Watch a video every Sunday! They help and inspire you to immerse yourself ever deeper in your own unique adventure of living and teaching Engish in Prague.
It’s an intense and challenging experience to start both a new life and a new job in a new country at the same time, particularly if that country has a different language too! In the first month or two alone you have to get used to a new job, to battle through a number of administrative processes to obtain official documentation, and to learn how to order a beer in the pub at the end of an exhausting day!
But with a little determination (you might learn you have more of this than you previously thought!), you do overcome those challenges, learning so much along the way, and I believe that the whole process makes relocating and settling into a new country as magical and rewarding an adventure as any other out there.
After a few months you’ll know you’re starting to settle into the rhythm of your new country as you become familiar with public transport which in turn takes you on adventures to different cities and the countryside. You’ll slowly start to get to grips with the basics of the language – a crucial step in starting to truly connect to that country – and then finally and most wonderfully of all you’ll start to make friends with not only other Expats, but locals too. In my opinion there are fewer more beautiful experiences in life than sharing a meal and stories as a guest at the table of a family in a different country. It’s beautiful to realise that although different languages and histories ‘separate’ us, our shared values of what is truly important in life reconnect us.
The beauty of the TEFL qualification is that it is the key to unlocking the door to those experiences which also allows you to contribute to the lives of people in whichever country you find yourself by teaching the locals English and thereby increasing their possibilities of having similar experiences and adventures to your own in the future.
It’s difficult for me to articulate the enormous amount I’ve learned on my own journey in the last five years, so I have tried to break it all down, piece by piece, and share it in the form of short tutorial videos on my YouTube channel, ‘Paul Colto’, which I really hope will help other people who are considering starting a new life in a new country or becoming an ESL teacher.
I upload one video every Sunday and the content is currently 50% International Relocation Advice and 50% ESL Teaching Advice. The topics range from ‘How to deal with the terror of teaching your first lesson’ to ‘How to settle quickly in a new country’ to ‘How to teach a very tired or hungover student’!
Perhaps of most use to TEFL students who would like to work in Prague is this video following me around the city showing a typical day of an English Teacher in this beautiful city.
So please watch the videos, subscribe to my channel and add any extra advice from your own experience in the comments. I hope they help and inspire you to immerse yourself ever deeper in your own unique adventure!
Paul Coltofeanu has lived and worked as an English Teacher in Prague since 2013. Youtube, Twitter & Instagram: paulcolto
