I'm becoming an English teacher!
Hi all, just a note to say that I have begun my TESOL course (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) in Guadalajara, Mexico, and as a result I will be posting a little less in the coming weeks. It is a very heavy workload, with 9 and 10 hour days, 5 days a week, including a lot of grammar work in the classroom, as well as live practice as a substitute teacher in a private language school. This week, I need to create lesson plans, write a thesis on the learning style of a student that I interviewed, as well as a CV and a list of 5 cities that I would like to teach in. Narrowing it down to just 5 is going to be difficult for me!
Due to the amount of effort I will be sinking into this course between now and February 2, I will sadly have less time and fewer mental resources available to produce quality content here on Steemit. However, I do still have many great stories that need to be shared with the world, plus I am preparing a weekly opinion/insight series on the mindset of a full-time traveller, and other general travel topics. So please don't lose faith - I'm not going anywhere!
Today I taught my first class, of 7 highly motivated university-aged students who are in the advanced stages of their learning. I was a little nervous, but when I told my trainer later, she told me that the nerves were not visible. We discussed mysteries using the deductive past modal tense (could have, must have, etc), and I asked the students what they think happened to Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. I was pretty blown away when one of them suggested that the plane spontaneously combusted! So a pretty easy class to get my feet wet. Tomorrow I have a class of intermediate students and will be teaching them the past perfect tense (I was walking, we were dancing, etc).
Here's me proudly rocking my desert boots.
And here's my not-so-short list of cities that I'd love to teach in, by continent:
Europe
- Tbilisi, Georgia
- Budapest, Hungary
- Berlin, Germany
- Belgrade, Serbia
- Sarajevo, Bosnia & Herzegovina
- Kiev, Ukraine
- Zagreb or Split, Croatia
- Barcelona or Ibiza, Spain
Asia
- Izmir, Turkey
- Beirut, Lebanon
- Tehran, Iran
- Astana, Kazakhstan
- Lahore, Karachi or Islamabad, Pakistan
- Mumbai or Bangalore, India
- Kandy, Sri Lanka
There's over a dozen others in Africa and Latin America as well...
If anyone reading this has any experience teaching as a foreigner in any of those locations, I'd love to hear your thoughts!
Sweet! Congrats! Teaching is rewarding, I taught English to refugee Buddhist children and it was such a joy!
I am happy you found me! And you have a new follower by the way :)
That sounds like a pretty awesome experience! Where was this?
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Teaching is indeed a passion @donnymurph. Go for it! Will catch more of your stories soon.
Good luck with your new teaching gig. I taught english in Seoul for one year and loved it!
For me it's a way to move and live around the world for as long as I want. But then, so is Steemit!
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I'm sure you're going to be awesome at this. And way to rock the desert boots! I'm a big fan of desert boots.
Formal shoes just aren't for me. Ordinarily I wouldn't wear a noose either, but it's a requirement of the school that we're training at. I'll probably self employ once I've finished my course, since it will be difficult to get a job in a private school without a bachelor's degree.
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good luck,enjoy the process and hahaha watching the serious picture while reading some of your past adventure i can't help it :P
Hahahaha. I have to wear a tie for my training. Once I'm qualified, I definitely won't wear a tie!
hahaha :P if you qualify and i see a picture without a tie in steemit i am gonna send it to them :PP
Hey there, I'm a TESOL teacher trainer, not exactly teaching in a foreign country, but English is not the first language of my students. Just have fun and let your enthusiasm 'infect' the class.
You already have a class of highly motivated students, I'm sure they are going to have a blast!
Well, that was just a practice class. My course includes 14 practice classes. But I'm getting great reviews from my trainer so far; from my first 3 classes, she's given me an 8.5, 8.7 and a 9, plus I just got 97 for my first essay.
I will most likely go into self-employment upon completion, as this gives me the greatest freedom to travel, and to sneak around work visa requirements!
Best of luck with your classes! I'm sure you'll do great. Funny coincidence by the way, we were both featured in that Fresh 5 articles a couple of weeks ago, and now we're both in the Qurator group and Rep level 49. Amazing what you can do in a couple of weeks on here!
Hi @rebelheart! Good to see you! Yeah, there is plenty of potential on Steemit. Sadly I've been inactive for a few days due to my heavy workload at the moment, but hopefully I'll find a balance soon!
Awesome. I am also teaching English, it is a really awesome way to make money and have a lot of freedom in terms of location. I teach also via Skype, which is also pretty cool. I actually met Michal through teaching at his company. Ah, the world is small. :)
Small world indeed! Do you purely teach online?
I'm considering committing to a language school here in Mexico for a year. The wage is only about $3 an hour, but that's a living wage in Mexico. Obviously I can earn much more online, but I suspect that I may lack the discipline for it.
It depends on my life situation. I have had times when I purely taught online (for instance when I was in India). If you live in a country like Mexico, where you earn $3/hr, it might make more sense to teach online, where you can ask for $20 per hour and work 5hrs per week rather than 35hrs. Teaching 35hrs per week is quite exhausting too. It is not so difficult to get 5hrs sorted weekly - only requires between 3-5 students. So it depends on you, but there a few nice platforms out there. I also use free advertising platforms in various countries (e.g.: talkin.eu in Slovakia, or OrangutanEnglish.com in Japan) that are specifically focused on language classes.