Jenny Mauch - TEFL Traveller

How long did you teach for?
9 months in Santiago, Chile, 1 1/2 years in Prague, Czech Republic and 1 year in Paris, France

What was your pay?
varied by country, Chile and the Czech Republic it was about $8/per hour

What is the biggest lesson you learned from your teaching English experience?
Learning a foreign language takes a lot of dedication and heart, but if they can do it, so can I!

What is the most common misconception about teaching English?
For me, the most common misconception is that it's not a serious job (or a job to be taken seriously.) Once you begin teaching, you realize how much what you are doing matters. Most of my students are not learning English as a hobby, they are doing it out of necessity. English is the global language that they need for their career and their livelihood.

Did you get certified?: yes
Why or why not?
I started teaching in Santiago, Chile without certification. This gave me the opportunity to "try out" the job; I discovered that I had a lot of natural teaching qualities, but I didn't have all of the answers.

If you were certified, what was your certification and how did you acquire it? Also, did your certification help you when trying to find a job? How?
When I moved to Prague, I did my TEFL certification. I learned a lot of useful teaching techniques, particularly about classroom management, evaluating students and planning. In Europe, a certification is necessary to get a job with a respectable school. When I applied for a teaching position in Prague, I had my previous teaching experience in Chile plus my practical teaching experience in my TEFL course to present to my future employer. A good school wants to see proof of your experience!

When looking for a certification program, what are the things to look for?
I chose my program through a personal recommendation. It's important to verify that a certification program is legit, as I have read about a few situations where people were scammed. It's easy to find out this information on TEFL websites.

What are some common 'traps' that teachers fall into while teaching English abroad?
One trap is money. In South America and Eastern Europe you earn a respectable local salary, so it's easy to live where you are teaching, but it's hard to save for a future in your home country. The other is about getting too involved with the expatriate community and not getting involved enough with the local community. It's easy to do this when there are language and cultural barriers, but you also miss out on a lot of the "living abroad" experience.

What do you wish you would have done differently?
There are not many things I would change about my teaching experience.

What are the best things about teaching English abroad?
For me, I learn as much from students as they learn from me. Inevitably, every English lesson turns into a cultural lesson either about where I come from or where they come from.

Did you travel before or after your program? If so, where?
yes, I traveled for 3 months in Argentina and Chile before I started teaching. I continuously traveled while I was living in the Czech Republic, on weekends and during holidays. I spent a lot of time in Germany. I also traveled to Austria, Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria my first summer there. I have been in Paris for a year, and I travel quite a lot in France. I am actually planning an around the world trip with my boyfriend to begin in September of 2005.

What would be your advice to people thinking about teaching English abroad?
Pay all of your bills at home, sell all of the stuff that isn't sentimental and go! and don't forget to be humble, take the attitude that it's a privelege for you to be there and not a privelege for them to have you

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