My Teaching Experience Abroad
I taught abroad in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia for a brief time during the summer of 2011, and, while my own experience teaching abroad may or may not be of any interest to the reader, I have decided to include it for the sake of those who might also like to teach in Mongolia and because I would like to be transparent as to my motives for compiling this text.
Honestly, I had toyed with the idea of teaching abroad for a few years before stumbling upon the opportunity to do so in Mongolia, and I would never have discovered this opportunity had it not been for the fact that I was good friends with some Mongolian college students. Luckily, though, I did have friends at the National University of Mongolia (NUM), and, one day, as I was reading about their university, I discovered that the school supported professional and preservice English teachers who would like to teach in the surrounding community of Ulaanbaatar. Excited at such a prospect, I put together the requested curriculum vitae, wrote a cover letter, and emailed my application. Much to my surprise, I received a response stating that, while local schools were not in need of teachers during the summer, I could teach an informal English class at NUM. My plans for the class were requested, so I immediately began asking for advice and digging through textbooks so that I could write a curriculum plan for the class.
Now, I debated including the next part of the story, but I will do so because I want to give an accurate description of what it can be like to teach abroad.
I did not hear back from the university after I sent my curriculum plan.
Of course, I was concerned, but I decided that perhaps they had not received my email. I sent another email, a copy of the first with a brief message added, and received no reply. At this point I concluded that, for whatever reason, the university no longer required my services. I was very busy with work and school at the time, so I chose not to dwell on the rejection and instead focused on the work at hand.
The summer began, and I still had heard nothing from NUM. I had been planning to complete my Spanish minor by studying abroad in Spain, though, so I left for Madrid in June and immersed myself in Spanish culture. Towards the middle of June, I thought of my attempt to teach in Mongolia and realized that, even if the university did not need or want me to teach, I should still try to tie up any loose ends so that there would be no awkwardness if I was to try to work with NUM again. Thus, I wrote a brief email thanking the university for considering me, and stating that, while it appeared as though my services were not needed at the time, I hoped to stay in touch in case an opportunity emerged in a local elementary or secondary school.
Within forty-eight hours I received a reply. The coordinator of the program at NUM had been very busy, but she had organized a class and looked forward to seeing me in July. And that was how I ended up teaching English to two classes composed of university students and community members at the National University of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar.
The course was structured as a conversation class for intermediate level students, and it lasted ten days, five before the national holiday of Naadam, and five immediately following. I can honestly say that the experience for me was like riding on a very well-designed roller coaster. The highs were very, very high, and some of the lows were surprisingly close to the ground. I realized on the first day that my students were all highly motivated, which would make my job much easier, but that they had very different ability levels. This was the first time I had ever taught by myself, and I did not feel equipped to handle the challenges this class presented. Nevertheless, I think most people find ways to equip themselves for challenges that they cannot avoid, and I tried to do the same. I adapted my teaching by including additional support in the form of vocabulary lists for students who knew less English as well as incorporating more challenging idioms and conversation topics for advanced students. This seemed to work well, though, if I could go back and teach the class again, I would incorporate some kind of activity at the end of each day to find out what kind of prior knowledge the students would be bringing to the following day’s lesson. Doing so would have allowed me to feel more confident about what I was teaching and to adjust my lesson plans to student needs and interests.
As for the highs and the lows, I will share those things that I think would be most useful for other prospective EFL teachers. First, sometimes I would ask students for feedback on a lesson so that I could make the next day’s lesson more useful, and I would interpret their responses as being very critical. Perhaps they were, but, because written responses to the final student survey were generally positive and constructive, I doubt this. Rather, I suspect that sometimes students of a foreign language do not always know the “niceties” that native speakers include when trying to convey constructive criticism. Anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language can probably attest to this, and so, in the future, I would take student suggestions seriously, as I did before, but not take less than politely-worded suggestions as personal attacks.
Additionally, on the first day of class I chose to assess student levels by asking them to write responses to some questions about themselves. While one of these questions did relate to their reasons for learning English, I feel that I did not have an entirely accurate understanding of my student’s expectations for the class because their responses were limited by their knowledge of English and my inability to converse with them in Mongolian. Thus, I think I could have improved upon this assessment by using a Likert Scale, which provides a statement and then allows students to circle a response ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” (Beers 140).This would have allowed students to rank the degree to which they were learning English for a particular reason. I will include my ideas for this later in the guide, though. The point is that I taught the class to the best of my ability and ended up with many ideas on how to teach it better, and that, while this left me feeling frustrated with myself for time, this is probably normal. I suspect that many first-time teachers, both in the United States and abroad, feel this way, and that EFL teachers should probably be prepared to learn almost as much about teaching as their students learn about English at first.
The last of the lows that seem worth mentioning is actually something that was outside of my control: food sickness. I would not even bring the whole ordeal into my writing were it not for the fact that it seems entirely likely that other EFL teachers have experienced or will experience some kind of illness abroad as well. Primarily, what I learned is that a teacher abroad is somewhat vulnerable in that he or she may not speak the language of the country and may not understand the medical system. I was lucky in that the friend that I was staying with happened to be related to a doctor who was willing to offer some suggestions, but to this day I am not entirely sure what kind of medication she gave me. All I know is that I was very thankful to have a bilingual friend with connections to the medical community and that, while many schools do not require foreign EFL teachers to speak a language besides English, it is prudent to learn as much as possible of the language of the country in which one will teach.
Each “low” that I just described presented a challenge for me at the time, but I learned far too much from these experiences to regret any of them. Besides, the high points of my time in Mongolia far made up for the rough spots. The adventure that I think many of us look for when going abroad was certainly present, and, I suppose, would not have seemed nearly so exciting had everything been easy. People were kind, and they were very excited to share their culture with me. Some of my students even organized a surprise lunch after our last day of class, so we all went out to a restaurant which served traditional Mongolian food. Of course, they made sure to order a sheep’s head to share so that I would have a truly authentic experience!
I could go on about teaching in Mongolia, but I think I have said all that needs saying here. In short, this experienced changed the way that I think about the world, others, and myself, and, like a teabag that only gradually diffuses flavor into warm water, the time that I spent teaching in Mongolia is still making its way into different aspects of my life. Teaching abroad, even for a short time, was one of the best things I have ever done, and this guide is the culmination of my efforts to find out what it will take to become a successful EFL teacher for a longer period of time. I hope that readers also find that the information provided in the following pages is useful as they pursue dreams of going abroad as well.
Honestly, I had toyed with the idea of teaching abroad for a few years before stumbling upon the opportunity to do so in Mongolia, and I would never have discovered this opportunity had it not been for the fact that I was good friends with some Mongolian college students. Luckily, though, I did have friends at the National University of Mongolia (NUM), and, one day, as I was reading about their university, I discovered that the school supported professional and preservice English teachers who would like to teach in the surrounding community of Ulaanbaatar. Excited at such a prospect, I put together the requested curriculum vitae, wrote a cover letter, and emailed my application. Much to my surprise, I received a response stating that, while local schools were not in need of teachers during the summer, I could teach an informal English class at NUM. My plans for the class were requested, so I immediately began asking for advice and digging through textbooks so that I could write a curriculum plan for the class.
Now, I debated including the next part of the story, but I will do so because I want to give an accurate description of what it can be like to teach abroad.
I did not hear back from the university after I sent my curriculum plan.
Of course, I was concerned, but I decided that perhaps they had not received my email. I sent another email, a copy of the first with a brief message added, and received no reply. At this point I concluded that, for whatever reason, the university no longer required my services. I was very busy with work and school at the time, so I chose not to dwell on the rejection and instead focused on the work at hand.
The summer began, and I still had heard nothing from NUM. I had been planning to complete my Spanish minor by studying abroad in Spain, though, so I left for Madrid in June and immersed myself in Spanish culture. Towards the middle of June, I thought of my attempt to teach in Mongolia and realized that, even if the university did not need or want me to teach, I should still try to tie up any loose ends so that there would be no awkwardness if I was to try to work with NUM again. Thus, I wrote a brief email thanking the university for considering me, and stating that, while it appeared as though my services were not needed at the time, I hoped to stay in touch in case an opportunity emerged in a local elementary or secondary school.
Within forty-eight hours I received a reply. The coordinator of the program at NUM had been very busy, but she had organized a class and looked forward to seeing me in July. And that was how I ended up teaching English to two classes composed of university students and community members at the National University of Mongolia in Ulaanbaatar.
The course was structured as a conversation class for intermediate level students, and it lasted ten days, five before the national holiday of Naadam, and five immediately following. I can honestly say that the experience for me was like riding on a very well-designed roller coaster. The highs were very, very high, and some of the lows were surprisingly close to the ground. I realized on the first day that my students were all highly motivated, which would make my job much easier, but that they had very different ability levels. This was the first time I had ever taught by myself, and I did not feel equipped to handle the challenges this class presented. Nevertheless, I think most people find ways to equip themselves for challenges that they cannot avoid, and I tried to do the same. I adapted my teaching by including additional support in the form of vocabulary lists for students who knew less English as well as incorporating more challenging idioms and conversation topics for advanced students. This seemed to work well, though, if I could go back and teach the class again, I would incorporate some kind of activity at the end of each day to find out what kind of prior knowledge the students would be bringing to the following day’s lesson. Doing so would have allowed me to feel more confident about what I was teaching and to adjust my lesson plans to student needs and interests.
As for the highs and the lows, I will share those things that I think would be most useful for other prospective EFL teachers. First, sometimes I would ask students for feedback on a lesson so that I could make the next day’s lesson more useful, and I would interpret their responses as being very critical. Perhaps they were, but, because written responses to the final student survey were generally positive and constructive, I doubt this. Rather, I suspect that sometimes students of a foreign language do not always know the “niceties” that native speakers include when trying to convey constructive criticism. Anyone who has tried to learn a foreign language can probably attest to this, and so, in the future, I would take student suggestions seriously, as I did before, but not take less than politely-worded suggestions as personal attacks.
Additionally, on the first day of class I chose to assess student levels by asking them to write responses to some questions about themselves. While one of these questions did relate to their reasons for learning English, I feel that I did not have an entirely accurate understanding of my student’s expectations for the class because their responses were limited by their knowledge of English and my inability to converse with them in Mongolian. Thus, I think I could have improved upon this assessment by using a Likert Scale, which provides a statement and then allows students to circle a response ranging from “strongly agree” to “strongly disagree” (Beers 140).This would have allowed students to rank the degree to which they were learning English for a particular reason. I will include my ideas for this later in the guide, though. The point is that I taught the class to the best of my ability and ended up with many ideas on how to teach it better, and that, while this left me feeling frustrated with myself for time, this is probably normal. I suspect that many first-time teachers, both in the United States and abroad, feel this way, and that EFL teachers should probably be prepared to learn almost as much about teaching as their students learn about English at first.
The last of the lows that seem worth mentioning is actually something that was outside of my control: food sickness. I would not even bring the whole ordeal into my writing were it not for the fact that it seems entirely likely that other EFL teachers have experienced or will experience some kind of illness abroad as well. Primarily, what I learned is that a teacher abroad is somewhat vulnerable in that he or she may not speak the language of the country and may not understand the medical system. I was lucky in that the friend that I was staying with happened to be related to a doctor who was willing to offer some suggestions, but to this day I am not entirely sure what kind of medication she gave me. All I know is that I was very thankful to have a bilingual friend with connections to the medical community and that, while many schools do not require foreign EFL teachers to speak a language besides English, it is prudent to learn as much as possible of the language of the country in which one will teach.
Each “low” that I just described presented a challenge for me at the time, but I learned far too much from these experiences to regret any of them. Besides, the high points of my time in Mongolia far made up for the rough spots. The adventure that I think many of us look for when going abroad was certainly present, and, I suppose, would not have seemed nearly so exciting had everything been easy. People were kind, and they were very excited to share their culture with me. Some of my students even organized a surprise lunch after our last day of class, so we all went out to a restaurant which served traditional Mongolian food. Of course, they made sure to order a sheep’s head to share so that I would have a truly authentic experience!
I could go on about teaching in Mongolia, but I think I have said all that needs saying here. In short, this experienced changed the way that I think about the world, others, and myself, and, like a teabag that only gradually diffuses flavor into warm water, the time that I spent teaching in Mongolia is still making its way into different aspects of my life. Teaching abroad, even for a short time, was one of the best things I have ever done, and this guide is the culmination of my efforts to find out what it will take to become a successful EFL teacher for a longer period of time. I hope that readers also find that the information provided in the following pages is useful as they pursue dreams of going abroad as well.