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The Pleasures and Pitfalls of Teaching English Abroad
A I spin through the revolving
/I O door at Banco de Chile in the
JTm>& upscale neighborhood of Los
Condes in Santiago, I'm immediately aware
that I don't belong here. In the elevator, sur
rounded by Very Important People dressed in
fancy suits and dresses and shoes, I realize
I'm the epitome of what happens when you
don't major in business or finance or account
ing. But I do have one skill that makes me
Important, or rather, employable, in Chile. I
can speak—and teach—English.
I mainly teach businesspeople, rarely in
groups larger than five. The classes are usually
held at their places of work, always according
to their schedules. This means the hour-and-
a-half classes are either early morning, during
lunch or late evening. The earliest class can
start at 8 a.m.; the latest class at 8 p.m. A
day may consist of one class in the morn
ing, two in the afternoon and one at night.
Traveling to each business adds hours to the
day. They're located all across Santiago, some
times 10 minutes away, sometimes 30 min
utes, sometimes an hour, depending on where
you start
My life has become a series of hours of
traveling, hours of teaching and hours of wait
ing for the next class. Fortunately, Santiago
is one of the best places to teach English in
Latin America. It's safe, the pay is enough
to live on, and the demand is high. Much of
this demand is the result of Chile's growing
economy ana SENCE, a government program
that provides tax breaks to businesses that
offer English classes to workers.
Karen Tait, the academic director at
Grant's English Institute, says that more
than 70 percent of Grant's clients are on
SENCE—essentially, anyone who works for a
big company. The program pays for half of the
English training, while the company pays the
other half—a pretty good deal for interna
tional companies like Banco de Chile, which
was recently bought by Citibank. “Now, all the
policy comes through in English; they need to
teleconference in English, that sort of thing,*
Tait says. “And there are high-level business-
people who go to conferences all over the
world in English.*
M ost of these businesspeople are mid
dle-aged, though some are younger.
Some have an advanced level of
English, while some are beginners. Almost
all of them are required to take these classes
for their jobs. It's not hard to pinpoint those
who dislike taking the classes, but most don't
seem to mind. And, of course, there are many
who are very enthusiastic and motivated to
learn English. This kind of student tends to be
someone who takes the classes more for per
sonal reasons than solely for their job.
Classes of advanced students are mostly
conversational, revolving around a particular
topic with the occasional grammar lesson
thrown in. Most of the advanced students
just want to work on their fluency and be
corrected when they make mistakes. Classes
of intermediate students focus on specific
grammar points (like the past simple and past
continuous tenses) and particular skills (like
answering the phone and sending emails).
Characteristic of all the classes is that no
Spanish is spoken, even in tha most basic
classes.
"I know from when I learned Spanish that
if somebody translates something for me
it goes in one ear and out the other," Tait
explains. "I do not remember it. But if I have
to fight for that piece of information, if the
teacher has to mime it and I have to check
and see if I actually got it right, then I tend
to retain that piece of information."
And thus, with classes of elementary stu
dents, I become an excellent mime and a very,
very, very slow talker. Most start with some
basic knowledge of English derived from the
usual cultural influences: Hollywood, televi
sion, music, McDonald's and the like. But
there's nothing more maddening than teaching
a class of indifferent 40-something business
men who start with absolutely no familiarity
of English whatsoever. What's worse is when
they don't want to learn; though, sometimes I
can't really blame them. The idea of my father
making time in his workday for a Spanish les
son is absurd, and his reaction to being forced
to do so would probably be along the same
lines as these Chileans'. On particularly dif
ficult days, I feel like an amateur; a 120-hour
TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language)
certification program does not an expert make.
Some days are better than others, but the bad
days are tough, and it takes almost all of me
not to jam a pencil through my eye. Perhaps
patience is a virtue learned best under
pressure.
R enzo Corona, a partner at
PricewaterhouseCoopers in Santiago, is
one of those ideal students extremely
committed to learning English. So much so,
in fact that he makes time for a two-hour
English class every day of the working week.
“I want to be fluent in English in no more
than'two years," he says. “I want to improve
my English level because English is important
for everything, especially to be connected
with the world." He eventually plans on mov
ing to an English-speaking country for at least
three months. He'd like to stay an entire year.
but work and family commitments in Chile
make that difficult. "I think it's important not
only to learn a Language, [but] probably it is
more important, [as] the next step, to learn
a culture," he says. "And in my opinion, it is
impossible to learn a culb're if you don't live
in another country."
Interestingly, his opinion is what motivates
many people to teach English in a foreign
country. The job provides the opportunity to
learn a language and perhaps more impor
tantly, as Corona points out, the opportunity
to live in another country and truly learn the
culture. There are few other jobs that provide
such immersion in an unfamiliar culture.
They're an eccentric bunch, these English
teachers. They've lived and worked aU over
the World. Each of them has a story to telL
Some are older, genuine expats, veterans of
the game; some are young, bright-eyed first-
timers. It's easy to see how the latter becomes
the former. Tait says she sees both come
through Grant's, and her job is to weed out
the "travelers who teach* from the "people
who want to teach, who are enthusiastic
about it"
Teaching English abroad is an easy-to-
maintain lifestyle because the opportunities
are so plentiful and far-reaching. There's also
veiy little commitment involved; rarely would
a school require more than a year-long agree
ment if any at all And as the days, weeks and
months go on, it only gets easier to Kve this
exciting life and harder to go back to a more
ordinary one at home. Of particular relevance
these days is that if your options are unem
ployment back home or getting paid to teach
English in Turkey, Peru or Japan, it's not hard
to see the appeal of teaching.
S uch was the case for Evan MaiLon of
Chicago, who moved to Kyoto, Japan
to teach English in August 2006. After
graduating from Northern Illinois University
with degrees in anthropology and Japanese
studies, he quickly realized his lack of viable
job options in the United States. Soon, he
started researching lucrative offers to teach
English in Japan, and shortly thereafter, with
no teaching experience, no certification and
no training, Mallon was hired by Nova, the
largest private English-teaching company in
Japan at the time. After a 13-hour flight,
three days adjusting to the 14-hour time dif
ference and three days of training, he was in
a classroom.
Mallon likens Nova (now defunct because
of illegal business practices) to "fast-food
English," as there was a school in every train
station in Kyoto and over 1,000
schools nationwide. The students
were mostly housewives during the
day, businessmen at night and kids
on the weekends. Unlike the sys
tem in Chile, where teachers are
paid by the hour, he was on salary
and had paid vacation and sick
days. He worked eight-hour shifts
with eight classes a day, held
back-to-back in the same class
room in the same train station. He
earned $30,000 in one year and
saved $10,000 of that.
Three years passed as Mallon
fell in love with the city, the
country and the people of Japan.
By August 2009, he realized that
staying any longer would mean
he would never leave, and so he
went home to Chicago, intending
to stay.
Unfortunately, home greeted
him with disappointment. He felt
utterly disconnected to a place
and a people he once loved. And
the poor economy squashed any
hope for a decent job. So, six
months later, he left again, this
time for South America.
But Mallon is quick to acknowledge the
drawbacks of living such an unfettered life.
At some point he says, it's hard to decide
what's important and what's not He's almost
30. Should he do what he wants and travel?
Or should he go home to be around his family
and get a wife, a family and a bunch of stuff?
“I feel more at ease now when I'm not at
home," he says. “When you're around people
who are 40 years old and they're still think
ing about where they're going next... to some
people that could sound irresponsible, but to
me it sounds inspiring.*
When the obligatory question of The Future
arises, Mallon insists that teaching isn't his
passion or his permanent plan. “Teaching is
the medium I use to do what I want to do,"
he says. "I don't necessarily like my job, but I
don't hate it. It is the vehicle that allows me
to do amazing stuff." His is a familiar senti
ment among the English-teachers, for even if
this job is a lifelong passion or a permanent
plan, it is, above all, a life for travelers.
Perhaps therein lies the true beauty of
teaching English abroad. There is something
remarkable about this kind of freedom: the
ability to just take off whenever and go wher
ever. If nothing else, it's certain^ an attrac
tive option to have. TU stay here until! don't
want to be here anymore,*
"and then go