Job Discussion Forums

[saint57]

Are TEFL teachers expats? I say no. I read an article yesterday that said the average salary of an expat in KL is about $10,000 USD. I always thought an expat was someone who was transferred abroad and actually got paid extra for it.

Should TEFL teachers describe themselves as expats? I think migrant worker is more appropriate.

[yaramaz]

expatriate noun |eksˈpātrēit| a person who lives outside their native country : American expatriates in London. � archaic a person exiled from their native country. adjective |eksˈpātrēit| [ attrib. ] (of a person) living outside their native country : expatriate writers and artists. � archaic expelled from one's native country. verb |eksˈpātrēˌāt| [ intrans. ] settle oneself abroad : candidates should be willing to expatriate.

[yaramaz]

I think expat is more permanent- like if a person moves to another country, setles down and stays long term. A migrant worker seems to me to be more temporary, like a teacher who does a short contract at a language school to earn money for travelling or who does a few years in Korea to pay off loans.

Here in Istanbul I know a lot of people that I'd call expats simply because they've settled down and made a life here, detatched from their countries of origin.

[coffeedrinker]

This topic came up in another area for me recently, and at first I was a little put off by someone (living outside his own country but not an efl teacher) saying efl teachers weren't expats.

To be honest, the title is not something I'm too concerned with - if others consider me an expat or not. But some time later it struck me that I don't think I consider myself an expat - first of all I just don't describe myself that way, but when I hear about expat bars or whatever, they don't seem like they are for "people like me". Maybe I'm just not concerned with the label, but I also think there's something about defining yourself in relation to whether or not you live in your own country. I'm not sure what exactly it is about that that I don't like - maybe it seems kind of insular, looking at it as if it matters so much if you're living in your own country or another one. I've never really considered myself a "migrant worker" - that actually conjures up a different sort of image - but it may be, to me, better than expat. I don't know that I'm ready to define it for everyone though...

I realize that people considering themselves expats doesn't necessarily mean they are defining themselves only in that way - my reaction may be more connected to the other context this came up in for me than to this particular thread here.

In any case, I think it's an interesting question and I hope my reply doesn't give another impression. I'm interested to see what others think.

[jammish]

Interestingly, I started an identical thread on another forum quite recently. To me an expat is someone on a very good western salary, living in a developing world country, only shopping at western supermarkets and living on imported food, that kind of thing, the sort of person who looks down on us ragtag ESLers

[spiral78]

Yaramaz is technically correct about the book meaning of the term ex-pat - it's simply someone living outside his/her own country.

I think the distinction is in what constitutes 'living' outside of your native country.

I guess I'd technically define this as someone who no longer has any place in his/her own country to live (other than as a short-term guest of family or friends, I suppose). I think, further, a true expat has no plan to return to his/her home country within a matter of a year or two.

So, for example, all those U.S. citizens who 'move to Spain" and are teaching illegally for a year or so aren't actually expats in my mind, though as coffeedrinker points out the 'expat' bars are usually packed with just such people.

I'm personally a real expat, I think. I have no plan to return to the US (in fact, my family's work situation actually wouldn't allow us to live there even if we wished to). We do, however, own flats in two different countries outside of the U.S. and we sort of rotate between them. Ultimately, we'll likely settle for the long-term in a country where neither of us are natives...Yeah, I think we qualify, even though I haven't been in any of those expat hangouts for years!!

[saint57]

[Mike_2007]

A lot of people mention the type of work an expat is supposed to be doing or how much he is earning in comparison to the local average, but what about people who retire abroad. Aren't they still expats?

I think an expat is a person CHOOSING to live in another country (doesn't have to be developing - a Brit in the US is an expat). They choose to do this for what they perceive as a better standard of living in that country. That might mean large sums of money, easier lifestyle, better weather, better looking women...it doesn't matter.

I think our perception of an 'immigrant worker' is someone who is forced by terrible economic circumstances in his home land to live abroad, his only interest being a job, which although well below local averages still allows him to send home or save enough money to provide a better standard of living to his family. His quality of life may in many ways be lower in the new country, but at least the cash is coming in.

I think that most TEFLers fall into the first category. The salaries may be shoddy for many, but they are in it for the experience and that makes them expats.

[saint57]

[Mike_2007]

So now I have official status!

[denise]

I agree with a couple of the ideas mentioned already. To me, an expat has a permanent life in his/her new country. I am only planning on staying a couple of years in my current job, so I do not fit my own definition of expat. Also, an expat is someone who comes by choice--I liked Mike 2007's distinction between an expat and an immigrant. (I guess based on that distinction I would be an expat, though.)

If someone else were to label me an expat, I wouldn't care either way. I would just assume that they had a different understanding of the term.

I guess I just think of myself as an American working in whichever country I am working in at the time. While I don't have a home in the US anymore, I still think of it as home. And the more I travel and the longer I stay away, the more I feel that way.

d

[Mike_2007]

I think the problem some of us have is that we don't consider ourselves immigrants because that smacks of poverty and desperate while an expat sounds like some 55-year-old tosspot in a suit sat at the bar of the local Irish pub waiting for some 20-year-old local girl to come and pretending to be interested in him.

We are the disinherited.

[denise]

[Mike_2007]

Think about it this way, it would be better to be one than to end up marrying one!

[jammish]