The most unusual reason to TEFL abroad?
This guy is apparently doing a CELTA to escape anti Muslim prejudice in the UK, and a recent article in Seoul’s main freebie listings magazine was about a man who did it so he could go to a country where there can still smoke in bars. Any other unconventional ones about yourself, your aquaintances, or even from your imaginations? Mine are all pretty standard- try and see the world before I got a proper job the first time, escaping stalker ex-girlfriend the second time, trying to remember the good things about being a TEFL teacher the third time, and escaping London commuting the last time (hopefully)
July 1st, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Teaching TEFL abroad to escape racial prejudice? I hope he comes to Japan…
July 1st, 2009 at 1:11 pm
Nice reasons to TEFL, Alex. Mine was to escape an economic downturn and crazy right-wing government in my home province of Ontario Canada. Plus at the time I really wanted to live in Latin America and learn Spanish!
There was probably an ex-girlfriend in there somewhere too…
July 2nd, 2009 at 4:17 am
Cos my (now ex) gf asked me to?? How dumb is that? Still, things worked out for the best anyway – at least for now.
July 2nd, 2009 at 8:13 pm
To get away from Margaret Thatcher?
July 2nd, 2009 at 9:18 pm
To escape the taxman. I was earning so much as an EFL teacher in London in 1997 that I had to escape the vicious NewLabour ‘squeeze the rich’ taxation schedule…
July 2nd, 2009 at 11:50 pm
boredom
July 5th, 2009 at 1:04 pm
This sounds like 90% fantasy, but still a very amusing article on TEFL, from a cricket magazine of all places:
http://www.spincricket.com/2009/07/04/travel-broadens-the-feet/comment-page-1/#comment-296
July 6th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I have taught TEFL in half a dozen different countries, partly because I wanted to live abroad but mainly because of a strategy to put my Ph D in English Literature to proper use and teach in a university. It is absolutely impossible to get a job in higher education in the UK (and the rest of the English-speaking world for that matter) unless you went to the right public school or know the right people.
The idea was that if a potential lecturer was in the same country, then the prospective institution / employer would be more amenable to hiring someone living on their doorstep. It was a tactic that worked only once (in Finland) and I wouldn’t recommend it to any other high-minded scholars (especially if you hate teaching EFL!).
Robert Murray