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Sign up with Google Sign up with FacebookQ: What is there aside from English teaching?
Non-native speakers recently having the door closed on them and presumably having to go and find something else to do reminded me of something I've wondered on and off about before.
Are there other industries sort of like English teaching, where if you wanted to travel, live and work in a different culture, maybe make it a long term thing if you liked it - you could go and do it with no real qualifications?
I remember when I first heard about teaching ESL, I had a job I didn't like much and none of my friends really liked their jobs,life just seemed to be about working so you could afford to live the mundane western country type of life. It seemed pointless and boring.
Then a friend told me I could go to Asia and teach English, live in a weird culture, see and do weird and interesting things, travel in my free time ... everyone here has seen the advertising so you know what I mean. Not so much a job as a lifestyle.
My first reaction was that sounds awesome but I'm not a teacher so.... turns out all I needed to do was get a TEFL cert which is easy enough, it's not like going back to school for another few years or something, so that's what I did.
I remember thinking why hadn't I heard of this ESL thing before, it sounded perfect for me and when I eventually took the leap it turned out to be one of the best things I've ever done in my life, and to think that I almost didn't because I didn't even know about it.
Now that I've quit teaching I'm glad I did, can't really see myself doing it again but I do wonder if there's some other awesome lifestyle type job I don't know about yet but that would be a great thing to do in maybe a couple of years, or if you're a NNS needing to find a new job, or just someone sitting at home and wanting a change?
Has anyone here done something similar to ESL before?
6 years 42 weeks ago in Business & Jobs - China
In China - not a lot.
If you've got the looks, you could do modelling and acting work (ability doesn't really matter). It is, after all, what a lot of east European women do here.
In the rest of the world... jobs working on oil rigs in the middle of nowhere... driving those massive trucks around all over the place... or dull boring fruit picking in the right season (a lot of backpackers do that in Australia on a work/travel visa). Or, of course, bar work and waiting.
Stiggs:
I wasn't thinking China specifically, just overseas in general.
I had a mate who was a dive instructor, lived in all sorts of cool tropical places. Another friend was a ski instructor who would live in Europe for their winter then NZ for winter there - great lifestyle but you never get to see summer. A girl I used to know worked as a nanny all over Europe, another mate lived and worked on a Kibbutz in Israel - from his stories it sounded awesome but probably not much of an option now with all sorts of shit likely to go down.
There are cool options out there and like I say, I'm always waiting to hear about the next one that will make me go hmmmm.....
diverdude1:
I'll throw in a couple of gigs we did (me & ex-wife). We worked several summer seasons for a couple of different lodges who held the NPS(National Park Service) concession for Denali National Park up in Alaska. Housing provided, decent wages, meals provided, and awesome scenery!
We also worked a couple of winters as Lifties for a ski-resort in Girdwood, a place not far from Anchorage. Paid to ski,, haha,,, hard to beat a job like that!
Viki87:
Those maybe just more for short term. Time flies, then maybe one day you'll find you didn't build a career at 30 even, ooops... then 40 is too late...
Stiggs:
@ Diver.. I met a guy once who had worked in some national park or other, I think he said he was making hiking trails or something like that. Literally spent the summer camping up where nobody else ever goes. That would be cool.
Stiggs:
@ Vicki. Yeah, fair point. What might be worse though is spending your life building a career and daydreaming about doing cool stuff one day, then waking up realizing you're too old to really do anything now. You spent your life trying to make money and didn't take the time to live life.
But, I suppose everyone is different.
Shining_brow:
Ummm - how is a Dive Instructor not a career???
Or a ski instructor??
Just because you happen to be doing something you love, and getting paid for it, doesn't mean you should be looked down upon.
Same as English teaching.. some people have actually embraced it as their career, and find it very fulfilling (in a variety of ways).
There are professional bar tenders (and coffee baristas) all around the world, who will never want for a job, and can go places and do things that most only ever dream about!
I mentioned fruit picking... you can bet your arse that most backpackers who do the fruit picking gigs in places all over the world have experienced a lot more of life than those who chose a 'career' and sat in the office in front of a computer all day, and only had a few weeks off for holidays every so often.
Bumpin' here-o!
I am very aside from English teaching at the moment .... into the cryptos.
In China - not a lot.
If you've got the looks, you could do modelling and acting work (ability doesn't really matter). It is, after all, what a lot of east European women do here.
In the rest of the world... jobs working on oil rigs in the middle of nowhere... driving those massive trucks around all over the place... or dull boring fruit picking in the right season (a lot of backpackers do that in Australia on a work/travel visa). Or, of course, bar work and waiting.
Stiggs:
I wasn't thinking China specifically, just overseas in general.
I had a mate who was a dive instructor, lived in all sorts of cool tropical places. Another friend was a ski instructor who would live in Europe for their winter then NZ for winter there - great lifestyle but you never get to see summer. A girl I used to know worked as a nanny all over Europe, another mate lived and worked on a Kibbutz in Israel - from his stories it sounded awesome but probably not much of an option now with all sorts of shit likely to go down.
There are cool options out there and like I say, I'm always waiting to hear about the next one that will make me go hmmmm.....
diverdude1:
I'll throw in a couple of gigs we did (me & ex-wife). We worked several summer seasons for a couple of different lodges who held the NPS(National Park Service) concession for Denali National Park up in Alaska. Housing provided, decent wages, meals provided, and awesome scenery!
We also worked a couple of winters as Lifties for a ski-resort in Girdwood, a place not far from Anchorage. Paid to ski,, haha,,, hard to beat a job like that!
Viki87:
Those maybe just more for short term. Time flies, then maybe one day you'll find you didn't build a career at 30 even, ooops... then 40 is too late...
Stiggs:
@ Diver.. I met a guy once who had worked in some national park or other, I think he said he was making hiking trails or something like that. Literally spent the summer camping up where nobody else ever goes. That would be cool.
Stiggs:
@ Vicki. Yeah, fair point. What might be worse though is spending your life building a career and daydreaming about doing cool stuff one day, then waking up realizing you're too old to really do anything now. You spent your life trying to make money and didn't take the time to live life.
But, I suppose everyone is different.
Shining_brow:
Ummm - how is a Dive Instructor not a career???
Or a ski instructor??
Just because you happen to be doing something you love, and getting paid for it, doesn't mean you should be looked down upon.
Same as English teaching.. some people have actually embraced it as their career, and find it very fulfilling (in a variety of ways).
There are professional bar tenders (and coffee baristas) all around the world, who will never want for a job, and can go places and do things that most only ever dream about!
I mentioned fruit picking... you can bet your arse that most backpackers who do the fruit picking gigs in places all over the world have experienced a lot more of life than those who chose a 'career' and sat in the office in front of a computer all day, and only had a few weeks off for holidays every so often.
Diamond Mines in northern Canada are always looking for drivers 200 grand a year.. 2 weeks in, they fly you out, 2 weeks out, travelling and spending what you made the previous 2 weeks.
diavik mines
You can become Yoga Instructor.
or why not try being a Spiritual guru !!
Stiggs:
I'm not bendy enough to be a yoga instructor and I don't have a serene and peaceful face - I have a sort of angry, resentful scowl as my normal resting face so I'm not sure about being a guru either.
well you can always open your own business?
Be a consultant of whatever.
learn IT shit... do fulltime twitch streaming / Youtubing
Or I mean... most i guess learned actually a real profession, so you could probably find a job in that area as well.
Stiggs:
Yep that's what I did and that's all well and good but when you get sick of it and just want to go off to some developing country and have cool experiences, see new things etc etc .... that's when you start to wonder what's out there. Like ESL for example. But I've done that and don't really want to do it again. Or if I was a non native speaker and the ESL option in China was just closed to me but I didn't want to go home and do some 9 to 5 career type job - what would I do instead?
icnif77:
Try ESL option elsewhere! As a Native English passport holder ESL world is wide open to you.
But, best pay for ESL with low cost of living is in China.
I wasn't sick of ESL and I did that with 'NNES' on top!
Stiggs:
Well like I said in the OP, it was the NNES question that made me think of this again. What do you guys do now the ESL door is closed..
I'm ok for now, kind of need to be where I am now for a while so I'm not looking to take off anytime soon but I could see myself in a couple of years maybe getting restless and looking for some new and different lifestyle. The idea of teaching again doesn't do much for me at the moment but I suppose there's a chance I might want to jump back in the saddle sometime in the future.
If you're fit, there's always the option of being a "call boy."
Stiggs:
Well I do keep myself in pretty good shape, but I'm waaay to ugly to be a callboy.
When it's all you can do to give it away how are you going to sell it?
Besides that, I'm not gay so would need to convert somehow. It seems like a lot of trouble to go through for a job when I could just go pick up a gig at Dancing Monkey Engrish School and sell my dignity that way.
Shining_brow:
But Stiggs - 100RMB for a 5 min blowjob is better than 80RMB for dancing around like a monkey! And, you're face really wouldn't matter...
Spiderboenz:
Well, believe it or not, gay guys aren't the only people who use call boys.