Running out of cash on a trip abroad is an occupational hazard for those of us with itchy feet. But if you get bored of picking fruit, you can earn more, teaching English.

We've all called home with sheepish requests for funds because "The museums are so much more expensive than I thought!" (as are, strangely enough, the bars), but most of us will have to get a job or two whilst on our gap-year.

There's a wide variety of things you can do, from bar work to fruit picking to cleaning a backpackers, but if you want to earn a decent wage, and for less hours, Teaching English as a Foreign Language, or TEFL, is a great option, and you'll be working with locals, rather than other backpackers, while you do it.

English is everywhere, and there are teaching opportunities all over the world from business English in Berlin, to conversational evening classes in Tokyo, to voluntary work in Mozambique with VSO. A quick survey at one school revealed that the teachers there had worked in a total of 46 countries from Albania to Zimbabwe via Australia and India.

Anyone thinking about teaching has lots of questions so we spoke to Ali Talbot, a teacher trainer based in Hamburg:

Do I need a qualification to teach?
Generally, yes. There are several options, some more recognised than others. Teacher training is usual done in the language schools themselves. Find out where the schools are in your area and give them a call. Apart from the invaluable training a teaching course offers you, if I was looking for a job and the school didn't ask for a qualification, I'd think twice about working for them.

Do I have to speak their language?
Generally, no, you don't. In Europe it can sometimes help you get that job but 'immersion', placing a student in an environment where they can't speak their own language, is considered the best way to learn. Besides, in most places it would be impractical to expect staff to know the local language. The Philippines would be very short of English teachers if we had to speak Tagalog!

How can you stand in front of all those people and talk for an hour?
You don't. Classroom practice has for a long time centred on the idea that students, not teachers, do the talking. It's daunting at first, but look at it like this; once you shut the classroom door, you're your own boss!

I know nothing about English grammar.
It's odd that while everyone else in the world is making mistakes using the present perfect, the majority of English speakers don't even know what it is. You will obviously need to brush up before you start - it's embarrassing when a student is able to correct you in front of a class - but the vast majority of teachers will tell you that their knowledge of English grammar is (much) better than when they started teaching.

Where do I start with an absolute beginner?
There are very few absolute beginners out there, but there are a lot of 'false' beginners. With so much English language culture saturating the world and it's almost impossible to find students who can't at least introduce themselves.

From beginner to advanced, teaching is the same, it's merely a question of 'grading' your language - think of the difference between a chat with your mates in the pub, and talking with your 85-year-old granny (and no, it's not just talking louder!).

teaching has long been seen as a positive addition to a CV and employers appreciate the planning and communication skills an employee with teaching experience will have. The idea of standing in front of a classroom full of people may scare the living daylights out of you at first, but you can rest assured that with the skills you'll gain through teaching, you'll be prepared for whatever you choose to do next.