Job Discussion Forums

[Jetgirly]

Inspired by a recent post (that I firmly believe is a joke) in the Newbie Forum in which someone expresses some concern about needing to obtain a passport in order to get an EFL job in Asia , I am interesting in knowing if anyone here had never been out of their home country before going abroad to teach.

[Guy Courchesne]

Teaching in Mexico was my first (and current) trip abroad...not including tripping around Canada and the US.

I understand your skepticism on that post you refer to, but I see those kinds of questions all the time. I'd say the majority of people back home really have no idea how to do what we do, so those that do start to venture into this unknown are likely to ask those kinds of honest questions.

[dixie]

First time abroad was when I moved to Honduras to teach. And quite the trip it was. I all ready had people giving me crazy looks when I told them where I was going (alone) to live for a year, but then I arrived, spoke no Spanish, couldn�t use the phone because of the card system and was forgotten!! Thankfully there was a small internet cafe and I caught the VP online (not a regular thing for her during the weekend). Several hours later I was finally picked up and had a fabulous year!

Thus, begain the insanity....

[tedkarma]

Other than relatively short trips to Mexico, my two-year Peace Corps experience in Africa (89-91) was the first time I really spent serious time overseas - or even had a passport.

I agree with Guy - there are a LOT of people who just have no idea about how to do this. I didn't either when I was a newbie and I only ever heard of TEFL because the Peace Corps had a lot of teachers (I wasn't a teacher in the PC).

[denise]

Nope. I went to Ireland during high school for a summer study program and then to Guatemala when I finished university for a summer Spanish study program. My first teaching job in Prague was my third trip abroad... which for some reason really amused one of my colleagues! "This is ONLY your third trip abroad?" I guess I was a "newbie" compared to Europeans who could easily just pop across each other's borders.

d

[fraup]

I traveled to Germany and Eastern Europe in the 80's on business (banking) but had done a summer in Vienna as an undergrad. Next time was Poland, 1990-92 and the rest is history...

[william wallace]

nil

[yaramaz]

I had been living and travelling abroad for nearly a decade before I started teaching and moved to Turkey. Got my first passport at 18, then spent most of my 20s in Europe and Africa. Turkey is the most settled down I've ever been.

[soapdodger]

First went abroad...alone, as well!... when I was 16. On my own hard-earned cash to see a German girl I'd met in Wales. Did it on a cardboard British Visitors Passport that you could get from the post office...more real terrorists in those days too, IRA, Beider Meinhof, Red Brigades,but none of the sh*te we have to put up with now when we want to travel.

[jwbhomer]

No. I had been travelling -- producing and presenting management skills seminars -- in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia for 20 years before taking my first teaching gig in China in 2003.

[jonniboy]

Such questions usually come from Americans. That's not to be anti-American by the way, it's simply to make the point that for someone from Britain or Ireland, foreign countries are much cheaper and much more accessible. A return from London to many European capitals can cost less than 100 dollars, while from the Midwest of the US I believe it would be about 700 dollars minimum.

But more importantly, it is possible for American citizens to go to Canada, Mexico and many other countries without a passport - although that's about to change.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/North_American_citizens_dealt_passport_requirement

So the question seems a perfectly reasonable one and possibly from someone who has travelled abroad.

[tedkarma]

[hollysuel]

I think the reason I got into TEFL was because of a three week 'study abroad' trip to Europe I took after my junior year in college. If it weren't for that trip, I would probably never would have considered leaving the country.

[spiral78]

I started travelling abroad when I was 13. I had already something like 14 countries clocked up when it occurred to me that I didn't have to live in a country that didn't contribute reasonably to my happiness

I've lived in 4 countries since, and have no plans to return to the US other than to visit the folks occasionally.

[MELEE]

Nope,

I studied abroad, both in high school (Mexico) and uni (Chile).