Job Discussion Forums

[anonymous_alaska]

For those of you who have returned to your hometowns or homecountries, pretty much with the idea of being back for good, have you ever reminisced about your TEFL journeys?

I was sitting in my bed and remembering everything from the first step off the plane and I was trying to choose a word to describe the experience most succintly of being five years abroad. And the word that I came up with was, ta da!!!

Eventful

I'm not saying TEFL is an easier life than at home, or better, it's just that a whole stream of events just continuously happens. I can't put my finger on the feeling thinking about it.

[tedkarma]

Been out here since 1989 - don't want the "ta da" to stop.

Will never move back to the States - will eventually retire in Thailand.

I love my country, don't get me wrong - but I enjoy this life too much to give it up.

[donfan]

I reminisce about it all the time. As happy as I am in Australia I miss my life overseas a lot. Life was so simple and uncomplicated in both Taiwan and Russia compared to Australia. I plan to return overseas one day, not to ESL teaching but to an international school, now that I have primary school teaching credentials.

[Gregor]

Yeah,
I'm still out in the field as well. Sorry, Alaska. Not really starting off with a bang.
On the other hand, I have been in TEFL for more than nine years, and shortly after I hit the decade mark, I will likely be getting out of it, at least for a little while. The wife wants to settle down and she wants to try to do so in the U.S. I think it will likely not work out very well, but she wants to meet the rest of my family, and give it a go, and I told her that we could try.

It's been a good run. I can easily reminisce about when I got started, how times have changed, how I have changed, and the whole bit. I'm with Ted 100% - I like my life a lot. If it weren't for the wife, it wouldn't ever even OCCUR to me to go back to the U.S.

I pretty much started on the right foot without knowing anything about it - I got off the plane in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico for the certificate course still drunk from the night before (big party in Tijuana), no memory of the name of the hotel where I was booked, and no idea anything about this town, or in fact the Spanish language beyond s� and no. Somehow managed to get to class on time and stayed in town for my first teaching job.
And it just got crazier from there, right up to the day a year and a half ago when I agreed to marry the most beautiful, loving woman I have ever had the pleasure to encounter.
So much has happened in my life in this time that I had never imagined or heard of. It will be a very sad thing to give up, and I sincerely hope that I can get back to it.

In that time I have learned a lot, but most importantly, I learned two lessons as a TEFL teacher in my 30s that I should have learned as a high school (or even junior high) student years before. Namely, that the learning process is at least as rewarding as, in some ways even more rewarding than, the actual subjects being studied. That is to say, I had always wanted to be able to speak a foreign language and play a musical instrument, but was too lazy to study and learn those things. Turned out that it was as cool to learn them (Spanish and guitar at first, then Chinese and piano) as it is to be able to DO the things.
Second, and related to the first, is that learning to do really cool stuff like speaking a foreign language and playing a musical instrument, though requiring a lot of practice and work, doesn't take anywhere NEAR the amount of time I thought it would. Within a couple of months I was communicating mostly in crappy, broken Spanish and stringing enough chords together to make recognizable music, but within a year I was writing and recording my own songs in Spanish.
This STILL amazes me no end. And I don't know if I would have learned these and many, many other things had I not become a TEFLer.

[ttlesl]

My first job started in Korea what seems like yesterday but in fact will 5 years this October. I remember leaving L.A. and flying to Seoul, arriving at some ungodly hour. After 6 months of wide eyed culture shock, I started to settle in. In fact, I signed up for a second year in Seoul because the city was just�huge. There was always something new to do or see.

Now, I am in Bangkok and it is going on 3 years here. Life here is much slower but still fascinating. There is a lot of humanity here. This is unlike when I lived in L.A. because you drove everywhere. It was like being in a little bubble. You stopped the car in the parking lot and went into wherever you were headed. The nice thing about Bangkok is that you can just take a walk about using the BTS and subway. Tried using my bike once and that was a BIG mistake!

Going back to America hasn�t really appealed to me yet. It is like what I used to say about *** (name of city deleted) when I lived in Washington, D.C.: �It's a nice place to visit but not to live.�

[denise]

I�m still away from home, too, but I do a lot of reminiscing about other jobs that I�ve had and other places that I�ve lived. I just spent two years in Japan, and after a brief visit of a week in the US, I flew down to Chile. I think because I didn�t really have enough time back home to "debrief" from Japan, it never really left my system. I am constantly making mental comparisons--not in the sense of one place being better or worse, but just in the sense that they�re different.

I did return to the US for two years in between the Czech Republic and Japan, but it wasn�t an escape from EFL--it was to go to grad school to get an MA in TESOL, so I was still surrounded by it and by like-minded people who�d had similar experiences. I imagine (or just hope?) that I will return to the ESL scene in the States within a year or so, and again I will be surrounded by like-minded folks.

d

[jr1965]

I spent 6 years in Asia from the early to mid 90s (primarily in Korea and Japan...talk about an interesting time...) and then returned back to the US to complete my Master's degree. I thought I�d be in and out of there in a year and back in Asia. Ended up meeting and falling in love with a Spaniard. He had a good job in the States and didn�t want to leave so we stayed for almost seven and a half years (got married and had a kid, too). I continued working in ESL/EFL in the US and had to travel for work to Europe and Asia, but very often wished that I could teach & live abroad again. Drove my husband up the wall talking about it at times. After the last Bush election, we finally decided to pack it up and move to Spain. Have been here since January of this year and there are times when I have to pinch myself b/c I can�t believe it�s true. Don�t get me wrong; it�s been an adjustment�but life is GOOD.

[biffinbridge]

I've missed Poland so much I'm going back there to live on a permanent basis.My son aside,I simply love the carefree life I have there.At the mo I'm in Libya and it is hell on earth.We had another suicide on the compound yesterday.

[struelle]

[anonymous_alaska]

Steve, that's a much better adjective:

compressed

Life is jam-packed abroad living out the TEFL life. It seems much slower at home and I'm living in a major city.

[Boy Wonder]

TEFL isn't perfect.....but compared to arriving everyday at 8.30am at a rainswept carpark in some godawful industrial estate office block on the edge of a British provincial town it is heaven!!