Hello there! I'm overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information (and misinformation!) on ESL and decided to introduce myself to get my feet wet. I have no valuable information for anyone (yet!) so feel free to skip this post if you like. :P

I had the unique pleasure of teaching English to 15 students from Guangdong Province in China back in 2001 and loved every minute of it. Unfortunately the organization I taught with was secretly a missionary organization. All the students were placed in Christian homes that promised to take them to church every week, and I was not asked back again when the owner discovered that I am not a Christian.

That's neither here nor there--I loved the experience and would gladly repeat it in any nation. I was a freshman in college in 2001, and am now financially stuck 10 credits from a bachelor's at the University of Notre Dame. I'm tired of working two jobs that barely cover the rent and don't do much for student loans, and I'm kicking around the idea of teaching abroad if a clean, honest school with good students and programs will take me. I have asthma, so putting up with poor living conditions is not an option!

I am trying to contact the school that sent students to me before. They encouraged me to look them up once I had a degree, but that isn't going to happen for a few years. I miss teaching terribly, and believe I could put up with the alice-in-wonderland bewilderment and disorientation of plunking myself into a foreign nation just to be able to live, teach, and pay off some of those loans so I can afford to finish my education!

My one claim to fame is that I loved the work and excelled at it. It does help that I had complete academic freedom within the confines of the curriculum (there were things I had to teach, but I could do it my way and there was a lot of wiggle room) and the best students anyone could ever dream of.