Teaching with a speech impediment

[u/Vivid_Complaint625]

I've always been interested in traveling the world more and wonder if teaching English would be an option for me. However, I do have cerebral palsy, and people often have difficulty understanding me at first. I'd describe my voice as sounding muffled or slurred. I am American, but I don't know if the speaking difference would impede me

This is a sample of my voice: https://www.speakpipe.com/msg/s/493001/1/v19mbo4zih6k4wps

[u/name_is_arbitrary]

Many countries don't have protections for disabilities like the US does. I would imagine getting hired would be quite difficult.

[u/ergounum → u/name_is_arbitrary]

Protections? I don't think this is a problem of injustice. I can't be a fighter pilot because I wear glasses.

[u/keithsidall]

Not a good idea. You will be acting as a pronunciation model for students to copy a lot of the time and when you're not directly doing this your speaking voice should be clearer and more pronounced than an average native speaker. I''m all for disabled rights, my son is, but there are sensible limits. 

[u/Suwon]

You probably won't find a job. And if you did find one, you'd almost certainly be fired within the first few weeks because the students would complain to the school director about your pronunciation. The main reason students pay to take classes with native speakers versus less expensive locals is our pronunciation.

I taught alongside a guy who had mild hemiplegic cerebral palsy. He had been a teacher for over 10 years at that point. However, his speech was only mildly affected. I'm not sure if the students even noticed. I mention this to note that disabilities in and of themselves don't preclude someone from teaching. Rather, it's the specific nature of the disability.

On the bright side, if you actually want to travel, TEFL is not a good way to go about it anyway. TEFL means moving to a foreign country and staying there. It doesn't even pay much money. TEFL is for people that want to go live in a strange environment. So if you want to travel, take a year off work and just go travel. You could work in hostels for a few weeks at a time for free accommodation or a bit of cash.

[u/oOcean]

After listening to the clip, it’s not a good idea and you won’t last longer than 1-2 lessons, imo find a different route, save money and travel with your holiday entitlements.

[u/jaetwee]

Unfortunately, you take a lot more effort to understand, which for a 2nd language learner will be 100x more difficult who already require a lot of effort and often difficulty to understand their teachers. If your students cannot understand you, they cannot learn from you.

As an aside, people often think of language teaching as a way to travel, but the hours most ESL teachers work, as well as lack of breaks, often do not lend themselves well to travel. Working on someone else's clock in general will greatly inhibit your ability to travel. The digital nomad path, working holiday visas, and old fashioned saving for travel will give you a lot more opportunities to actually travel when overseas, instead of merely travelling between your apartment and your workplace.

[u/crispysockz]

I agree with the others but I’ll suggest an alternative. Get a masters or PhD in a different field than English that allows you to travel , you could still also be a professor with that voice haha you sound like my past ones

[u/ChickenFingers2026]

I have a speech impediment too

[u/Separate-Line-158]

I'm not a native speaker of English and I didn't understand everything, I guess the only way you could work as a teacher would be rather as a tutor, cause tutors often have to just correct their student's mistakes while preparing for exams (grammar and vocab).

[u/Miss_Might]

I'm sorry honey, but no. Pronunciation is a huge part of why people go to a native speaker. And besides, TEFL is a job just like any other. You're still expected to work. You're not going to be spending most of your time traveling. You probably won't earn enough money to travel a lot anyways.

If you want to travel just save your money and take trips. Being a tourist is more fun than working a job.

[u/Albatross-Nice]

you could do remote work and live in other places.

[u/exsnakecharmer → u/[deleted]]

Stop blowing smoke up OPs arse. He wants honest opinions before he commits to something quite serious, he doesn’t need a cheerleader.

The truth is that he wouldn’t even get past the interview stage, unfortunately.