Teach English in YinghuZhen - Ankang Shi

Living Abroad as a Foreign teacher I have lived outside of my own country now for the better part of the last 5 years. The first two I spent in Malaysia, and the later three I have spent Living in Vietnam. I started my travels as a digital nomad online student. The first week of traveling was the scariest. I am an American. Most of my life I have lived in large cities and have a modest amount of experience with the American Outdoors. Within a 36-hour period, I would be thrusted deep into the Malaysian Jungles. The trees, the smell of the air, the sounds of the animals at night, all of it was all too alien. For many people in this village, I was the first white person they had ever seen with their own eyes. I drew a lot of attention and quickly learned my first Malaysian words, “Orang Puteh”(White Man). I doubted I could make it six weeks much less six months in such a foreign land. FastForward five years. Here I am, just having earned my Tesol/Tefl Certification. This will be the first year of me living abroad that I will have credentials for teaching. I have had some experience with impromptu lessons with friends, and some volunteering at a primary school in Malaysia. While I have had those few small experiences, I have not yet really had the full experience of teaching while having already witnessed so many other people doing it already. Likely the best resource I have found for living in Vietnam is the Abundance of special interest Facebook groups catered to expats and their community. There are groups for housing, employment, crime watch, and other interests. These groups have helped me tremendously on many occasions with many different things. These groups have me confident that I can find work once I renter Vietnam later this month. I have witnessed many people posting job advertisements with others seeking working, while witnessing the interactions that rapidly take place in this high demand environment. Being aware of and being able to access and utilize these resources has been understatedly the most important factor that has contributed to my success in living abroad. Teachers should be aware of expat communities and their social media hangouts in places they wish to live. They should learn them quickly and utilize them often in order to maximize personal chances of success. When living in Malaysia, I was never aware of such expat communities on social media. It was on my first trip to Hanoi I had learned about Hanoi Massive, it is an expat page that had over one hundred thousand members. It was a page for all and included all subjects, topics, and conversations. After relocating to Vietnam, I began to learn of the many other channels available too and was quickly able to use them to gain knowledge and navigate my new world. Of all of the resources a teacher can have access to, these social media channels that focus one their community within their geolocations can provide the best opportunity for all members to collectively share information opportunity and education, improving members chances of success.