in order to legally teach in Vietnam (as of December 2024):
- A notarised, translated and legalised copy of a TEFL or TESOL or CELTA certificate, at least 120 hours, but the more the better.
- A notarised, translated and legalised copy of your University Bachelor’s (or Master’s) degree in any field, at least 3 years. The more the better, of course.
- A notarised, translated and legalised Criminal Records Check, not older than 6 months.
- A notarised, translated and legalised copy of a C1 level English proficiency certificate for candidates NOT coming from native English speaking countries (UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand), unless you can provide a university degree with major in English language, literature and / or linguistics.
- Medical Check Up certificate to be done in Vietnam.
- 4 photos, size 4 x 6 cm, to be done in Vietnam.
- Registration of temporary accommodation, to be done in Vietnam.
- A Work permit issued by the Department of Labor, War Invalids and Social Affairs, to be done in Vietnam.
- A Work Visa or TRC (Temporary Residence Card), to be done in Vietnam.
Just to be clear, all the documents above have to be notarised, translated (if not in Vietnamese) and legalised. Therefore, if you are thinking to move to Vietnam, make sure you first have all the requested legal titles; secondly, you are in a position to pay for considerable expenses; thirdly, can get all these documents legalized within a reasonable amount of time.
Additionally, be prepared to sign for at least 1 year contract (full time jobs). Also because with all the expenses you have to face to get entitled to work there, less than 1 year is useless to recover initial charges (and build a CV experience maybe too :). To me it took 3 months only to break even (flight, TEFL, hefty legalization expenses, house deposit, house equipment, etc.). From the 4th month on, generally speaking, you slowly start to recover and be in profit.
The best time to apply for a position, instead, is from June to August, when schools and language centres are actively and massively recruiting for the new school / academic year (starting in August / September). Much fewer gaps are available outside that timeframe. Good news, however, you can apply and be interviewed online from all around the world! And it is quite effortless to be honest.
But let’s analyze all the required paperwork first.
1) TEFL
I started to fancy teaching in South Eastern Asia about 8 years ago, when I took my first online Tefl (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certificate with the Tefl Academy. They are reliable and legit, for the record.
At that time Online TEFL Courses were not subdivided into multiple levels as they are nowadays. There was just one possible course with more or less the same cheap price of today, 150 €. It goes without saying that these online courses have never been high-level. They simply CONFER you a legal title compulsory for Vietnam.
Given the ever-increasing number of emerging organizations, you may beforehand wish to verify if the certifying institution is accredited or not. You may try to click and explore here.
Moreover, check if your chosen certifying company has a Certificate Verification URL, such as this one, where you can insert your Student code to get your TEFL current status.
Vietnamese recruiters can then easily verify if your title is more authentic.
I am telling you this because with the passage of time more and more business-pursuing TEFL organizations and courses have flooded the web, bringing debatable pros and cons.
PROS:
- Higher competition for affordable enrolling fees.
- Wider educational assortment.
- More and more online, self-paced and user-friendly products.
CONS:
- New TEFL levels have been created (3, 5 and 7) with more pressure to sign up for higher levels (Level 5 did not seem to exist 8 years ago, I could be wrong though).
- Too much selection and possible scams.
Long story short, new levels (5 & 7) have been generated and sold as new “minimum requirements” to access current English Teaching jobs or better paid positions.
Secondly, prestigious and costly courses such as CELTA (arranged by the notorious University of Cambridge, and 10 times more expensive than basic online TEFL courses) have been made a bit redundant. Although they definitely prepare you much better for the job (you have very useful observation time too), the cost-benefit ratio is nowadays shifting elsewhere.
Is more important high-priced teaching theory or paid practice after getting the job?
Also because the TEFL enrolling fee does not end your hefty expenses. Be careful to choose an institution from a suitable and accessible country, as later you will have to notarise and legalize your title, which cost me 200 additional Euros.
The Tefl Academy, for example, is legally based in the UK and, as such, offers you a “UK title” to be authenticated in the same country. If you live far away or have no reliable people to do the job for you, then you are forced to use an agency.
Well aware of that, the Tefl Academy also provides an Apostille Service for foreigners, on this page.
Which is more expensive than the Hague Apostille though.
To summarize, you can quickly enrol today into an Online Tefl course and complete your self-paced Level 3 or Level 5 course (I took both myself) within 1 week or 10 days for an inexpensive fee of 150-200 €. Although you are granted 6 months to finish your course anyway, straightforward multiple choice questions after each module and some doable final assignments make the task much faster.
However, if you are in a hurry, be reminded that your title could subsequently require weeks to be notarised and legalised, plus additional costs (I paid 188 € in August 2024 with regular mail delivery). It took about 5 total extra weeks to ship the document to The Hague Apostille; to have them receiving it; to have them processing it; and to get it back from the UK to Italy by ordinary mail. Priority air shipping could save you one week maybe, but definitely costs more.
Total amount here: 160 € (Tefl Level 3 course in 2017) + 180 € (Upgrade to Level 5 in 2024) + 188 € for legalization and shipping with The Hague Apostille + 10 € regular shipping from Italy to the UK = 538 €.
2) UNIVERSITY DEGREE
Unlikely other countries in Asia, Vietnam requires at least a Bachelor’s degree (3 years long) for your school to be able to submit your Work Permit (maximum 2 years valid) and Visa application (1 year valid). Although the degree can be in any field, recruiters tend to value more degrees in Linguistics, English, Pedagogy, Education and related.
You are requested the one page Diploma and its certified copy is OK, no need to jeopardize the original.
However, there might be a money catch here. As for the cost of documents legalization, in fact, it seems that the best option is getting it done on your original documents so that the school / language center may obtain a notarized copy and translate it directly in Vietnam for the Work Permit application. That seems to be cheaper (even though not faster maybe). This is what my HR department told me afterwards at least.
In Italy (check for your own country), notwithstanding, University diplomas (that’s what you have to present) must be first legalized by Italian authorities (i.e. Prefettura). Legalization generally occurs on a certified copy issued at the municipality office.
After that, legalized copies must be shipped to the closest Vietnamese consulate (Turin in my case) for translation into Vietnamese and second legalization. Costs for the Vietnamese Consulate in Turin, Italy, were the following (August 2024):
- € 90 for each translated (Ita > Viet) page (+ 50 % for the urgent procedure);
- € 100 for each legalized document;
- € 45 for Consular fees;
- € 30 for DHL shipping;
You may then wish to ship to them all the needed documents together, to save some budget.
It took around 6 weeks for the entire process with shipping to be fulfilled, be prepared.
3) CRIMINAL RECORDS
The criminal records certificate is more straightforward, but it has to be translated and legalized too. Remember it cannot be older than 6 months.
Total amount here: 815 € for the Viet Consulate + 16 € tax stamp for the municipality (degree certified copy) + 16 € tax stamp for the Italian prefecture (Prefettura) + 16 € tax stamp for the Criminal Records certificate + 8 € shipping charges to the Consulate + 35 € shipping costs from Italy to Vietnam (with swift, inexpensive and trustworthy Europacco) = 906 €
Plus of course time and gasoline to reach those offices.
I really want to make it clear that this amount is agency-free, all consequent to independent work.
About the option to legalize your documents directly in Vietnam, please check with your consulate / embassy maybe. Although not time-effective (you are supposed to usually hand in all the ready documents within 4-5 weeks from your arrival date in order to receive your Work Permit and Visa before your Business Visa expires), it might turn out to be more affordable though.
Feel free to comment this post with your personal experience, thanks. Since rules are ever-changing, it could be quite difficult to keep the situation updated here.
In addition, consular offices might not be available in your teaching city. Or they might not perform certain tasks or services. And you might end up spending time and money to fix things later (time is ticking :). In Chapter 2 we will deal with the costly border run operation.
Finally, you seem to be obliged to work on certified copies, as you don’t want to take any chance that your valuable certificates get lost or damaged.
Some schools are nevertheless covering (and reimbursing) these expenses for 100 %, others 50 %, others a fixed amount, others zero. Panorama there is fairly variable. My school, for instance, refunded for only 150 USD before taxes (yes! You have to pay taxes on refunds too!) and only after the Work Permit was granted (3 months later). Just be ready for that. So much to invest beforehand!
4) C1 LEVEL ENGLISH PROFICIENCY CERTIFICATE
Although they do generally have a long expiry date (2 years), English-proficiency tests (e.g. IELTS, TOEFL, Cambridge, etc.) could be burdensome because of time and money invested. Additionally they need to be legalized as well.
I can offer two pieces of advice here:
- If your Major is in English language/linguistics/literature, then you do not need to worry too much (that was my case, no C1 requested as a non-native speaker);
- In the worst case scenario, you could take a free online exam with EF here.
These are the required scores:
Disregard this paragraph if you are coming from one of the 7 native English speaking countries (UK, Ireland, USA, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand). No need then.
5) MEDICAL CHECK UP
This is another mandatory step. But do not panic: you can undergo this requirement once you have arrived in Vietnam (during the first month ideally).
The exams are fairly hasty and cursory though. Below my personal experience in Bien Hoa:
- No booking required.
- You are welcomed by a broken English speaking person in charge.
- You have to provide a picture and pay in advance (670,000 VND = 27 USD).
- You are moved from pillar to post for countless, hurried checkups (general blood sample, urine analysis, blood pressure, sight, oral cavity examination, stethoscope, thoracic X-rays, hearing test, etc.) with different specialists, all done in 1 hour and always skipping local queues. In some cases those specialists only asked me if I had had any previous disease or if I could hear well : ) They subsequently marked the exam as passed : )
- Blood sample was taken from my hand and for only a couple of phials (not very specific).
- You get the results within a few hours.
- You can request an invoice in the name of the school for refund (10 working days in my case).
- Not passing those tests is quite hard. They did not even check any further diseases.
6) PHOTOS (FOR YOUR DOCUMENTS)
You are requested to have 1 photo (any format) for the Med Check up + 3 photos for the Work Permit and Visa. But careful, because for the Work Permit not all the formats are accepted. European standards definitely not. Photos must be specifically 4 x 6 cm (much bigger thus), white background, no glasses, taken within the last six months from the submission date. I had then to find a gloomy shop where for 35,000 VND I got 4 photos. Funny thing is that those pictures were artisanally modified (they added white background too) with an old computer, no glossy and fine paper. Apparently what matters here is more the correct size than the high quality.
7) REGISTRATION OF TEMPORARY ACCOMMODATION (FREE)
Vital and preliminary to obtain your Work Permit, the ORIGINAL (no copies accepted for your Work permit) proof of temporary residency form can be registered online here, then printed out and eventually signed and stamped by the local police. Alternatively, the form may be directly registered with the local police. It is much easier though to ask your landlord or agent to get it done for you (just provide your passport for a few hours OR accompany them, if you do not repose any trust). More info here.
CONSIDERATIONS AND CALCULATIONS
Summing up, the total initial cost was FOR ME: 538 € (TEFLs) + 906 € (Degree + Criminal Records legalization) + 25 € (Med Check Up) + 2 € (Photos) = 1 471 €, of which only 135 € refunded 3/4 months later (approx. 110 € after taxes for paperwork refund + 25 € med check up).
Result was 1 336 € out of my pockets FOR preliminary PAPERWORK.
Plus the flight from Venice to HCMC, one way, 483 € = 1 819 €.
Plus the Business Visa on arrival 23 € (25 USD) = 1 842 Euros.
Two things for the airport: arrange a cheap fake / dummy ticket (here you can find a quick, low-cost and reliable one to show at the airline ticket counter; AND try to get a receipt for your Business Visa when arriving, if you can. The former will avoid you troubles; the latter will maybe get you a refund from the employer.
As you can see, not everybody can afford to relocate to Vietnam so easily, due to high initial investment and strict requirements. On the one hand, this entails less competition among job-seekers; on the other, almost two monthly salaries spent before starting to work (remember you have to pay for the house rent, deposit and equipment too, plus maybe a scooter and gym : )
Next chapter is coming shortly.
