Job Discussion Forums

[Ulysses]

any ideas?
I would like to teach somewhere on the coast and explore Turkey, but not be with too many fellow non-Turks

[windstar]

Then you'd better look around Samsun, Ordu, Giresun and Trabzon, they are coastal cities in the north.

[007]

[Ulysses]

no, double "o" :lol:
just i could stay at home if I wanted to be with fellow north Europeans...

[Ulysses]

thanks windstar

[tarte tatin]

I think the TEFL opportunities in the Black Sea cities are fairly limited. There are dershanes and some universities but the conditions may not be great.

The Black Sea is beautiful in summer and is definitely the real Turkey. It depends what the OP wants from the whole experience. The OP would need to learn survival Turkish fairly quickly.

Advantages of the north coast are that locals have not been corrupted by tourism and are genuinely friendly and helpful, lack of Brits and Germans tucking into greasy food and it is cheap to live there.

Disadvantages include lack of entertainment, lack of company, beaches that are less than pristine, very few English speakers.

[FGT]

You could also look at the Eastern Mediterranean area - Mersin, Adana etc. If being on the coast is not too high on your priorities I would suggest Gaziantep, Mardin, Diyarbakir etc.

"Real" Turkey is definitely worth seeking out.

[yaramaz]

I love Mardin. There were NO other foreigners there that we saw and since Turkish was often a 2nd or 3rd language for most of the residents (after Kurdish and Arabic) I found them much easier to talk to in Turkish because they were actually used to speaking with non native speakers. I didn't meet anyone who spoke more than very rudimentary English, which was great- in Istanbul it's really hard to get people to speak Turkish with you unless you are very high level. It always veers into English.