Most prospective EFL teachers are standing at a fork in the road. They may be recent graduates, soon-to-be retirees or still in the midst of a career that they wish were ending. But regardless of their impetus people interested in teaching abroad are usually faced with a difficult choice between tedium and uncertainty. They’re likely contemplating giving up a stable office job or holding off on grad school so it’s not unreasonable to want to weigh the pros and cons. If you’re at a crossroads, keep reading for common and prudent reasons that people choose to step into the unknown.
Get & Give
There’s a lot to gain from living and teaching abroad. But it’s not all about you. By teaching English, you’re providing greater opportunities to your local community. You need to speak English to access the majority of the academic and professional world and it’s also the language of much of the tourism industry. So traveling as an English teacher is a more sustainable way to see the world. You become part of an intercultural exchange.
Diversify Your Resume
But if you’re worried about a gap on your resume, there are also plenty of career-oriented reasons to teach English in a foreign country. Running a classroom requires outstanding management and leadership skills. Even if teaching isn’t your end goal, it can help you to develop your self-confidence and communication style while constantly asking you to problem solve in real time. Your ability to orchestrate activities will be especially fine-tuned after working with English language learners. And this could help you to be innovative and effective in future managerial positions.
You don’t need to use your professional teaching qualification in your next job for it to be a relevant addition to your work experience. As well as helping you to hone your leadership skills, teaching English abroad is a daily test of time management, flexibility, patience, planning and public speaking. All of these are transferable skills that would benefit you in any workplace. Not to mention the cross-cultural awareness, linguistic knowledge and interpersonal skills you’ll cultivate in and out of the classroom.
Teach a Language & Learn One Too
If you’re broadening your students’ horizons by helping them learn English, wouldn’t learning another language be beneficial to you too? Communication has necessarily become a global exchange. In an international economy of interdependent societies, knowing Spanish or Mandarin could be what gets you that second interview. And immersing yourself in another culture is always the best way to learn a language.
In the United States especially, students don’t start engaging with foreign languages until late in their education and the curriculum tends to be rudimentary and rigid. What are you doing with three years of high school Spanish? Rather than using it to order wine and tapas on a family holiday, imagine being able to write conversational or even fluent on your updated resume!
Streamline Your Future Studies
A second language and the holistic experience of living abroad would be excellent talking points at a job interview. But cross-cultural living is also very relevant when applying for graduate school. Many college students put off travel plans to immediately continue their studies after graduation. But what if professional international experience would actually help them get into the programs they’re after?
Even more than studying abroad during your undergraduate education, teaching and living in another country illustrates an ability to be independent and adapt to different environments, as well as a desire to serve your surrounding community. And if you intend to be a professor in your field someday, you are also gaining practical teaching experience before your first class of freshman university students.
Form Friendships All Over the World
But the benefits of living and teaching abroad are not purely academic and career related. When you broaden your professional scope, you are also expanding the reach of your friend group. Moving by yourself to another country can show you a lot about yourself and introduce you to more like-minded people than you ever knew were out there at the same time. It’s like being instantly initiated into a timeshare community with no sales brunch or steep fees.
You will quickly have a lot in common with other travelers and these connections could keep you visiting people in their new homes for years to come. You will also have the opportunity to become acquainted with the local community, creating current social circles wherever you go. And the people you cross paths with will often have more to teach you than places or positions themselves ever could.
Network Internationally
Because you came to work, your relationships won’t only be personal. You’ll meet interesting people with interesting jobs that may inspire you to explore other lines of work and travel. Or you may love teaching and your recommendation letters from your initial employers will become a valuable asset as you continue down this career path. Connect with people in person and then connect with them on LinkedIn. You never know which part of your current life will lead you into the next.
And if none of these more quantifiable reasons have swayed you, consider what it could be like to truly take advantage of the world we live in. To wake up every morning to evolving opportunities. To be continuously learning life lessons from each new person and place. When you begin a life abroad, it’s easy to let your connections and experiences take you from one city to the next.
Everyone’s time overseas will be entirely their own so you may get the shift of perspective you needed on a three-month trip. Or you may use your TEFL certificate in every corner of the globe. Or you may find another long-term home. But regardless of which reason is drawing you to teach English abroad, there’s nothing you can’t learn from walking into the unknown at the fork in the road.