The sneaky bit about teaching abroad

Teaching abroad. There is a reason people do it, a reason I do it, and I am going to be bold and say that without a doubt that reason is traveling. Every teacher that I have met from that first year in Georgia until now would say "I do it because I want to travel". Sometimes they would add on the "Plus I love teaching" bit to it, but not always. For a lot of people, teaching abroad would be their very first job teaching, so it would be fair to assume that they didn't even consider this career choice back home. I know I never did. 

I am feeling pretty bold and say that the teaching part of being an English teacher in foreign countries is considered the bargain for easy traveling. For most countries that hire English teachers all you need is to speak the language and to have a bachelors degree (not necessarily in education). I hate to admit it, but really, if anybody I knew from back home would want to pack up and move for a year or two to teach abroad, they could do it. I do believe that a lot of people have what it takes to land a job. I am not saying that this is an easy lifestyle, or an easy job for that matter, but the requirements to fulfill this position is quite broad. 

So for me, teaching has given me the opportunity to travel, and that is how I have always seen it. Not to say that I don't enjoy teaching, but again, it was never something that I considered for a full time career. In fact, there was a point in my life during and shortly after the college that I really dreaded the idea of working with children and the words "I hate children" came out of my mouth fully meaning it. 

But honestly speaking I have found a huge personal reward from working as a teacher, particularly in a foreign country. For starters, I am not afraid of children anymore, so that's great. 

I've gotten to really love my students and love going into the classroom each day and see what new things they can do or say, or what crazy thing they're going to pull out with their broken English. It takes time though. I haven't really gotten used to my Korean students and they haven't gotten used to me - not that I feel any sort of tension or discomfort between us, but I had such a good report and relationship with my Georgian kids and Chinese kids that I'm just not at with my Koreans. And that takes time. And I realize that and I know it's something to work towards. 

Again, I have to try really hard to take myself back to those first weeks of teaching in Georgia when everything felt incredibly chaotic and I felt so extremely out of place because I had zero idea of what I was doing or how to act in the classroom. And I have to recall that I didn't always really love little Giorgi and I dreaded the idea of teaching 3rd grade. But also, my Georgian kids were just extremely grateful to have a foreign teacher that their love was absolutely unconditional from day one. I will never forget how my students got so excited for me when it first snowed because they knew it was the very first time for me to see snow that we cancelled classes and went outside to have a snow fight and make snow angels and spell our names in English and Georgian in the snow. I really don't think I have or will ever have something that will come close to comparison with how much I loved those kids because of how genuine and how welcomed they were to have me as their teacher. 

Of course you had to have your chacha in every school activity, because... Georgia. 

Now, I had to work harder with my Chinese kids. Not to say that they weren't inviting or loving, but it was a completely different situation in China. Most of my students were used to having foreign teachers, and a lot of them were incredibly overworked with tons of extra tutoring and lessons outside of their school hours. I remember having classes where children would come to class with huge bags under their eyes, or sometimes they would just flat out pass out in the middle of the class. I also had to learn a lot about teaching in general in China because it was the first time ever I was going to in complete charge of the classroom. It was really hard, specially coming in with certain expectations because I already had one year experience teaching. 

But again, at the end of the year I found that I loved my classes, I loved my students. They knew me, I knew them, and I could clearly see the progress I had made with them when it came to their English education. I felt like an actual teacher going into those classes, and even though I had my fair share of terrible lessons, I felt like I had finally fully stepped into those teacher shoes that loosely fit in Georgia. 

Probably one of my most rewarding classes of all time; Writer's Guild during Summer Academy in EF

So, the bit that can get overlooked when teaching and traveling, the teaching bit, can be incredibly rewarding. It makes the experience all that more wholesome. It's a lot of work, and not necessarily easy and it takes time. I'm still in the very beginning stages with my school in Korea, and I'm sure by the time the year is over I'll have it. I'll several of those "Yes, this is why I teach" moments and I'll add on more names to that list of students that I will never forget in my life. It's already kinda starting. 

These are two of my Korean students who are best of friends. They're about five years old, and they do everything together, and I'm finding them adorable and endearing. One of them, who doesn't have an English name but just goes with his initials, TH, is really smart and gets everything very easily and is really good at expressing himself with what he knows. His best friend (another one who goes by his Korean initials: PDJ) has a little bit more difficulty, but he tries hard. They're in one of my smallest classes, and one of the ones in which I tend to reward every single student because they deserve it and because I can. I have the habit of still acknowledging those who try a bit harder or do a bit better, so I tend to go to them first when picking out stickers or candy. TH is usually the first one to pick, and every single time he tells me "Let PJD go first" which just melts my heart every single time. I have this notion that young children tend to be really selfish, and that's normal and that's ok. Most of them are doted on by their parents and they are the little princes and princesses of their families (as they totally should be) that sharing the attention of a teacher with 6 or 10 other children can sometimes be difficult to process or understand, and they end up acting out. And that's ok. That's children. So seeing how these two boys act with each other is completely and absolutely heartwarming.