Teaching English overseas is different from almost any other career that you're likely to become involved in. The complexities of life overseas make it an exciting choice, but they also create challenges that you're not likely to have experience dealing with. Whenever I talk to people entering the overseas English teaching industry, certain points keep coming up, and I have come to believe that recognizing a number of things about English teaching early on can make a big difference in how easy and successful your life teaching overseas can become.

The first point to recognize is that you will probably be teaching English for a long time. In this sense, teaching English is no different from other jobs, and as a result, it is just as easy to get caught in it as in any other line of work. Let's be realistic about it; if you have been teaching English (or working in any other kind of occupation) for 3 or more years, how easy will it be to go home and find a job in a completely different line of work? What's it going to be like after a few years and your friends are all in supervisory positions? It's not going to be so easy being in your late 20's starting all over. You may know lots of people who saved up some money and moved back into their old lifestyle without a seam, but having stayed in Asia for the past 15 years, I know all those people who didn't. And there's a lot of them! I'm not saying that you're going to end up in Asia teaching English until you die, but it's better to assume that you will be here longer than the year or so that you keep telling everyone.And if that's the case, start preparing for the long haul.

The reality is that you may be an English teacher for a long time. What opportunities shouldn't you let slip past? For example, don't throw away all those books and materials because you think you'll never have to use them again. Keep track of lessons that went well. Develop a system to keep track of things that you are going to use again. Become a better teacher. Invest in things that will make you the best teacher you can be and will allow you as a better teacher to get better jobs. Don't let the idea of cost in money and time become a barrier because this is an investment in your future.

Start considering occupational mobility early on. What is the next thing you want to be doing in language teaching? Do you want to be running your own school? If so, there are things you will have to know about operations that are different from teaching skills. Start paying attention to how your boss runs his or her business, and instead of brushing off all those management problems as merely the inability of locals to manage foreigners properly, start thinking about how you would have handled it differently.

If you want to teach at a university, start preparing for that. Find out what universities in your area want from an instructor. There is a lot of grumbling on the Net over distance education, graduate degrees, and the recognition of certificates as qualification for teaching at the university level. Forget about it; do you want the job or not?

English teaching provides a good life. In fact, it can provide a life that's too good. You can slip into it even before you know you're stuck there. But what was comfortable when you were 25 isn't always so great when you're 40, so start now getting prepared for the move into something bigger and better.