How long have you been teaching English in Georgia?

I arrived in Georgia in January 2011 and renewed my original one semester contract twice, so I will be there until June 2012.

Please tell us about your job?

I work through the Ministry of Education program Teach and Learn with Georgia (TLG). They place volunteer teachers all over the country in public schools which can vary from small villages to large cities. Currently we teach grades 1-6 and additional activities with older students if desired. A typical day is teaching four 45 minute classes with a Georgian English teacher.

My original school was in a small village about 20 minutes away from the closest town. The school had 300 students, grades 1-12 and classes were typically 20-30 students each. The building was old and in desperate need of renovations. There was no electricity in the classrooms and the only heat came from wood burning stoves. The teachers I worked with were very creative with the limited resources.

There are 14 National Holidays where school is not in session and an additional month off from December – January thanks to Georgians celebrating Christmas and New Year both on the Julian and Gregorian calendars. Volunteers can return home for this month or use it to travel.

Why did you choose to volunteer rather than get a typical English teaching job?

I taught English back home in the States for a year to adult immigrants and discovered I really love teaching. I always wanted to live abroad so I did a lot of research on this program and felt it was right for me. I liked everything I read about Georgia through other volunteers’ blogs and wanted to go there more than any other location. I might not make a lot of money but I am very happy there, and it doesn’t hurt when you get treated like a celebrity by your students and the villagers.

How did you find your job?

I saw it advertised on Idealist.org from the Greenheart Travel Teach Abroad agency. I thought Greenheart was great in all the support they gave, free of charge, for the entire application process and putting volunteers in touch with each other to create a community before even leaving home.

Does your school provide accommodations, monthly stipends or pay for your travel expenses?

TLG has no program fee and provides volunteers with a round trip flight, one week orientation in a hotel, accommodation in host family houses, which includes a private room and meals twice daily, medical insurance, a cell phone that calls anyone else affiliated with TLG for free, and a monthly stipend of 500 Lari (about US$ 275) which is about average income in Georgia and enough to live simply. Volunteers are required to contribute 100 Lari monthly to their host family for rent and give private lessons to the family three hours per week. If you sign for two consecutive semesters, you get a pair 24 day vacation.

What are your rough expenses for entertainment and other costs?

If you live in a village or town it’s likely you will not spend much money all week, but the weekends are spent traveling for most volunteers. A night in a hostel can be 15-20 Lari (US$9 -12) dinner and drinks run about 10-20 Lari (US$6 -12). Many times you can find entertainment for free by going to Georgian supras, spontaneous feasts that happen for any and every reason and by going on field trips with your students. In general, things are very cheap in Georgia, you can get from one end of the country to the other for about 24  Lari (US$14) through the network of mini buses or trains. There are all kinds of ancient churches and ruins to visit, excellent hiking and camping in the Caucasus mountains, all of which are free or very cheap. If your host family does not have internet, you can purchase a USB Modem for 155 Lari (US$93) and monthly plans are between 15-45  Lari (US$9 – 27). For additional entertainment and frequent travel, a volunteer would need to earn more money or use their own savings.

Are there opportunities to earn income on the side?

I personally don’t do extra work, however we are allowed by our program to privately tutor anyone besides students in our school. Depending on where you live you could make an additional 100-300 Lari (US$60 -180) a month if you wanted to privately tutor. Also the ministry offers additional jobs, like teaching police or adult classes in the evenings for extra income.

Is it necessary to have teaching certificates or training to find volunteer teaching positions?

TLG Volunteers are not required to have a teaching certificate nor training. The requirements to apply are two years of university, pass a medical clearance and criminal background check, and an open mind.

What is Georgia like?

Georgia is unlike any other country I have ever been to. It is in the Caucasus region, between Europe and Asia. Georgian people have a proud history that goes back thousands of years. The culture there is more laid back and heavily family oriented. Living with a Georgian host family is an excellent opportunity to experience the culture fully. The food is also very unique, Georgians take pride int their foods, especially khatchapuri (cheesy bread) and khinkali (meat or potato dumplings). Food there is prepared fresh daily. Additionally, Georgia is known for its wine, it is one of the oldest wine producing regions in the world. Each little village has their own grape variety and most families make wine in their houses in the autumn.

As I mentioned, there are many great outdoors activities in Georgia. You can enjoy palm trees and beaches in Batumi in the summer and skiing and mountains in the winter. The people are known for their overwhelming hospitality, they will feed you cake and have you drink wine until you explode, or that’s how it feels sometimes. It’s a great problem to have. Georgia is the second oldest Christian country and they are very proud of their orthodox Christian heritage, yet generally very welcoming to people of all backgrounds. They tend to be socially conservative when it comes to gender and sexuality issues.

Is it a good place to travel from?

Georgia borders Armenia, Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia. It is across the Black Sea from Ukraine and a short relatively cheap flight from many European and Middle Eastern destinations. I have travelled to Armenia and Turkey, as well as Central Europe after my first contract ended last summer. Armenia and Turkey are the easiest to visit from Georgia, either one could be a weekend trip. We also get many holidays and vacation time which makes travelling a lot easier.

Do you recommend Georgia for other English teachers?

Georgia is an absolutely joyful experience for me, but it’s not for everyone. I wholeheartedly recommend it to teachers who are able to go with the flow. Time there operates on GMT – Georgia Maybe Time, planning ahead usually does not exist more than a few minutes in advance. If you can deal with a developing country and things like squat toilets, lack of central heat, intermittent electricity and running water, and being a local celebrity to the point where if you take a walk everyone in the village is talking about it the next day, then I think you would like Georgia. If you can throw yourself into a linguistically isolated language with its own alphabet, try new food and drink, bring a breath of fresh air to an education system making its way out of the Soviet era mentality, survive mad traffic patterns, then I think you would love Georgia.

What advice would you offer for others thinking of volunteering to teach abroad?

Do your research on the country and the program as much as possible. Talk to other volunteers if you can. If you think it’s sometime you would like, you probably will – so just do it! Don’t wait until later because later you might not have time. Don’t be surprised if you end up learning more about the world and yourself more than you teach.

Links
Teach and Learn with Georgia Official Site
Teach and Learn with Georgia Unofficial Guide (written by volunteers)
Greenheart Travel and Teach in Georgia:
Justine Flores on Facebook

Teach English in Ecuador

Jon Brandt volunteered to teach English in Ecuador for 11 months. He used WorldTeach to find and organize his teaching position. Jon shares his experiences living, traveling and teaching in Latin America in this interview.

How did you find your volunteer teaching job in Ecuador?

I volunteered with a program called WorldTeach, which is a non-profit based out of the John F. Kennedy Center for International Development at Harvard University. After applying for the program and being accepted, we were given choices for where we would like to live. The directors then did their best to assess where we should be placed. I was originally placed in a small city on the southern coast called Machala, but because of a couple of incidents I wound up switching my site to Cuenca, a city high in the Andes. So long story short, no one really knew where we would be placed or why we wound up somewhere, but the directors tried their best to put us where they thought we would fit.

Why did you choose to volunteer and why Ecuador?

I chose to volunteer because after being fortunate enough to attend a university in the United States for 4 years, I wanted to give back in some way that had to do with international service. I’d done some volunteer work in Montevideo, Uruguay for a spring break my senior year and decided that I wanted to come back to South America. I was interested in WorldTeach, but the only program in South America that really interested me was Ecuador. I’d heard that their Spanish was very easy to understand and learn, and since I knew nothing about the country, I thought it would be a perfect way to learn and become an expert on it in my own way.

How easy is it to find volunteer teaching opportunities?

I’ve met a lot of people who volunteer is some way or another. You could literally visit a town while traveling and wind up staying as a volunteer for months. You probably won’t make money and will likely have to spend your own, but if you really want to do it you can. In bigger cities it might be easier to find jobs but in smaller towns it will be harder, but perhaps more worthwhile.

How did you get your visa to stay for 11 months?

WorldTeach arranged and took care of all of the visa applications. Aside from some things we had to do like signatures, our directors handled it all, which saved us a lot of hassle.

How much did WorldTeach Charge?

It costs around $5000, plus some other little expenses like the injections. There are cheaper WT programs, and this is one of the more expensive ones.

Are there many paid teaching jobs in Ecuador?

There are a lot of paid teaching jobs, but they don’t pay much. Generally, you make just enough to get by. In cities like Quito and Cuenca you might get a little more, but that is to match the cost of living. In other places, you get paid less but the cost of living is significantly less.

Is it possible for teachers to arrive without a work visa and look for a job?

I think it’s possible to show up in a city like Quito or Cuenca and find a job, but it will be time consuming and most likely involve a lot of work on your part. I have friends in Cuenca who just showed up and found jobs at institutes, but they had to get someone to vouch for them for a cultural visa, which can be difficult if you don’t know anyone. Other people started the search before coming down and had a job waiting for them. But getting the visa in the country can be hard if you’re not in Quito or Guayaquil. You will have to travel to those cities to take care of it.

What is the cost of living in Ecuador?

Cost of living depends on the city and region. I lived in Cuenca, which is one of the most expensive places in the country. Rent there could run from $70-220 on the higher end, depending on how many roommates you have. Things are generally cheaper on the coast–a big bowl of ceviche or encebollado (local dishes) could cost between 80 cents-$1.25. No matter where you are in the country, a lunch shouldn’t cost more than $2.50 or it’s a rip off. A liter of  beer in a store could be 80 cents-$1.50, but in a bar could be more expensive. Living in Cuenca, I rarely spent more than $20 a night, and if I did was pretty upset. In other towns you might only need $5-10. But in Quito you need more, especially for taxis which cost more.

Did your school cover most of your expenses?

We got monthly stipends (when they paid us on time) which covered our rent for a host family and meals with the family. The remainder was ours to spend, but I never really had to dip into my own account unless I was traveling. The stipends depended on the site placement, but mine was $400 per month (though they originally only paid us $380 for about 6 months until we realized the problem). $200 had to go to our host families for food and housing, and the rest was ours.

How much savings should you plan on having to be able to volunteer for a year?

Save at least a couple thousand dollars as a back up, but as long as you live within your means, the monthly salaries should be enough to get you by.

What was the work like?

Everyone’s hours were different depending on their school, but we all worked no more than 20 hours a week and had vacations while receiving the stipend. I worked at a university, so I had mostly college aged kids, which was fun at times but also meant I had to deal with apathetic students who were tired and only took the course because they had to. So it was challenging in that I had to offer them something to bother caring about.

Did you have a lot of free time and holidays to explore the country?

I traveled a good amount on long weekends and vacations and saw a large portion of the country, as well as the Galapagos Islands. With our visa we were able to pay the Ecuadorian national price, saving us a lot of money. Transportation in the country can be difficult, so longer trips were usually saved for longer vacations.

Did your employer provide you with medical Insurance? If not, was it expensive?

WorldTeach provided us with Global Underwriters insurance, which was part of the fee for the program (the program fee was $4995 or so). Other things like Yellow Fever and Hepatitis shots, or Malaria pills were paid out of our pockets, at high prices.

Did you have computer and Internet access to blog and keep in touch with family?

My host family had an Internet connection so I was able to blog frequently, and the university had a computer lab also. But most families did not have Internet, and not all schools had it either. If that was the case, a volunteer would have to go to an Internet cafe when they had time. But the connections in Ecuador are generally slow and can be lost frequently.

Do you recommend volunteering and Ecuador for other English teachers?

I think volunteering was a good experience, though I know other people who went to Cuenca without paying for a volunteer agency and simply got a job. The same can be said in Quito. But if you want to get out of those cities and into smaller communities, volunteering is a better option. Ecuador is a great place to see some amazing cultures and diverse people. Though less traveled by tourists, it’s definitely worth spending time in.

What advice would you offer for others thinking of volunteering to teach English abroad?

I would recommend getting some experience at home, but not expecting a classroom overseas to be anything like that. I also suggest learning as much about a culture before you arrive–everything from history to etiquette at the dinner table, this way you can more easily assimilate into the society and truly learn about the place you’re in, rather than just scratching your head for 12 months and feeling like an outsider. Read books by local authors, watch the local news, and talk to people. Accept what they tell you, but ask other people for more information as well. Everyone has a different opinion in some way.

Links
Travel Guy Jon Brandt’s blog
La Vida Idealist Jon contributes to this blog about Latin America travel and volunteer opportunities
WorldTeach The organization that arranged Jon’s volunteer teaching experience

Teaching Jobs in Ecuador