We save up for months if not years to go on holidays abroad. But is the wait really worth it for just a few days away? If you’re willing to trade in room service and VIP tours for a more local lifestyle, then those long-anticipated trips could become your real life. And teaching English as a second language (ESL) abroad could make it all possible. You would get to travel and teach, making your journey abroad last for more than just a couple of weeks.
Teaching and living abroad allows you to really see a place in a way that you don’t when you’re in a hotel room or under a cabana. And while living in a foreign country may seem intimidating, creating a home away from home could be easier than you think. What exactly are you worried that you won’t find abroad? Red solo cups? Cream cheese? Too many kinds of cereal to choose from? There are far more things that you won’t miss while teaching English abroad.
The Daily Grind
If you’re already googling teach abroad programs and reading this article, I probably don’t have to tell you that you’re not totally satisfied with your current job. Adult life in a 9-to-5 workplace can turn into tedium. One day it’s February and the next day it’s November and oddly all you can remember doing in that time is buying a hand-held vacuum cleaner. As Dolly says, it’s “a way to make a living” but it’s certainly not the only one.
Teaching is already one of the more rewarding lines of work you can choose but teaching ESL and doing it abroad brings even more meaning and variety into your life. The importance of ESL techniques and the constant innovation necessary to teach a foreign language effectively set teaching English apart. Your job itself won’t become mindless or mechanical and you’ll always have opportunities to switch up your scenery.
Teaching abroad presents its own unique challenges but you’ll be leaving your comfort zone behind in a good way. No more 9-to-5 days in a cubicle staring at your cat calendar. No more stand-still commutes bingeing NPR. Get ready for each day to feel new and full of purpose!
Feeling Stuck
Maybe it’s that 9-to-5 job. Maybe it’s the wrong group of friends. Or maybe it’s just feeling like you’re not doing enough for the world around you. But an opportunity to teach abroad is a surefire way to escape the feeling of being stuck. You’re not only changing what you do for work. You’re changing where you do it and never again will you be tied to one location.
Teaching and traveling will give you a new network of relationships and they won’t be like the ones you left at home. You’ll meet people from everywhere, not only locals from the country you’re living in. Socializing is a crucial part of traveling. And it’s not just because you encounter new people more often. Travelers instantly have a passion in common; that’s why they’re there too. You’ll discover that crossing paths with new people, new ideas and new experiences suddenly becomes much more commonplace.
You have so many more opportunities to learn from day-to-day life. And each contributes to your personal development. It’s not that you don’t want to learn and grow at home. There are just less unforeseen experiences lying between your desk and the bathroom and the water cooler. A few months of teaching and simply being abroad will help you break out of old routines. A new environment presents an opportunity to rethink who you want to be.
Lazy Routines
Not all routines are bad but they often prevent us from living consciously. Waking up to the same alarm and ordering the same drive-thru coffee every day isn’t particularly stimulating. We fall into patterns, such as the way we interact with a co-worker or react to a partner, without even realizing. You may be stuck in a rut that you can’t even see. Sometimes the comfort of conveniences like Instagram and Netflix and your local Whole Foods can be inconspicuously standing in the way of new experiences.
Don’t let the familiarity of a lazy routine impede upon your potential. Popping this bubble of comfort is what creates space for self-improvement in ways you couldn’t see before. Fixed routines and fixed perspectives, as healthy as they may be, don’t force you to think critically or be present. But perfection also isn’t the objective. Being self-deprecating is no better than a lazy routine. It’s just a different line of limiting beliefs. Rather, consider travel as a way to broaden your frame of reference. This is an accomplishment in itself.
Not Learning New Things
If we don’t let new voices and places into our lives on occasion, it may feel as if we’ve learned everything. This of course isn’t true. But if you’ve lived in the same city for a few years, worked at the same place and gone to the same Tuesday trivia night every week, you may feel that your day-to-day routine has nothing left to teach you. This is when it may be time to try something new. Traveling or teaching alone tells you a lot about yourself but the two together consistently lead to discovery.
Whether you’re exploring the culture of a Guatemalan village or bustling San Jose, Costa Rica, a new living environment is always a learning environment. And you’ll be calibrating your teaching style at the same time. Little things have so much to teach you, from ordering in a local restaurant to finding new vocabulary words for your classes each day. Teaching and living abroad can bring the joy of learning back into your life. If you live and think adventurously, you’ll never stop being a student.
How Expensive Fun Can Be
In Western culture, having fun and having money are too often mistaken for the same thing. From movie theaters to mini golf to the zoo we are accustomed to constantly buying and doing. Admissions fees for short-lived experiences are not uncommon, eating out is incredibly expensive and we live in a consumerist culture. Entertainment is idolized and purchasing constantly updated products is normalized. But fun and its costs don’t need to be conflated.
Filling your free time abroad can be a profoundly different experience. Of course, how you spend your time and money is up to you. There will always be things for sale. But there are also many things to see and do for free because everything will be new to you. Explore hikes in your region. Eat where locals do. And when you do pay, try to buy experiences rather than key chains. It’s actually easier to have fun for less when you’re teaching in a new country than when you’re on a shorter tourist visit. Take time to create relationships, listen to suggestions and relish your new day to day. And see what comes to you!
But despite the many benefits of living in a new place, homesickness is a real concern for many who are still unsure about teaching abroad. And this is natural. It’s hard to exchange a life that feels mundane but safe for one of utter uncertainty. But if you don’t leave, you’ll never know what you could be missing. Máximo’s team is happy to answer any questions that could quiet your doubts and help you make an educated decision. Meanwhile, focus on the places you could go and we’ll take care of the rest.