Evita and I raced through AM traffic on our 100cc imperial speeder determined to make it to the school an hour before our first class started. Evita’s a well-decorated Jedi Master of ESL education, but I was rushing head-long into my first teaching experience. “Maintain the appearance of confidence,” I thought, “If they detect even the slightest sign of weakness you’re done for.” We didn’t really have a full on game plan for how we were going to run the classes and I was worried. “What if we run out of material half way through and the kids are just sitting there staring at us while we try to figure out what to do?” Despite my apprehension, Evita didn’t seemed that worried about it at all. The night before we went over our battle plans. Evita explained to me that a large part of teaching kids is having the ability to think on your feet. “Well,” I thought, “It sounds kind of like bartending or managing a corporate work group and I have experience doing both so I should be good, right? Right?”

10:55am
Make first contact with the young Ewoks. Our first class had been estimated to have 4 students, so far only two have arrived. The first student we met was Noksup, a gregarious snack-loving youngster whose pockets seem to be continuously lined with gummy candy. He’s the oldest of the bunch and despite being quite the ham is rather brilliant and unexpectedly caring.
His counter part at the moment is the seemingly aloof Onsin. She rolled into the classroom quietly, little did we know that we had just been slipped a Trojan horse in the form of a little girl. She seemed shy at first and the only intel we could gather was her name so we left it at that.

11:03am
Nogsup and Onsin suddenly spring into action and we have no idea what’s going on. They’re flipping light switches, closing blinds, messing with the AC, and generally just bouncing off the freaking walls. Then all at once they both sit down, open their notebooks, fish out their pencils and await eagerly our instruction. We were totally floored. Instead of being mischievous they were actually setting up the classroom for us. “Ok. Alright. So that’s how they operate. I think we can work with this.”

11:24am
Midway through the first exercise our third student comes sauntering through the door. A skinny kid donning thick spectacles and face mask. His name is First. Much like Onsin he doesn’t seem that interested in the new teachers and takes his time getting everything set up at his desk. “He’s probably sick,” I thought, “I feel bad for the little guy.” But then he ripped the mask off his face and slightly changed my perspective. “The kid’s a walking time bomb, I wonder if Evita has hand sanitizer in her purse.”

12:07pm { Apocalypse Now!!! }
With twenty minutes left to go we ran of material! The whole time the kids had been growing more and more boisterous, but we were able to keep reeling them back in. That’s when they played their trump card and revealed that the Trojan horse actually contained a powerful warlord capable of wreaking havoc on the battlefield, *ahem*, classroom. There was just no stopping them now. Onsin started running aimlessly around the classroom like she was chasing a ghost that only she could see. Nogsup, hopped up on innumerable bags of fruit snacks began provoking First who then starts screaming as they play fight and chase each other around the classroom. We had just lost control of the battlefield, the children have taken the high ground. I was at a total loss and didn’t know what to do. Should I start yelling at them? Am I allowed to grab the kids and make them sit down? We needed to come up with something quick. I looked at Evita, who looked back up at me with the same “Holy crap, I can’t believe this is happening” look on her face. We were so screwed.
In the end, Evita conjured up some of that think-on your-feet-ness and reeled the kids in again for one last vocabulary and comprehension exercise. I don’t really know how she did it, but I do know this: “Being an effective teacher is not easy.” I have a lot to learn, but luckily Evita’s here to help show me the ropes and ensure that I’m not run asunder by the snack wielding midget army ever again.

*sidenote: we did take the time to reconfigure our lesson plan to better suit the kids in our classroom. just saying*

The Jet Set Zero Italy crew is about to begin our last week of teaching (except for Lynne, our crazy little Scottish trouper, who is teaching through September).

Sarah and I have been assigned to a nunnery, where we will be teaching 25 children by ourselves with the help of the resident nuns. We may also be teaching with cameraman Bogden, who has volunteered to step in in case of emergency. Please wish us luck. We’ll keep you posted on our…progress. 3 minutes til we depart for school…! Yikes.

Sarah and I prepare for Day 1 at the nunnery with plenty of coffee and nutella. Sarah doesn't even drink coffee. The caffiene spike will add to the interest level I'm sure. If all else fails we can start adding Baileys Irish.

(Version française plus bas)

So, as you already know, I quit my job as an English teacher.

I enjoyed being in front of my students teaching them, but I didn’t like what surrounded the actual job: my schedule, the little things that happened during my first week, some people there, working more hours than I was supposed to without getting paid for it, being paid 15 dollars less than I was supposed to for my first week of work. I felt my boss kept asking a lot while she really gave nothing in return. The last straw was on a Sunday morning when I opened a file she gave me to edit: 130 pages!

Seriously?! Didn’t she tell me ”relax and have fun this weekend” when I left school on Saturday at 1.30pm? How am I supposed to do that when I have a such a file to edit, which some students need the next day? Sure she didn’t ask me to do it during the weekend, but when else could I do this kind of thing?! I simply didn’t have time during the week!

So on Monday morning I went to my boss’s office to ask her if she was still planning to hire another teacher, as she had been saying she would do for the past two weeks. She asked why I was asking with big, bulging eyes. I said I couldn’t go on like this, that she would had to pay me more for the extra work. She said I didn’t work that much more, that I didn’t need to work at home over the weekend and that I should be able to prepare each lesson in 10 minutes.

(more…)

It’s funny, sometimes you get what you want in life and then you realize it’s not what you wanted after all.  After teaching all last year in South Korea I thought I’d probably want to do the same as I traveled around South America, since it was a great way to earn money and get to know my new host country.  Teaching in S Korea vs Latin America is completely different and worthy of a post of its own, but more on that in the future.  On the road you often times learn things about yourself, in my case, I learned that when I travel I don’t like to work and vice versa.  I was having a hard time balancing doing the things I love (travel, photography) while teaching, which I still love and look forward to doing in the future once I figure out where I want to call home.  The way I see it is like this, we are only on this adventure for a finite amount of time so why not make the most of it? I have learned a few words in Quechua, the local Andean dialect, and one phrase that has stuck with me is Chulla Vida, that means life is short so do what makes you happy.  What makes me happy is running through crowded bus depots, haggling with cabbies, getting lost in the jungle, hiking the Andes, trying strange foods and capturing it all for my friends to see when I get back home.  I will keep doing what I am doing and see where it takes me.

Rut roh! Collaps-ation after day 1 of teaching. (I'm not really crying...)

I just opened my sister’s computer and was greeted with her latest diary entry, which was simply: “I thought about having my tubes tied today.”

We are here at her hotel debriefing after our first day of prison labor, which consisted of servicing a minefield of diabolical elves aged 5-6.

While Italian children look like dark-haired angels, shaming America’s obese youth yet again, the rest of our high expectations were not met. Here’s a glimpse into Sarah and my dialogue.

Perrin: What the f*ck?!

Sarah: We were surprise attacked by Jack and his hunters [from Lord of the Flies].

Perrin: I’m not surprised; I didn’t think the kids would understand us. We don’t speak Italian. I just felt bad when a girl had to pee her pants for me to comprehend that she needed the toilet.

Sarah: It turns out that it was the last day before summer, and the teacher had relinquished all hope for the children’s redemption. She sat in the corner laughing the whole time we were in there.

Perrin: The rest of the day was better.  The next class was wild about our “Peel peel banana!” song and dance. Those kids really shake their hips, even the little boys had Shakira-esque rhythm going.

Sarah: ACLE does offer a brilliant teaching model. They’ve rocked the typical style of “repetition and strict memorization” found in most Italian classrooms. They replaced it with energetic songs and games that get the children involved.  In just one week they have literally changed my tune regarding children: it used to be True Blood’s theme song, “I’m going to do bad things to you” but now it’s “HIP HOP! ENGLISH ROCKS!”  I rather like it.

Perrin: Agreed. ACLE’s even changing my nighttime behavior. Without realizing it, I’ve begun deploying their body-language techniques to make Italian men understand that, when I hug my chest and make slurping motions, it means “I would loooove a beer!” I’m not learning Italian but sign language is universal.

Sarah: Sdfkjfajl [unintelligible].

Sarah is dropping out of the conversation now. She completely lost her voice while hollering at The Wild Things today. Grandpa always attributes her frequent voice loss to cheap whiskey, but this time it was due to Italian-mother style yelling.

Ready for the next episode? Next week we’ll be teaching 9am-6pm.

Childish behavior is contagious.

Lynne and Courtney Circa 2007 - Cirie, Italy

Moving to a different country without a clearly defined plan is definitely the way to go, with one major exception: finding employment. On the job front, doing a little research before you leave can pay off BIG TIME.  It did for team Italy!

As of next week all four of us will be teaching English to Italian children at English immersion summer camps throughout Italy with a non-profit organization called ACLE.

JOB FACTS:

• I found ACLE through a Google search in 2007 and it was my ticket out of my corporate job.
• Lynne and I met in Italy working for this very same program three years ago. Our Jet Set Zero experience will be a reunion of epic proportions.
• Sarah and Perrin are ACLE newbies.  Hazing rituals likely.
• ACLE has an important mission: To prove that the “traditional Italian scholastic system of “chalk and talk” fails to stimulate the emotions and energy that an entertaining atmosphere can provide.
• Instead of  lectures and boring workbook lessons, we’ll be teaching English through songs, theater, art, games, sports and multi-cultural activities.
• ACLE + Italy = one delicious summer.

A lot more on our sweet summer job soon, but for now check out these excellent sites to begin YOUR international job search:

Jobs Abroad
Teach Abroad
National Association of International Educators (NAFSA)
Craigslist (Search Europe/International Jobs)
Dave’s ESL Cafe
Expat-Blog (read success stories and get tips from other expats)

I quit my job. It felt SO good. I’ve worked as an English teacher for two full months now and I’m glad to say that it’s done. I was teaching more classes than any teacher should reasonably teach in a week, which was punishing at times but resulted in me saving a good chunk of money. Now I’ve started to look at the map of Vietnam and I am dying to see what the rest of the country holds.

So Jen and I are headed north. We plan to hit beaches, temples, cities, and everything in between. Over the next four weeks you will be seeing updates from us from various locations around Vietnam. It’s time to get out of the city!

Rich by Vietnamese standards, but it's really not all that much.

I found myself asking this exact question this week.

I’ve been working a ton which has directly contributed to this burnt out feeling. My hours at school have increased so now I have five permanent classes and I’ve been substituting as well. At home, I average a 60 hour work week so I’m no slouch to hard work but 40 hours a week here feels like an eternity. Part of this is that I haven’t mastered the whole “teaching” thing (hopefully soon), so I still need to do some preparation for my classes, and the actual teaching does not come naturally yet. Another reason is that I have to commute by  motorbike quite a distance (1 1/2 hour round trip) a couple days a week for a two hour class through crazy Saigon traffic. Normally this would be relaxing but because of the rush hour chaos on the streets, I do not look forward to it. And the last reason it feels longer and harder than it should is because I work every single day. Some days are only 4 hours of evening classes, but having that looming over my head throughout the morning and afternoon prevents me from being able to truly relax. It’s now been one month without a full day off.

And I’m starting to feel the effects.  That combined with a nasty head cold this week caused me to become a bit of a cranky bitch. I can feel it starting to set in – that painful “Ah crap, I have to work today” feeling. Dragging myself to work. The patience wearing thin. Wanting to curl up with a bucket of Häagen-Dazs and pretend I’m at home in my awesome condo with my awesome job and my awesome friends. But like Willard says in Apocalypse Now: “Saigon… shit; I’m still only in Saigon”.

I figure it’s just a phase. The ups and downs of traveling are often exaggerated, and this is simply the reality of doing what we do. It’s not all ponies and rainbows. I do realize that I’m doing something really awesome in a foreign country and I’m trying not to lose sight of that. I get two days off for Christmas so Serene, Jen and I are headed for the beaches of Mui Ne -hopefully that will reinvigorate me. But sometimes a gruelling 9 hour teaching day makes me seriously consider what the hell I’m doing here.