Self Employed / Freelance

I have no idea whether it's legal or not.
I suspect it isn't technically since one needs a work permit to work here.
As such it may not be OK to talk about it on this open forum.

Probably every EFL teacher has considered it or done it.

I have never heard of anyone getting into trouble for it.
In Korea I've heard stories of angry girl friends turning in their boy friends.
In China there is a bounty for turning in anyone teaching illegally.

Advertising that you teach in your room/house? Bad idea right now.

Do a search for on-line teaching positions.

Some expect you to to complete their online TEFL course during your first month of teaching.

Others let you advertise your services and transfer the pay you ask for to you. This assumes you get any students.

Here's some stuff:

Get a paypal account.
Get a Google email account, use that to log into google drive and google classroom.
Learn to make google slides and docs, IOW learn how to use Google classroom.
Use the drive to store things for your lessons.
Zoom!

Practice videoing yourself. Get comfortable with it.

Make a short (less than a minute) infomercial introducing yourself as an EFL teacher. use that to apply for online jobs or to get students.

Research, research, research.

Read up on EFL teaching, find stuff about syllabi, lessons and materials. You tube has lots of stuff including videos of teachers teaching.

Join LinkedIn, Facebook and join groups about teaching, teaching EFL in VN or even just living in VN.

We all got lots of time on our hands eh?

Asked her indoors.. didn't know and said. O one check.
For me prefer to be legal 😁 than run the risk of getting caught

I'll ask around with some people who might have access to legal side of things.

Jlgarbutt wrote:

So many of you will have seen previous posts about searching for work here. And due to covid-19 causing havoc with recruitment at the moment things are slower than I would like.

I'm here on a 3 month tourist visa, though I do have a VEC that I haven't been able to have activated yet.

What are the rules for freelance or self employed working here ?

Has anyone tried it ? If so what did they need to do to be legal ?

The main law I'm aware of says that you don't have to have a work permit for employment of 90 days or less.

However, it's not clear to me whether you can be employed legally on a tourist visa.

That's my feeling also... And seeing as I still cannot use the VEC

Lots of things cannot do.. interestingly still see some who don't do the mask / social.isolation things.

Time to hibernate

Heads somewhere the social isolation is going to be in extended until the end of the month. Had this conversation with immigration who said come back on the 20th

Will see what i can find about working self employed or freelance.

Jlgarbutt wrote:

That's my feeling also... And seeing as I still cannot use the VEC

Lots of things cannot do.. interestingly still see some who don't do the mask / social.isolation things.

Time to hibernate

Heads somewhere the social isolation is going to be in extended until the end of the month. Had this conversation with immigration who said come back on the 20th

Will see what i can find about working self employed or freelance.

Not sure this will help you with the employment, as I think I may have another link somewhere for that.

However this is the best translation I have into English of the Vietnamese immigration law.

It's a direct download link, so the PDF file will begin to download the minute you click the link:

dria.vinhuni.edu.vn/DATA/83/upload/1409/documents/2016/12/47_immigration_law_translation.pdf

Source in Vietnamese for the previous document listed:

https://luatvietnam.vn/xuat-nhap-canh/luat-xuat-nhap-canh-2014-87925-d1.html

If you scroll down this page on the government website, you'll see many different links for documents which might be relevant:

english.molisa.gov.vn/Pages/Document/Official.aspx

Jlgarbutt wrote:

That's my feeling also... And seeing as I still cannot use the VEC

Lots of things cannot do.. interestingly still see some who don't do the mask / social.isolation things.

Time to hibernate

Heads somewhere the social isolation is going to be in extended until the end of the month. Had this conversation with immigration who said come back on the 20th

Will see what i can find about working self employed or freelance.

VEC doesnt qualify for work, you still need a work permit. If you earn income here you need a tax file number. Thats the legal way of doing things, many dont do this.

If you are going to try private lessons at home and are married to a Vietnamese citizen I would suggest the following: 

1) Never advertise.  If you live in an apartment complex you should have more than enough requests for tutoring without even going outside the building.

2) Have your wife handle all the money.  I know it may be a legal fiction, but you need to have your wife handle all the money, both pricing and collections.  Then if there is a complaint, you are not giving lessons, she is.  She will get into a lot less trouble than you will.  I also found that my wife was much tougher on students who missed classes.  I would give them a discount but she wouldn't tolerate such things.   

In a related context, I found that four students per class is just right for private lesson groups.  More than that begins to be like a regular classroom and hence not suitable for a premium rate while having fewer students cuts into your hourly income.  Having four students in the group is also conducive to doing dialog work.

Disclaimer:  None of the above should be considered legal advice.  It is simply advice based on practical real world situations. 

There's an online ESL site called iTutor Group. If you're on LinkedIn then you'll see they advertise for teachers a lot lately. They give you a month to get a TEFL cert. I guess you're working until then. They have linked a site that offers a TEFL cert. at a discount. 19 Euros down from 119 Euros. They are called the International Open Academy.

So here's a potential job and TEFL cert.

Anybody looking for online income can Google them and apply.

I don't like them because a portion of your pay is determined by student feedback. IMHO that is stupid. So they keep some portion of the class fee that the is meant for you. The base pay is 7 USD I think.

Whoever came up with that idea should be basted, flogged and forever banned form any position with any company in which their decisions have an impact on others within the company or indeed the survival of the company itself.

Other online schools offer bonuses for good ratings. They also pay between 15 and 25 USD per hour. 

Excellent advice from THIGV including the wife stuff.

I'll throw in this: My wife also acted as my TA. She had some clever ideas for learning activities for the students.

My favourite was saying an item of vocab in VN and a student had to say it back in English. Then they got to challenge everyone.Fun for all ages.

Translating and answering questions for adult beginners.

No one can work with a tourist visa so when the situation becomes normal exit the country and you will come back with a business visa to be able to apply for a work permit and be in good standing with the laws of the country.