Job Discussion Forums

jpvanderwerf2001 · Joined: 02 Oct 2003 Posts: 1117 Location: New York

william wallace's thread about the history had me wondering just how many "career" overseas TEFLers there are. I'm talking people who plan to teach EFL overseas for a better part of their adult lives (10-plus years might be a good starting point).

I'm going on my eighth year, and have no intention of changing careers, or moving, in the foreseeable future.

tedkarma · Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 2:10 am Post subject:

I'm one. Started in 1992, taught in four countries - semi-retired in 2006 - about 15 years total. Great career!

hollysuel · Joined: 07 Oct 2007 Posts: 225 Location: Connecticut, USA

1994-1996 Hogwans in Korea (was planning on returning to the corporate environment, but after one year the teaching bug caught me)

1996-1998 got my MA TESOL in the states and taught in an IEP

1998-present Teaching in Finland--came for a nine month contract and am still here...don't plan on leaving the profession any time soon! Very Happy

denise · Joined: 23 Apr 2003 Posts: 3419 Location: finally home-ish

I've been in this field for just about 8 years, but two of those were back home getting an MA. I do plan to do it for a while to come, but I'd like to move back to the US in another couple of years and teach there.

d

John Hall · Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:09 pm Post subject:

I have already done ten years. But I don't see myself as an "overseas" TEFLer any more. I have been in Costa Rica for seven years now, and for me it is now my home! I am not planning on going anywhere else!

Pura Vida! Very Happy

MELEE · Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:47 pm Post subject:

I started in 1995.

Like John Hall, I consider myself an immigrant. Mexico is my home now. Even if I did leave Mexico for a couple of years, I'd come back to Mexico, not back to the US.

GambateBingBangBOOM · Joined: 04 Nov 2003 Posts: 2021 Location: Japan

I think your poll is showing a very misleading result, because most people who are not career EFL teachers and yet are on this board aren't likely going to click a thread asking if they are a career EFL teacher? "Career EFL teacher? Nope. Not me, next thread!"

The example was just an example! I am a career English teacher, and I plan on being in Japan until for whatever reason I have no job, or the only jobs I can get are really, really crap. Then I would go to another country, but probably not back to Canada, or else I'd be back in Canada for like a year, tops- teaching ESL, getting my pension refund from Japan, maybe studying a bit of the language of the next country I would be heading to, I, so I didn't arrive totally helpless.

soapdodger · Joined: 19 Apr 2007 Posts: 203

Did my first EFL class in Spain in 1983, and apart from a few forays into other areas, it has been my main source of income ever since. Having a foreign wife and 2 kids and the UK being so far down the toilet it's never going to come back it looks like staying that way for the forseeable future, although I have an eye out permanently for anything more interesting. I would never call it a career. At one stage in life it was a convenient means to get around and see the world, then it became a means to support a family simply because there was and is nothing much else on offer to a foreigner where I am. I'm not unsatisfied with it, it gives a higher than average salary, hours that allow mor