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!