How to work abroad doing what you really love (by doing TEFL)

Loves traveling; hates children.

If you've done even a hint of researching in regards to working abroad, you've probably come across TEFL, or Teaching English as a Foreign Language. Traveling the world while teaching English is undoubtedly one of the most available & advantageous career fields for English-speaking citizens hoping to live abroad.

It is so advantageous that in some cases potential teachers need only show proof of citizenship and good interview skills. But this leads to a problem; you want to travel and live abroad but teaching isn't what you want to do with the rest of your life. Maybe you don't like grammar or maybe you hate kids. Ask a teacher; they'll give you plenty of reasons to hate the job.

Government-Mandated Awesomeness

Here lies one of the greatest aspects of the tefl scheme; in many countries (I'm an authority on Taiwan, but research leads me to believe this to be true for most of the Asian countries) the government's laws pertaining to foreigners working as teachers actually prevents teachers from working over thirty hours a week. Supposing that you're paid well enough (this varies from country to country, based on wages vs. cost of living) this leaves you with ten (or more) prime hours that almost nobody else gets!

Kill the iPhone, Nuke the Blackberry, Smother Facebook in it's Sleep

This is fantastic, especially if you have creative pursuits that you're not finding enough time to pursue in your present life. These days, employers are asking more and more of their employees, not to mention that with the proliferation of smartphones general connectivity, it's getting harder and harder to get away from work and pursue a steady series of thoughts relating to something that you really want to work on.

Those ten (or more) hours are something that none of your peers back home are going to be getting anytime soon. In other words, your brain's not getting a word in edgewise. Let me offer myself up as an example.

I, Teacher

A year ago I was undertaking a new venture with the company that I was working at. It was on an epic scale; every day of building the project was crunch-time, and "every day" lasted for over four months. After the two months ended and the project was rolled out... it was still crunch-time.

We entered a phase where we had to prove ourselves on a daily basis. In all, this last project ended up being ten months where I was pulling eighty to one-hundred hours per week on an all-too-regular basis. In the end, I'm proud of the work we did together, but I couldn't have been happier to watch them in the distance as I left it all behind me.

Switching to TEFL couldn't have been better for me. At first it was difficult; I've worked an average of twenty hours a week since arriving in Taiwan. I literally didn't know what to do with myself. After a lot of soul-searching and a lot of spreadsheets and a lot of networking, I found myself making a documentary about a passionate local dragon boat team in a fierce competition against other teams in Taiwan. You can watch the Dragonboat documentary for free on my site, fadeoutfade.in

This ended up being a huge undertaking on my part; I used my spare twenty hours a week to sift through hours worth of footage and edit together a real, finite story about these athletes. I couldn't have ever had the concentration to do this working at a forty hours per week desk jockey job, much less a sixty or more hour per week film monkey job.

We are TEFL teachers, we are artists, we are legion, don't call us before noon, thankyouverymuch.

Likewise I know several musicians, writers, photographers, artists and drunks (many more of the last classification) that make their bones in under thirty a week, just like I do, then are able to flip the switch and follow their personal interests outside of work. The best part of all of this is that when showcasing your work in a foreign land, you're already more appealing, simply by virtue of being a foreigner. Even the drunks can be considered handsome here, simply by being "niche."

Sometimes to do what we really love, we have to do something that we don't necessarily love, or as it's pertained to some of my own classes that I've taught; something that we abjectly dislike. If we can do this for less than thirty hours a week, though, and struggle through with enough vim and vigor to not get fired, then it has to be all worthwhile?

Other teaching resources
How to Teach English in China - Advice on how to land a job teaching English in China
TEFL for non teachers - Teaching English offers another less obvious perk: Time to pursue other interests.
A Lesson in online English credentials - There is a lot to consider when choosing a TEFL course.
American English teacher in China - We interview an American on life in The Peoples Republic of China

---