The difference between EFL and ESL is this: EFL stands for English as a Foreign Language. When you teach English abroad, you are teaching English as a Foreign Language. In Europe, there are two kinds of English taught--British English and American English.
Many English schools advertise EFL British English or EFL American English for their European students. When I taught EFL in France to my French students, I was teaching American English--that is teaching English with an American accent.
I was partnering with a British teacher who taught British English--that is English with a British accent to her students. She was teaching the main class of 30 students and she would teach them grammar, writing, reading and literature as well as British culture. Then, out of her 30 students, I would get 15 students and alternate with another 15 students every other week from her class. In this way, her French high school students got one week of British English and one week of American English so her students would be able to understand the English spoken in America and Britain.
I had a lot of fun teaching EFL to French students. It was my very first English teaching job. At the time, I was the same age as my students, so we would talk about watching the same TV shows or listening to the same music. I taught them basically about American culture, American music, and American TV shows. I also would do Listening Comprehension lessons where I would play clips of American English taken from local NY radio and have them try to understand what was being said.
When you teach English in the United States to international students or to immigrant students, you are teaching English as a Second Language. I have taught English to international students from many countries and have enjoyed learning about my students' different cultures--Italy, France, Germany, China, Korea, Japan, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Singapore, Switzerland, Mexico, Guatamala, Haiti, Brazil, and Belize.
When you teach ESL or EFL, the major benefits is learning about other cultures and expanding your horizons about how you think about the world. You get to empathize about other people and understand problems from other people's point of view. When you work at a higher paying job and your boss expects you to interact with foreign clients to make money for the company, because of your international teaching experience, you are able to easily interact with foreign clients and make money for the company.
Many young people teach English abroad (EFL) so they can get the experience of living in another country, learning another language to make them more marketable in the work world. If you choose to teach ESL, you get to continue to learn about other cultures while still living near your family in the United States. Either way, EFL and ESL teaching is fun and gives you an edge in the marketplace when you are looking for a job--being bilingual is good for your brain too--but that is for another blog post :)
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