Job Discussion Forums

Marcoregano · Joined: 19 May 2003 Posts: 872 Location: Hong Kong

Following on from a point made in another thread, I wonder how many TEFLers actually chose to go down this route, how many stumbled into it while travelling and how many got into it through sheer desperation?

I come closest to the latter category - I was never keen on teaching as a job, but I have always been keen on travel. A time came in my early 30s when I lost patience moving in and out of dead-end jobs in the UK, and decided to finally give it a go. Now, 11 years on, I have no real regrets but it certainly wasn't my career of choice. Anyway, it'd be interesting to get some notion of how and why people got into it.

fat_chris · Joined: 10 Sep 2003 Posts: 3198 Location: Beijing

TESOL was not my first career choice, but teaching language (German) was. At first I wasn't even aware that the field of TESOL existed!

After I realized that I enjoyed teaching, but not teaching German, and was burnt out from studying German as well as living in the US, I left for Austria. And there began my TESOL career.

I have also found the travel aspect of TESOL to be appealing. This racket has taken me to Austria, China, New York City, and Japan. After my three years in China, I decided to make this a serious and viable career choice and I then earned an MA in TESOL. I consider myself a lifer in the field.

I don't regret making this career choice and I highly enjoy being a TESOL educator. I will continue to work on my qualifications to allow me to gain interesting, challenging, and rewarding employment on any corner of the globe.

Regards,
fat_chris

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

Yes, it was, but sort of by accident. In my final semester of university, when I was wondering what to do with my life and what to do with a Peace and Conflict Studies degree (thought about getting into some sort of planned parenthood-type organization, because I had studied overpopulation issues), I saw a flier in a laundromat in Berkeley advertising a TEFL course in San Francisco. I started researching EFL jobs and the lifestyle and decided it was what I wanted to do--or at least, I wanted to give it a try. It took me a couple of years to save up enough money, and I quickly dropped that course in SF, but when I finally made it out to Prague it was with the intention--provided that I enjoyed teaching--of making a career out of it. I loved it almost immediately and quickly started looking into MA programs.

d

Sonnet · Joined: 10 Mar 2004 Posts: 235 Location: South of the river

Quite similar to the above answer... didn't have a clue what I wanted to do after uni, was looking for summer jobs, found an online advertisment for EFL jobs, did some reading, got that initial qualification... since I stepped into an EFL classroom for the first time, I've never really thought about doing anything else.

killian · Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 8:58 am Post subject:

yes. teaching has long been my calling but things are so 'naffed up stateside...finding ESL is a gift.

Justin Trullinger · Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 12:56 pm Post subject:

Hadn't heard of TESOL when I was first out of college- certainly couldn't choose it, as I wouldn't even have known what it was.

After several years as an (occasionally) working actor, I was looking for a little more stability. THough some will laugh, I've definitely found it in EFL.

Best,
justin

naturegirl321 · Joined: 04 May 2003 Posts: 9041 Location: home sweet home

Yep, when I entered uni I wanted to teach English, but Brit Lit. I change my major, but started TEFLing as soon as I graduated.

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

If I'd been aware of it, it would have been my first choice.

Taught elementary school in the States, then went into business for corporations and finally for myself.

Threw it all up happily when I finally discovered TEFL.

MO39 · Posted: Tue May 20, 2008 8:13 pm Post subject:

Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was no real TEFL or TESL "profession", especially as it's known now. I started off intending to become a Spanish teacher or professor; that's why my first experience living abroad was in Mexico in the summer of 1966.

A few years later, I realized that I could live and work abroad by becoming an English teacher. I took what I had learned in a few of my Spanish and Education courses and sort of "reversed" the pedagogical process, eventually (through trial and error and occasional successes) figuring out how to teach my native tongue to speakers of other languages. I've done this both in the US and abroad and have never considered going back to teaching Spanish, though, of course, being fairly fluent in it has made the times I've lived in Spain and Mexico much more rewarding.

Now that I'm semi-retired in Mexico I still teach part-time but only in comfortable situations and with students I really want to work with.

EverReady · Joined: 19 May 2005 Posts: 48 Location: Nobody Cares

It wasn't my first career choice, but after Uni, I just sort of drifted from job to job for a few years. I couldn't see myself being a bank manager or something like that so I started looking around for something that would be cool or interesting. Long story short found out about EFL, went abroad to see if I would like it, still doing it nine years later. Not sure if that is a