Who here has taught ESL (English as Second Language) overseas?

@dreamy1 (3811)
United States
July 27, 2007 7:52am CST
What were your experiences? Did you enjoy it? I taught in Taiwan for two and a half years from 2003-2005 and it was the best experience of my life. I'm thinking of going to another country the beginning of the year. I met so many cool people there from all over the world and made a few life long friends. I picked up some Mandarin but it's really bad now. One of my dreams in life was to go live in a foreign country without knowing the language and seeing how I'd survive and I did it and I wouldn't trade it for anything. I loved every single minute living there.
1 response
27 Jul 07
I did look into it once, but have no idea where to even start. How did you go about it? How did you get a job? Did you pick up any of the language and was it hard not being able to speak the native language? I'd love to know. Did you have any qualifications?
@dreamy1 (3811)
• United States
27 Jul 07
I had a friend who taught in Japan several years before and he loved it so I got the idea from him. I started looking online just to get an idea about how to go about getting a job. I found an agency called Footprints Recruiting and signed up with them. You don't need an agent to get a job and some agents may even take part of your pay but Footprints is not like that at all. Some people just up and move to the country and look for a job there but I wanted more stability and going through Footprints I had a job and a place to live before I left so for me having that security was important. I did learn some Mandarin but it wasn't mandatory to learn because where I lived (Taipei) there are English signs everywhere and it's easy to get around with the bus and subway, and I relied on my friends to help me as well but learning the language is definitely useful to get around better. Once you leave the major cities it is more difficult without knowing more of the language. I knew some people who lived there 5-10 years and didn't learn it because they were able to get around fine without it. The only qualifications you need is to be a native English speaker and degree in any subject doesn't even have to be English. They would also only accept people from certain English speaking countries but I knew a lot of people who taught illegally meaning they didn't have a degree or they weren't from the specified countries.
27 Jul 07
Bugger thats me out then I dont have a degree! It is something i would love to do tho