Job Discussion Forums

[Omeo]

Hey, guys. Listen, I'm still planning on teaching English abroad as a life-long career after I get out of college, but I'm thinking about the long run and part of me wonders how long a person can keep this up. It seems to me that there will likely be times when I'll want to, or have to, come back and live in the states for a while, but right now I don't really intend to stay here, y'know what I mean? I even plan to retire abroad. My questions are, how long do you guys think a person can do this kind of work? What do you do for a job if you want to, or have to, come back and live at home for a while? What do you do when your parents start developing medical problems with age and you want to be there for them? I'm determined to do this for the rest of my life, but I'm thinking about the possible family issues I may have to deal with back home. I don't want to completely abandon my family and leave my sisters holding the bag when it comes time to deal with things like whether or not mom or dad needs to go to an assited living facility. I'm also thinking about what kind of temporary jobs a person can do if they have to come home for more than a month or so. Say I need a year or more away from teaching to deal with problems at home. I'll probably want to return to teaching, but what do I do while I'm at home? What kind of employer is looking for someone with our experience who doesn't mind hiring someone who's probably not gonna stick around for much more than a year? It seems like there's plenty of summer jobs out there, but it just seems like any summer job you get is going to expect you to devote your full attention to your job and not give you a lotta time to deal with any issues you came home to deal with. Again, I'm not backing out of the idea of teaching, I'm just trying to figure out how I'm going to deal with any problems that might arise at home, y'know? Thanx in advance for your thoughts and advice.

[valley_girl]

Where is "home"? In Canada, most ESL teaching positions are casual so finding something for a year or less is not likely to be an issue. However, it will be extremely difficult to find work if you have no other qualifications beyond a Bachelor's degree and some overseas teaching experience.

[khmerhit]

Difficult, maybe, but extremely difficult.... I must beg to differ with (as usual) the greatest long-distance respect, Ms V.

LSC in TO are recruiting this week, and I believe they only want the ol'
Bachelodour's Degree, plus experience. And if you havent got a Celta, you can get one from them and, if you have the experience, they mgith have a job for you too. And no, I am not affiliated with them....

Good nite, and Good luck!

[Jizzo T. Clown]

Omeo--

I was kind of in the same boat as you when I cam back from Japan. I wasn't really "employable" so I had to settle for an office job making $300 /week, which wasn't enough to live on my own. Luckily I had family I could live with, and I saved up some cash and then headed to China in order to get some experience before coming back to do my MA. I would say that as far as stateside jobs while you're on downtime, you could do substitute teaching. It won't pay the bills but would allow you to save up some cash until your next venture abroad. This assumes that you don't have any problems being 30 years old and living at home. As for summer work, you may have to settle for something other than teaching by going through a temp agency, but to me that would just be awful. And there are always summer jobs abroad.

My advice is to get a couple of years' experience abroad and come back to work on your Masters. After that you'll be able to pretty much write your own ticket in the ESL/EFL field.

[GambateBingBangBOOM]

[valley_girl]

[VanKen]