Dear John,

There aren't decent jobs in Brazil because most of the ESL schools belong to big chains whose managers don’t like to be dependent on well-qualified teachers. The big chains will rather stick to courses of lessons and books (the book helps to monitor the franchisees' income) and pump a large part of their profit into mass advertising. Teacher qualification is less important when the recipe is to strictly follow the book and achieve brand recognition, and what the native speaker has to offer can be seen as a threat to the chain philosophy. Independent schools tend to be better for both teachers and students but if I were you I would work for myself. If you have a place to live that you can also use as a classroom for private students and small groups, in three or four months it will start paying off. You can also teach at students' homes and offices. You only need to make a small investment advertising yourself in the local newspaper as a qualified English native speaker. If you locate yourself in a big city, you will have plenty of students.

Ricardo - EMB