Teaching Abroad

Lessons Learned While Teaching English Abroad

By Guylaine Spencer, Freelance Writer

June 2007

There’s a saying among educators that there is no teaching without learning. My friend Terese who taught English and French in Mexico, Ecuador and Chile heartily agrees.

“I learned so much while teaching abroad,” the high school teacher from Canada says. “Both about culture and about practical matters.”

Some of the “practical lessons” she learned the hard way.

An experience in Santiago, Chile, for example, showed her the importance of doing pre-departure research.

Lured abroad by a promising offer from a private language school, Terese found upon arrival that the school’s managers had lied about the costs of living in the city, and that salaries were so low that staff could only afford windowless, shoebox-sized rooms in slum rooming houses. Within six months of her arrival, six teachers had walked out in disgust. Eventually Terese too escaped, but at a considerable cost to herself.

Her lessons? Always get independent information about cost of living in a country before signing any contract. Carry extra money with you, or have access to it at home, in case you need to leave suddenly.

Although her Mexican and Ecuadorian experiences were less stressful, the pay in these countries was only slightly better. “Don’t expect to save money, as foreign teachers do in Japan. If you find a job in an international job fair (held at a universities in North America), you will get a decent salary – sometimes in US dollars. But not if you find a job locally, by walking in and applying, or in a private language school. You may earn more than the local teachers, but the salary will still be low.”

So how do the locals survive? “They live with their families, or share with four or five friends.”

Although rent can be prohibitive, fresh food on the other hand is inexpensive. The markets can be a shock for the sanitized North American consumer, though. Live animals and stinking carcasses are everywhere. “It takes a little getting used to,” says Terese.

However, you can largely avoid cooking by eating from food vendors on the street. “It’s like a circus, every Sunday,” says Terese, laughing as she describes the carts that gather outside churches in Mexico and Ecuador on Sunday evenings and in public squares throughout the week. You can enjoy tacos, hot dogs, fried bananas, fruit, homemade potato chips, and corn in a cup with chili and lemon.

Technology ranges from the modern to the archaic. In many places you can use your banking card to withdraw cash from a machine, but elsewhere, you may need to line up at three different counters just to buy one book (one to give your order and get a bill, the second to pay for the book with the bill, and the third to receive your book).

The transportation system is interesting, too. In the United States or Canada, without a car, you often “can’t get there from here”. But in Latin America, you’ll find a bus to every little village. “It may be a chicken bus,” Terese chuckles, explaining that on these former American school buses, passengers on the way to the market sometimes carry live chickens, dead sheep and baskets of tortillas with them. “But it’ll get you there, eventually.” A strong stomach and obedient bladder helps.

“Getting there” is obviously one of the draws of teaching abroad. Terese took advantage of school holidays -- two weeks at Easter, ten days at Christmas, and several long weekends per year -- to visit ancient Mayan ruins and colonial towns like Merida.

One of the greatest challenges of working abroad is adjusting to different social relations, which can be quite formal work, to match the dress code. In Canada, Terese calls the school principal by her first name. In Mexico, the Director was always called Mr. or Mrs. or Director. The hierarchal relationships extend to teacher and students as well. The teacher is respected as an authority figure much more than in North America, which means that they face few discipline problems.

It’s not only teachers who play authority roles in children’s lives, though. Since playgrounds are scarce, most children play in public squares and side streets. If things get out of hand, any adult in the neighborhood feels free to reprimand and bring things under control. People trust each other more in a society where there is more contact between neighbors. “It feels like the kind of close-knit community my father experienced as a child growing up in Poland,” Terese says.

As for making friends, Terese warns that newcomers must be prepared to take the first step. “Local people may be shy to approach you at first, because you are a foreigner. Start by asking them out for coffee. Soon you’ll find yourself being invited to parties.” Before you establish friendships, you may feel isolated and your accommodation may not have television or radio. Take a hobby with you (books, crafts, etc.) to minimize loneliness and homesickness.

Gender relations have their own special spin in Latin America. “In a culture that is still pretty macho,” Terese explains, “men are more overt with their attentions. Strange men will call out “hey beautiful” on the street and try to chat you up. At first it’s jarring, but eventually you realize it’s harmless and, besides, it’s not going to stop. If you’re not interested, just laugh or smile and move on.”

However, it’s a little harder to laugh off the job advertisements that request employees by age, gender and sometimes even physical attributes (i.e. a beautiful girl wanted, 18 – 25 years, for job opening…).

Another surprise Terese encountered was overt racism against native people. This legacy of Spanish colonialism appears in the markets, where vendors sell creams for “whitening” the skin. Children taunt each other and parents chastise their offspring by calling them “indio”. Although the respectful term for a native person is “indigeno” or “indigena”, the word “indio” is used to imply stupidity, laziness or dirtiness.

Finally, keep in mind that the concept of time in Latin countries differs and is “fluid” at best. “If you want someone to meet you at a certain time, insist that they meet you on hora ingles (English time). That way it will only be half an hour late. Otherwise they could show up a few hours past the agreed time. Although things like buses and trains are punctual, social things aren’t. Impatience only makes things worse.”

Occasionally, though, Terese notes, this time issue can work in your favor. For example, you can almost always get a ticket to a concert or play because people wait until the last minute to buy tickets.

In spite of all her learning, there’s still a puzzle that nags at Terese. “I know it’s a cliché,” she says, “but time DOES seem to move more slowly there. Even though I worked long hours and even split shifts in Latin America, I seemed to have more time to relax than I do in Canada, and my life felt fuller somehow. I can’t explain it.”

It’s a mystery that she hopes to study in more depth if she gets the chance to return to Mexico someday.