Your Lifestyle and Finding a Suitable TEFL Location

How to find a place that fits your lifestyle

Assure your social survival

Much like checking out the financial situation, you need to carefully investigate the social situation where you hope to go. A lonely life overseas is no fun at all.

Ask, Ask, Ask

Again, go to popular discussion boards and ask about lifestyle issues.
Are the local people friendly or xenophobic? Will you find yourself isolated or quickly absorbed into an active local or expatriate community?

I lived for three years in a smallish community in Korea, but because of friends, had a great social life. Others find themselves in small towns, lonely, isolated, and quite unhappy, though that can happen just as easily in large cities.

It might be best, with your first job, to avoid smallish towns or cities, particularly in countries where foreigners are not quickly accepted or in communities where there is not an expatriate community.

The Expatriate Community

As much as we would all like to live in, adjust to, and be accepted by the people of a foreign culture, it is often more difficult than it might seem and usually takes some time. A strong expatriate community can provide good support during your initial days, when you don’t know the language and need to sort out your living situation.

Fresh in a new community, it can even be difficult to figure out where to find food that you are familiar with. Other issues that you might need help with: getting a telephone, cable or satellite TV, a computer and/or Internet connection, driver’s license (some jobs will require this), a car or motorcycle. Even getting drinking water delivered to your house can be problematic.

These are just the beginning issues: what about going to immigration and getting a resident visa, a work permit and whatever else may be required on that side?

Often your employer or coworkers can/will help you with these issues, but not always.

Ask discussion boards about the kind of support you might expect to find in your new community.

Also ask about any lifestyle issues you may be unsure about.

TED’s Tips™ #1: You will spend much more time away from work than you will at work, yet most people neglect learning about the lifestyle and social situation where they are going. Be sure you know – before you go.

TED’s Tips™ #2: Get involved in the local expatriate community. It doesn’t need to be to the exclusion of the local people, it can be in additional to.

What’s up in China? Learn what kind of jobs are on offer if would like to Teach English in China

How to Teach English Overseas and Secrets to Success Abroad
TEFL eBooks is offering a free download of their new publication Seven Secrets of Success Abroad - and along with it comes a bi-weekly installment and revision of their eBook called How to Teach English Overseas.

Great reviews for the Secrets of Success eBook – in spite of the hokey name – and the How to Teach English eBook is being updated and rewritten and sent out in installments as it is ready.

Here they are – click on the eBooks to get your FREE copies! Great information and the price is right, from our friends at TEFLeBooks.

Teaching English Abroad: A Lifestyle Opportunity

Teaching English Overseas is a Lifestyle Alternative

Everything seems to be “lifestyle” these days . . . from people hustling condos and time shares to selling you a fancy watch you don’t really need.

But teaching English abroad is one REAL “lifestyle” opportunity that will have you experiencing the world firsthand and living your life from a totally different perspective, often only a few weeks from the time you make the decision to go. Nothing else in life really offers that dramatic of a change in possibilities.

If you truly want to experience something “different” and see the world from a different perspective, TEFL is your opportunity.

In my 20+ years abroad now, I’ve traveled and seen more of the world and spent more time on the world’s fabulous beaches than many of the so-called “rich and famous” that so many people envy. And that lifestyle is available to you.

The great thing about the lifestyle is that you get to experience people, cultures and countries on a far deeeper level than a tourist or “traveler” that is really only passing through. You get to “rub shoulders” and share your work day, lunchtime and social times with the very people that give the world its diversity and keep things interesting.

You get the opportunity to have a much deeper understanding of their cultures and languages rather than just the curiosities mentioned in the travel guides.

And how much does it all cost?

Cost?! They PAY you! That’s a deal that can’t be beat.

TED’s Tips™ #1: Living and working abroad teaching English is not for everyone, but if you have an strong and insatiable interest in the world and its peoples, this is exactly where you should be.

TED’s Tips™ #2: Embrace Life! Get out there and KNOW and EXPERIENCE the real world, not the plastic fear-place presented on TV.

What’s up in China? Learn what kind of jobs are on offer if would like to Teach English in China

How to Teach English Overseas and Secrets to Success Abroad
TEFL eBooks is offering a free download of their new publication Seven Secrets of Success Abroad - and along with it comes a bi-weekly installment and revision of their eBook called How to Teach English Overseas.

Great reviews for the Secrets of Success eBook – in spite of the hokey name – and the How to Teach English eBook is being updated and rewritten and sent out in installments as it is ready.

Here they are – click on the eBooks to get your FREE copies! Great information and the price is right, from our friends at TEFLeBooks.

Please let me know what you think of the ebooks – use the comments section below.

I confess both eBooks are written by yours truly – hoping to inspire others to head overseas and live life BIG out in the real world. I would value your feedback!