9 things I learned about living abroad as an international teacher
I’m currently packing up my belongings to make the move back home after living and working for seven years overseas.
It was an easy decision to move abroad: I had been working as a teacher for the past four years in my hometown, and it was the height of winter, on New Year’s Eve, when I was driving home that made me realise that I no longer wanted to experience another cold, miserable December. It was an easy decision because my workplace was not a happy one. Resources were so limited that I used to see the melting snow trickle down the flat roof into the corridor for what seemed like months when I used to walk to my classroom each morning.
It was my manager in the last school I worked at back home who encouraged me to work abroad for a few years, and I’m glad I took his advice. Here’s what I learned:
1) Be prepared for a change in work/life balance.
My working day was much busier than when I was a teacher in Scotland. I would be at my desk by 7.30am, and even though the school day finished by 3pm, there were after-school clubs to run, parents evenings, or teacher training events to attend. There was also the rigorous lesson observation schedule to keep to. That was a complete change from my previous workplace, where my manager couldn’t be bothered completing lesson observations, and so no one gave me any formal appraisals of my work over the two years I worked there. Plus, I’d never been on a residential in my life; I was then getting to explore different parts of Thailand for a week with my year group as their tutor, such as Chiang Mai and Kanchanaburi.
I soon learned that I couldn’t continue scheduling my life around episodes of Come Dine With Me. Most nights I would come home and sleep. But I needed to find ways of coping with the busy-ness, which is when yoga and photography entered my life. I also learned that I get much more done in the morning, and I needed a morning routine to make the most of my time.
2) Students are the same but different
I taught in a very diverse and truly international school. It meant that I had to calm down with being so ultra-strict and severe in my manner, which came from being a new teacher in the state school system back home. I remember one parent meeting in Bangkok where the mum, who had been in touch with my head of department because she felt I’d been too harsh with her daughter about her lateness with homework, almost laughed when she saw me because I was not the Ms Trunchbull character she was expecting.
Throughout my time working abroad, I met wonderful students who simply wanted to know that you cared about their learning and you wanted the best for them — just like the students I taught back home. I grew to become more comfortable in my teaching style and more relaxed around my students. Being in closer working relationships with them, because of after school clubs and residentials, also meant that I had to drop my ‘tough teacher’ stance and be more myself around them.
Getting excellent personal development opportunities and working alongside brilliant colleagues who really nurtured their students and had outstanding subject knowledge helped me to continue improving and reflecting on my teaching practice.
3) You will learn to speak English more clearly, confidently, and S-L-O-W-L-Y (especially if you have a regional accent.)
I don’t think anyone — including my British colleagues — understood a word I said that first year I worked in Bangkok.
There was much confusion (and hilarity) when the head of school mimicked my accent, because I had talked about ‘joh’ers’ (jotters) when talking about exercise books to his son. Apparently, that’s a very Scottish expression. In all the schools I worked in back home, they’d also call cover lessons ‘please takes’ — when I called them that in Bangkok, there were some befuddled expressions and my manager wondered why I was asking about the police.
I quickly learned to not blur the endings of my words and to really enunciate properly. I have a North-east Scottish accent, plus I’m quite softly spoken, and to make things worse, I was shy and unsure of myself, so I was the queen of mumbling. I had to disabuse myself of my misgivings and really own what I wanted to say.
4) Becoming less embarrassable is part of the fun
I have always been self-conscious about wearing revealing clothes, but when you’re living in 40 degrees plus heat with stifling humidity, wearing long-sleeved, baggy clothes just isn’t an option. I had to not worry so much about what other people thought about my appearance.
There was another time at work when I forgot we had to do our water safety training. I had to buy a new swimsuit from the school shop and didn’t ask anyone if they had any make-up remover, so I must have looked like an Asian Alice Cooper after I got into the pool.
There are also so many cringe-y moments which happen when you live in a culture that’s quite different to your own. Being bigger than a size 2 meant I’d always be considered big compared to Thai women, and accept it as no big deal when some of the shop assistants would openly comment about it in front of me.
5) Overcoming homesickness will make you stronger
I really wished I could be zapped back to my mum’s living room, with my family around me, when I came back home alone every night. It was hard as an acute introvert to suddenly be around all these vibrant, confident colleagues who all seemed to be getting on so well with each other when I struggled to maintain a simple conversation with them. I also struggled with being part of an expat bubble where expats do everything together. But eventually, I got past my fears and made friends with more like-minded people not only from work, but also from yoga classes and a photography Meetup group.
Getting over my longing for home made me realise that I was clearly much more resilient than I gave myself credit for. There were a few people who started working at the school with me who seemed super-confident, only to leave early or break contract. There were times when I seriously contemplated it myself, but overcoming my loneliness and the emotional pain of being so far from my loved ones proved to me that I could cope with living in a very different culture to my own.
6) And going home will make you desperate to return abroad
I soon realized when I would go back to Scotland each summer how life is too short to be watching endless re-runs of Come Dine With Me. As much as I missed my family, the relentlessly grey weather and the expense of doing anything as soon as I stepped outside my parents’ flat would soon have me pining for the tropical heat of Bangkok again.
7) The weather controls your life
It wasn’t so bad in Bangkok, but certainly in other parts of South-east Asia, I learned to not get so grumpy if a flight would be delayed for hours due to a typhoon. And if it’s monsoon season and you get stuck in a downpour, be prepared to sit in a shopping mall, or sit in a taxi for an hour or two.I didn’t want to be an expat brat, but it did challenge my very British approach to punctuality.
I learned that it wasn’t so much that people are being lazy or disrespectful if people don’t keep to time; it’s just that things are done differently, and it’s not possible in those circumstances to have the same expectations as I would back home.
8) Trying out new things is a regular occurrence
I would never have even contemplated running a half-marathon, scuba diving or going on yoga retreats before moving abroad. Not that I do any of these things anymore (I’m sure there were people who walked that half-marathon quicker than me!) but it did mean that I had changed my perception of what myself as being capable of doing. Plus, being an international teacher meant that I now had disposable income, which afforded me the chance to try out new and fun activities.
You also get to travel a lot in your spare time. Bangkok is a major travel hub and you could easily get a cheap AirAsia flight to so many other parts of Asia within hours. I must have only travelled to four countries before I moved to Thailand. At my last count I’ve been to 32. I would never have had the money to do that if I’d continued teaching back home.
9) You will make friends for life
Living abroad means a more transient lifestyle, and more transient friends, which I have always found difficult. So, having friends that I truly connected with, and with whom I could go on holidays and brunches, really meant a lot to me. I have really special memories with the friends I’ve made whilst living abroad; I know we will always keep in touch, wherever we might be in the world.
Originally published at https://medium.com on April 28, 2019.
