The Perks and Drawbacks of Teaching English Overseas

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Many new graduates are headed overseas to live the life of an English instructor. TEFL Certificates are in hand and you have this strange idea that you are about to change the world. This lasts until the first five minutes of your first class and then your goal becomes: survive, at all costs. Deep breaths though, by the end of the year, you will be a pro at everything from keeping the kids on task to forestalling a full on meltdown. This is a chance for you to be immersed in a completely different culture while realizing that kids all around the globe are pretty much the same. There are low days and there are high days, but nothing in the world beats the feeling of knowing that a kid knows more about the world because of you. The free weekends to go island hopping, waterfall chasing, and hiking up volcanoes don’t hurt either. 

1. You need to make this clear to students from Day 1 or they will walk all over you.

2. How you think you will spend your free afternoons and evenings:

How you will actually spend your free time:

3. What you think your job will be:

What your job actually is:

4. Biters are the worst:

5. When your students FINALLY get a concept that you have been trying to explain for months:

6. The highest praise that you can receive from a student:

7. First time you experience the eruption of stink from someone who is not potty trained:

When the smell really sinks in:

8. Those days when everything that can go wrong, does:

9. Those days where everything works out amazingly:

10. Trying to cheer up a student who is not doing well:

11. When you make a kid cry, they are like:

And then you are like:

But after you have made a few cry, it’s more like:

12. When kids try to badger you into not giving homework but you do not give in:

13. When you are three exams in out of fifty and already tired of grading:

14. When kids act oddly for no reason:

And you have no idea how to respond:

15. When a student will just not understand something you are trying to teach:

16. Your first day on the job:

Your last day on the job:

17. Saying goodbye to your kiddies:

18. Why you will always convince people to sign up for this insane, hectic, life-changing experience:

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