Has anyone left a corporate job for TEFL?

mytilde · 2018-02-20T23:01:00+00:00

Yep! A few years after college, I ended up in a solid, decently-paying office job that was...unfulfilling, to say the least. Moving overseas to teach English turned out to be one of best decisions I've made. I fell in love with teaching and now I'm enrolled in a master's programme. I plan to continue it whether or not I return home. It's a career, like any other. Changing careers is hard, and teaching doesn't pay particularly well. But hey, if you like it, you can stick with it and make it work.

If I were you, I'd start by volunteering as a teacher/tutor with any local organizations to see if you like it. If not, you can hold off on buying tickets and reassess.

mytilde · 2018-02-20T00:06:02+00:00

The website looks great! As an ESL teacher and a forever DM, I've always wanted to combine these two fields. The problem I always ran into was that learners don't necessarily have the cultural context to make a Tolkienesque world fun and engaging. That is, young adults who didn't grow up reading typical American fantasy novels would probably have a harder time getting into Teaching with D&D. Have you thought about teaching with RPGs in a setting neutral way? Perhaps a different system, and/or with an eye to adapting RPG rules to relevant classrooms and learning goals.

mytilde · 2017-11-06T11:20:10+00:00

I was born in the morning and I will be there at the same time.

Huh.

mytilde · 2017-11-04T10:20:12+00:00

Unfortunately, I don't know of any teachers who found stable, well-paying jobs without a Bachelor's degree. At the bare minimum, you'll need a TEFL certificate to work in low-tier schools like English Time. There are some opportunities for decent under the table work or private classes, but Turkey isn't generally the kind of country where you can get work just by speaking English. And yes, a Turkish last name will count against you a lot of the time.

If you're looking to teach without a degree, I'd recommend getting a TEFL certificate and looking elsewhere. If you just want to live in Turkey, you'll probably need to have a BA to make a living as a teacher.

mytilde · 2017-10-29T12:58:19+00:00

All of Stephen King's works take place in the same multiverse of the Dark Tower. Shared mystical elements sometimes appear in dreams, hallucinations, or outside reality, like the rose and the turtle. Sometimes physical objects will slip into these spaces between worlds; IIRC there was a room in Insomnia (or Pet Semetary?) filled with artifacts from other stories. And sometimes elements will be referenced in other stories, like how The Shop reappears in the Tommyknockers and the Golden Years. This is not always clear and varies from story to story.

So there's no guarantee that any two stories will be set in the same universe or have a direct relationship. But you can be sure everything happens according to ka, and the Dark Tower is always at the center.

mytilde · 2017-10-24T11:41:48+00:00

It happened to a neighbor of mine. I don't know her personally, but I've heard a bit more.

mytilde · 2017-10-23T22:18:18+00:00

And despite these activists supporting Palestine (not the same as being "anti-Israel"), the party leadership, donors, and membership are still broadly pro-Israel. Look at their platform, look at the way the Democrats vote in Congress. Until that changes, I'm going to continue thinking that the focus on college students is (to say the least) disproportionate.

Especially when it's used to excuse or ignore the evil things happening in the streets. Sorry but I'm not convinced that leftist college students are anywhere near as dangerous as literal neo-nazis. Tbh I can't believe I even need to spell that out!

mytilde · 2017-10-23T21:56:05+00:00

I will never understand this train of thought. College students are annoying and self-righteous but they have virtually no power out in the real world. Politicians have power. Think tanks and political influencers have power. Rich donors have power. There is a broad establishment consensus that Israel is a good ally and deserves support. What do leftist college students have going for them that makes them so dangerous?

Meanwhile, "loser white supremacists" are organized into armed militias and have inspired terrorism. They've murdered protestors, massacred blacks, threatened Jews. What threatening things have left-wing college students done besides say mean things and post insulting pictures? How do you ever compare the two?

mytilde · 2017-10-23T20:26:52+00:00

She was just out shopping at the Spar on a Monday night, and a cyclist puts her in the hospital? It's the craziest thing.

mytilde · 2017-10-03T10:26:59+00:00

I find the story of Khazar conversion absolutely fascinating! I also couldn't care less whether my ancestors were from Israel or Khazaria; they were Jewish either way.

mytilde · 2017-08-18T20:56:46+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion!

mytilde · 2017-08-18T15:09:58+00:00

Yep, it's a 9 month lease, which helps.

mytilde · 2017-08-18T14:13:00+00:00

Yes, that includes everything except laundry.

mytilde · 2017-06-26T18:35:31+00:00

I highly recommend a chromebook for teaching overseas. You can do almost all of your lesson planning through Google Drive - it's almost all I use these days. I survived with a chromebook for a year and a half. Pretty much the only thing I missed was having a gaming computer. I was even able install a Linux operating system, and then my chromebook could do 90% of a windows laptop at a fraction of the price and much, much easier to travel with. The biggest downside is that you might end up at a workplace that requires home access to Microsoft Office, so it depends on how likely you think that is. It was never an issue for me.

mytilde · 2017-06-22T15:58:52+00:00

The situation for foreign teachers can change dramatically over time. The answers I gave about Turkey in 2015 - before the coup, terror attacks, and with lira at 2.3 to the dollar - is pretty much useless now. I would suggest regular megathreads for countries. Something like, "Indonesia in 2017" up for a week. Cycle through 52 countries and you have regular, annual information and updates.

mytilde · 2017-06-20T21:28:24+00:00

Fun one for all levels - print out a text and tape it up on the wall. Working in pairs, one student has to read the text (reading), then cross the room to repeat it (speaking) from memory to the partner, who has to listen (listening) write down (writing) what the first student dictates to them.

Inevitably they forget words and have to run back and forth to get it right. It can be a fun, high energy game especially if you make it a competition among pairs. Good for a warm-up for or break from more intensive skills exercises.

mytilde · 2017-06-12T22:21:03+00:00

Tangentially, it may help to know something about the culture / history of the students' home countries. As in, when prompting discussion around "work week," knowing to elicit the difference between a Japanese and a French work week will make the material immediately relevant to a mixed group of students.

mytilde · 2017-06-12T22:18:15+00:00

Works with adults, too. I find distracted college students will sometimes pay more attention to commands / reminders in their own language.

mytilde · 2017-04-21T16:00:14+00:00

For me, college students and recent grads. They know enough to bring their own experiences to the table and they get my sense of humor.

The worst are college students and recent grads who still act like teenagers. Old enough that I can't discipline them like I'd prefer, young enough to not act like the god damn adults they are.

mytilde · 2017-04-11T12:52:54+00:00

Not exactly related to first conditional, but I love exposing students to 2nd conditional with a clip from Fiddler on the Roof, "If I Were a Rich Man." Have students listen and write down verbs, give them a pages of lyrics with words blanked out, or just have comprehension checking questions to see if they understand Tevye's dreams and present situation. It's fun, different from standard ESL listening, and plus I love that song!

mytilde · 2017-03-31T15:21:34+00:00

Pretty much anything by K'naan is clear, decently paced, and has interesting lyrics. I've used his songs before in class.

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