Building a Teaching CV and Demo Lesson When You Have No Experience Yet

Everybody starts with no experience, and schools and online platforms know it — they hire new teachers constantly. What they cannot hire is somebody who has not made it easy to say yes. Here is how to build the CV, the video and the demo lesson that get you your first hours.

What actually goes on a teaching CV

• Name, city and country, email, phone with the international dialling code, and your nationality. Recruiters filter by nationality for visa reasons.
• Your TEFL certificate, with the number of training hours and the certificate code, so that an employer can verify it without emailing anybody.
• Education, most recent first. Include your degree if you have one, and your matric if you do not.
• Teaching and teaching-adjacent experience. Tutoring, coaching a sports team, running training for colleagues, Sunday school, a youth group, a homework club. Describe what you did, not just the title.
• Other work experience, briefly, leaning on anything involving people.
• Skills and practicalities. Languages you speak, comfort with online teaching tools, how many hours a week you are available and which time zones you can cover.
• References, or a line saying they are available on request.

Keep it to one page, or two at the very most. Plain formatting and sensible headings. Send it as a PDF and name the file properly — Name-Surname-CV.pdf, not cv final final 2.docx. Some markets expect a photograph on a CV and others find it strange or discourage it, so check what is normal for the market you are applying to rather than assuming.

Reframe what you have already done

You have more relevant experience than you think. Explaining a process to a new colleague is instruction, and coaching under-nines is differentiation, discipline and keeping twenty people engaged. Write those lines in teaching language: planned and led weekly sessions for groups of up to twenty children aged eight to ten reads very differently from helped with soccer.

The intro video

Many online roles ask for a short self-introduction video. Keep it under two minutes unless you are told otherwise, and treat it as a sample of your teaching rather than a monologue about yourself.

• Light your face. Sit facing a window or a lamp, never with a bright window behind you.
• Plain, tidy background. A blank wall is fine. Some teachers put up a simple alphabet or a map.
• Camera at eye level, and look into the lens rather than at yourself on the screen.
• Lift your energy well past what feels natural. On camera, normal reads as flat.
• Say who you are, where you are, that you are TEFL certified, and who you enjoy teaching — then teach something tiny, a greeting or a colour or a question, with gestures and a visual. Close by inviting them to book a class.
• Record it several times. Nobody gets it on the first take.

The demo lesson

Most interviews for teaching work include a demo: you teach a short segment, either to the interviewer playing a student or to a real class. They are not looking for perfection. They are looking for whether you can hold attention, whether you talk too much, and whether you can teach a point rather than describe it.

1. Ask for the brief in advance. Level, age, class size, target language and length. If you are not given one, choose something small and concrete: colours, present simple daily routines, ordering food.
2. Plan a shape, not a script. A quick warmer, the language in context, a drill, one controlled practice, one short freer activity, a two-line wrap-up.
3. Prepare visuals. Flashcards, a puppet or a toy for young learners, objects you can hold up. Physical props read brilliantly on camera and cost nothing.
4. Use gestures. A gesture for the past, a hand signal for repeat, a thumbs up for well done. Interviewers watch for this specifically.
5. Rehearse out loud, standing up. To a mirror, a friend or your phone. It always takes longer than you think.
6. Get the student talking. Even in a demo with one interviewer, make them answer, repeat and produce. A demo in which the candidate talks for ten minutes fails.

The common mistakes: explaining grammar in complicated English, correcting every error, no clear ending, flat energy, forgetting to praise. Say good, well done, nearly — try again. Warmth is half of teaching.

Getting your first real hours

If you need experience to be hired and hiring to get experience, break the loop yourself. Offer free conversation practice to someone who is learning English. Volunteer with a community organisation, a library or a church group that runs language classes. Tutor school learners. Run a weekly online conversation hour for two people and treat it exactly like a paid class: plan it, teach it, reflect on what worked. It goes on the CV, honestly described, and gives you something real to talk about in an interview.

The interview itself

Expect to be asked why you want to teach, how you would handle a student who will not participate, what you would do if a lesson finished early, and how you feel about a particular age group. Have questions ready for them too: typical class size, what materials are provided, and what support new teachers get. Asking good questions makes you sound like a colleague rather than an applicant — and reply quickly, because a surprising number of applications fall over at the admin.