Job Discussion Forums

JZer · Joined: 16 Jan 2005 Posts: 3898 Location: Pittsburgh

Were you seeking an exotic adventure, exotic members of the opposite sex, or you love learning foreign languages? Why did you decide to move abroad the teach ESL/ EFL?

Partizan · Joined: 11 Jan 2013 Posts: 61

Shonai Ben · Joined: 15 Feb 2003 Posts: 617

After a divorce and the company that I worked for went bankrupt it was time for a fresh start before I got too old........and looked back with regret.

Jmbf · Joined: 29 Jun 2014 Posts: 663

You are going to get radically different answers based on a number of factors including, but not limited to, the age and particular circumstances of each poster, their motivations, the field they decided to go into, location, when they started teaching etc etc.

Personally I got into teaching for the flexibility it provided along with a very decent income (my particular field can be very lucrative).

nimadecaomei · Joined: 22 Sep 2016 Posts: 605

Studied the local language, big incentive. Love and relationships might have factored in a little, too. Not so much why I got into it, but why have I stayed and developed the career, would probably be a better question.

getbehindthemule · Joined: 15 Oct 2015 Posts: 712 Location: Shanghai

When I look back on it now, I feel that I've been very lucky enough to escape a boring, stressful and soul destroying existence in my previous career!
At the time I was probably looking for a new adventure and wanted to give this lark a go for a long time but kept putting it off!
Funnily enough, a big reason was to learn a new language and I'd little to no interest in finding a partner. I now have a foreign wife who I have more in common with than any girfriend that I've had back home or from other Western countries. But am still at beginner level with the language after four full years of living in my adopted foreign land! Laughing

schwa · Joined: 12 Oct 2003 Posts: 164 Location: yap

Twenty years ago, 45, stuck in a dead-end blue collar job, & my youngest kid had recently moved out. Hungover one drizzly winter sunday on a random whim I typed "teaching English abroad" into my old monochrome computer. Found Dave's!

Still happily at it, seems I caught a fortunate wave. Best chapter of my life by far.

getbehindthemule · Joined: 15 Oct 2015 Posts: 712 Location: Shanghai

Yanklonigan · Joined: 23 Jan 2017 Posts: 36

I had just finished a three year stint as an Assistant Lecturer in the Speech Communication Department at Texas A&M University which was the max amount of time for the position. The year was1989. I had thought the next phase of my life would be working on my Ph.d at the University of Oregon in Eugene. I had been accepted into the program but I didn't have the money to tide me over for the next two of three years. A friend of mine had just completed a hitch as an English Teacher with the Peace Corp over in Thailand, and he suggested I work in Japan to save up the cash for my advanced studies. One year morphed into five years. I rambled from the mountain ranges of Japan to the Arabian desert. I finally was absorbed back into the American educational system in 1999. It was a wonderful ten years, but I'm glad it's behind me.

MotherF · Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 3:16 pm Post subject:

JZer · Joined: 16 Jan 2005 Posts: 3898 Location: Pittsburgh

I finished college in 2005 and moved to Asia for six years. I lived in South Korea and Taiwan, I finished up my time abroad working online from Costa Rica. I left because I wanted to travel and hated the idea of working in a cubicle. I moved back to the United States in 2012. I am still planning my next chapter. I am buying some rental properties that I will have a management company manage and I hope to head back to Asia in 2023/2024. I am doing a ten year stint in the United States. I am not sure that I like it.

In the heat of the moment · Joined: 22 May 2015 Posts: 393 Location: Italy

I'd had a good run, was really enjoying my work, the initial trepidation was replaced by adrenaline, the thrill of the chase, the enjoyment of the final execution, I had the process down pat so that every aspect was perfected to every minute detail. It was going very well, perfect in fact. But, the local forces had cottoned onto my MO, they were getting closer - adding to the thrill, but I knew my time was short. I had to get out of the locality, somewhere I wasn't known, somewhere I could start anew, a place with new encounters and people with different habits, somewhere I could again go about my hobbies with a renewed perspective.

Jmbf · Joined: 29 Jun 2014 Posts: 663

JZer · Joined: 16 Jan 2005 Posts: 3898 Location: Pittsburgh

Yanklonigan · Joined: 23 Jan 2017 Posts: 36

Teaching ESL overseas is an addictive drug that can be fun for a spell but eventually leads to ruination and despair. For every success story there's 99 broken lives/hearts. Of course, I'm going over the top here, but I'd suggest you look elsewhere other than English teaching overseas for your salvation. You would quickly realize you traded your cubicle prison for another version of Hell.