Authentification process

As you seem to be a proper teacher, I assume you will wish to obtain a proper work permit.  The work permit is held not by you but by our employer and you need to be hired before applying.  To obtain the permit:
1) You will need your Bachelor's diploma, translated and certified.
2) You will need your TEFL certificate, translated and certified.'
3) You will need a criminal records check from your home state, translated and certified.
You will need to deliver all three to your employer to enable them to apply for the work permit.  The other primary element for the application is your contract which of course they will supply.  You  say you are a certified teacher.  If you intend to be a subject matter teacher at an international school, you may need a transcript but that will depend on your employer.

The first two are best done in Vietnam.  Take copies to the Embassy/consulate depending on which city, HCM or Hanoi.  You sign an affidavit that they are copies of documents in your possession.  The consulate has the wording.  You then take them to DOLISA (Dept of Labor, Invalids, and  ) where they are translated and certified.

The criminal records check is a problem encountered by other teachers who are arriving in Vietnam from other countries.  Your bio says you are from CA which seems to require fingerprinting.  I will let you wade through the website:  https://oag.ca.gov/fingerprints/record-review  California may have a no-fingerprints check as well which will be fine with VN authorities.

You could also do a national check but unfortunately US embassies will not do fingerprinting for FBI records checks. You may be looking at having to make a side trip to California.

Once your work permit is approved, you can apply for a Temporary Residence Card.  For more detail, you can search for "work permit" on this site.

Thank you so much.

-Jorge

Hi,
I don't have a  TEFL certificate. Is a  TEFL certificate mandatory?

-Jorge

Oshun123 wrote:

I don't have a  TEFL certificate. Is a  TEFL certificate mandatory?

Generally speaking it is if you wish to teach ESL in any of the countries ESL academies.

You said you were a "certified teacher."  That means different thing isn different jurisdictions.  If you have a BEd (as opposed to a BA or BSc) technically you could be exempted from the requirement but it would still depend on the decision of a petty bureaucrat. 

If you intend to teach in an international school, as I mentioned above, you will need to check with the school for requirements, but the police check will still be needed.

Of course you could still come to Vietnam and teach without a permit while living with a tourist or business visa.  Others may jump in here and advocate for that, and thousands do it that way, but of course that does not make it legal.