Sarah Gooding

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There are many reasons for teaching English, from the highest motivations of helping our fellow man, to the lowest common denominator of cheap beer abroad.

I will not pretend to be nobler than I am. In truth, I’m the least selfless person I know: even as a child, I had an irresistible urge to jump on other children’s sand castles. I’m therefore not going to present any humanitarian reasons to teach English abroad, because no doubt you’re already familiar with them. There are indeed many ‘warm fuzzies’ involved in this career, but out of sheer stubbornness I won’t address any of them. Instead, I’m going to concentrate on what’s in it for No.1.

I should point out that, in the same way motivations to teach English can differ greatly, so, too, can the reasons for learning it. Teaching children in Africa as part of a humanitarian organisation, for example, will clearly bring different benefits to the community than giving free lessons in a holiday destination, where speaking English often means better job prospects - particularly in touristic areas like Playa del Carmen, where bars, hotels and restaurants are sprouting from the concrete in a shower of rubble and hardhats quicker than the iguanas can run away. Conversational English can mean a better professional career, or simply better tips, or better sales. On the subject of which, I recall suffering many a stilted exchange with street sellers in Goa, who were unable to communicate with more than the stock phrases of ‘Lovely jubbly,’ ‘ASDA price,’ and – to my horror – a defiant, if somewhat confused declaration of ‘I’ll rip you off!’ (Someone must have played a nasty joke on him, but I hadn’t the courage to advise a change of advertising technique.)

If you’ve read this far, you’ve probably already decided to risk your savings and sanity for a CELTA. Or perhaps you’re tempted, but think it’s too expensive, or impractical, or suspect, deep down, you’re not so much running towards something, but away from something, i.e. your life/wife/career/impending old age. If so, here, as promised, are Five Brutally Honest and Unashamedly Selfish Reasons to reconsider.

1.) Unlike ‘normal’ teaching, I can almost 100% guarantee your adult students will be interested in every word you say. Having worked with children, I can almost 100% guarantee they will not be listening at all, or will change the clocks behind your back to end the lesson sooner, or will have an i-Pod headphone secreted in their left ear. This eagerness to learn will not only give you a position of power and respect you may sometimes doubt you’ve earned – particularly if, like me, you’re hungover, feel stupid because you can’t speak a second language yourself, or only recently found out what an infinitive is - but also means you will be offered things like free drinks, discounted meals, and entry into night-clubs. One fellow teacher was offered complimentary accommodation by one of her students, and only left because of a misunderstanding with the resident cat. Cats don’t need to speak English, or indeed to communicate with anything more than a disdainful look, so of course it wasn’t going to cut her some slack for knowing the sentence structure of a supposition.

2.) If you’re horribly competitive, this is as good a way as any to get your kicks. Now, the average CELTA course is largely populated with good-hearted, genuine individuals who want only to do their best and teach as well as they possibly can, whilst providing each other with support and motivation. (Their backgrounds also suggest an innate benevolence: my fellow trainees included social workers, primary school teachers, charity workers and the like.) But then you might also meet someone like me, who is about as benevolent as a loaf of bread, and will try to out-do you in every sense of the word - from creating a better lesson plan, to stealing chairs from your classroom, to pointing out I have more mosquito bites so my blood must naturally be of a higher calibre than everyone else’s. Don’t be ashamed of your Machiavellian instincts, especially when it comes to garnering the students’ affections. You will be told repeatedly ‘you’re here to teach; this isn’t a popularity contest’, but feel free to ignore this, because it’s fun to be ‘the popular teacher’, and you know it.

3.) Lessons can be as fun and exciting as you wish. Or, if you are peculiar like me, as strange as you want them to be. Yes, the students are there to learn, and learn they must, but it doesn’t all have to be about scratching a pen up and down a whiteboard and listening to CDs of bad actors pretending to book a room at a hotel. Following the CELTA guidelines, the first five minutes of a lesson are yours to introduce the day’s topic as you feel fit. This can include music, stories, mime…look at my photograph of the drawing I used to introduce the subject of ‘urban myth,’ and you’ll see you can get away with more than you imagine.

4.) It’s cheap to live out there…wherever ‘there’ might be, as long as it’s not Tokyo or North London. Plus, your friends and ex-colleagues will be horribly jealous of you, which secretly we all enjoy, don’t we? And let’s face it, the weather is better in Honduras/Spain/Brazil. Unless you’re the type of person who plans on teaching in Russia or Poland, which is surprisingly common, I’ve found - and for no apparent reason – amongst former civil servants. This makes me suspect there’s something either tax- or espionage-related to their decision, but that’s anyone’s guess.

And finally…

5.) Was it your childhood dream to work in an office? I thought not. Most likely it wasn’t your childhood dream to teach, either, but for many it has become an adulthood dream, and one easy enough to realize. There are no age limits, no previous experience required, all that is needed is a little courage, a sense of adventure, and a passport. And of these three attributes, I can only honestly say I possess the latter, which demonstrates just how highly qualified you are for the job. So what are you waiting for?