| There are 27 reviews of this career. |
|
|
 |
 |
|
| Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
|
|
|
|
Author: |
|
Anonymous |
|
|
Date: |
January 29, 2007 |
|
|
|
|
| |
I work as an ESL (English as a secong language) teacher in a language school overseas. My teaching degree is not recognized by the country I live in, but a native English speaker with any kind of college degree can usually find a job teaching English in a language school here.
There are many positive points to this kind of work. You live in another country and learn another culture firsthand. Working hours are flexible with respect to taking vacations, etc. Adult students are interesting and usually more motivated to learn than children (and have better excuses when they don't do their homework!). Classes are designed to meet the needs of the student (business, telephoning, tourism, etc.), so you also learn a lot about the industries where your students work. Often, you teach executives in their place of business, which has a prestige factor. Your coworkers are usually expatriates like yourself, so it can be a built-in support system for letting off steam when needed.
The cons are not insignificant, but do not usually outweigh the pros. The most difficult is that language schools teach as a business, so altruistic teacher types may be disillusioned by the profitability angle. Because the bottom line must be respected, the job security and pay are not necessarily as good as in regular schools. If your student calls off at the last minute, you will not be paid, even though you've prepared the class. For example, during flu season you can plan to teach 15 hours of classes and end up only being paid for 8. While the hours are flexible, they may also be strange: many businesses pay for the classes, but expect employees to put in a full day's work as well, so the time slots most in demand are 8-10am, 12-2pm, and 6-8pm.
This job is great when you are young, and once you have school-aged children for a woman. It is not a job for the person who is the family's principal bread-winner, because it is very grueling to teach full-time in this kind of job. It is preferable to live close to the office if you have a lot of down time between classes to resist the temptation of spending your money as quickly as you earn it. You also have a vested interest in becoming proficient in the local language to avoid feeling isolated, which has caused many an expatriate to become depressed.
All in all, I do love my job and would probably still do it if I had to choose all over again. I've met tons of interesting people, and I personally think that all Americans should have an expatriate experience sometime in their lives (actually living in a country, not just being a tourist) to objectively appreciate their home culture and gain a world view. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Write an online review and share your thoughts about this career with others! |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| Displaying reviews 21 - 27 of 27 |
Previous |
Next |
|
