Notes from the General Manager, by Diane Jacoutot

I’m writing this from a bed and breakfast in Ballymoney (love that name) in Northern Ireland. I’m here on behalf of Teachanywhere to do a presentation about teaching abroad to some trainee teachers.  This is part of our new campaign to reach out to teachers who are in the beginning of their career to educate them about what is available in the big wide world – what kinds of schools there are, what salaries/packages an NQT can expect versus a 5 year experienced teacher, and I even created a video montage out of bits of international school footage we have (no it’s most definitely not Hollywood quality. I won’t be expecting an Academy Award for best documentary).  I’m going to shoot off after the presentation to knock something off my Bucket List which has been there for many years – 5 miles down the road is the Giant’s Causeway which is a stunning rock formation.  It’s sort of on the way back to the airport. If you programme your SatNav to veer a bit north rather than south. Ahem.

Travel is one of the reasons people first get interested in going abroad, and it’s certainly one of the many advantages. When you are living in a foreign country you have access to all kinds of special rates and discounts, not to mention the ability to find out about ‘how locals do it’ which believe me is about 100 times cheaper than the way tourists do it!  One of the teachers we interviewed in Indonesia is really into scuba diving and mentioned that because some of the parents own dive shops he never pays full price for his dives, and often gets freebies.  Another teacher in Egypt told us about 11 pound (16 USD) hotel deals on the Red Sea which are available only if you have a residency card for Egypt.   And the list goes on.

Obviously you are going abroad to teach and I always say that you must be teachers first and travellers second when you are going the international school route, rather than the TEFL route which is more forgiving. But travel is an amazing feature of life abroad.  

Many teachers are on break this week, or just coming off break. I hope you have experienced your own adventures. The world is an amazing place and I can never see it all... but that doesn’t stop me from trying!