RIGHT after finishing the advanced Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) course, passing the certification test and awarded the certification to teach English as a foreign language anywhere in the world, I breezed on a world tour of about half a dozen countries in the world teaching English to not just residents but even immigrants there as well. My students vary from pre-school to adult ones but all with the same goal – they are curious to know English. Some are Korean kids visiting the Philippines who are enticed by their parents to learn English because they think it’s the universal language and it’s good business sense, others are lawyers from France and from Japan who want to learn English so they won’t be duped by their American and Irish counterparts at work. Sure there are translators and legal safety nets but nothing really beats if you’ll learn English yourself. There was even this one instance while I was teaching Japanese kids when I was hired by Bad Robot Productions (the company behind Mission Impossible 3) to tutor one Hong Kong-based actress and a 12-year-old Japanese girl the basic accent in speaking English as a second language for a huge Hollywood production. And the people who pay me were not even the Chinese actress and the Japanese girl – it’s the production company owned by J.J. Abrams. Considering that it’s a highly budgeted production, I was paid indeed well. And that’s just on the side. My coaching session with the two actresses lasted six months. But my regular tutorials with the Japanese kids never stopped while I was coaching those two actresses. So I can really say that teaching English as a foreign language does pay.

My first stint in teaching English language was in the Philippines and not in Manila though. It’s in Mindanao where Western countries like us here in the United States often issue travel advisories not to go to. With the recent terror attacks at the heart of London, I’m still wondering whether these travel advisories targeting Third World countries are still relevant. My first gig here in Mindanao was a port city located in its northern portion called Cagayan de Oro. To my surprise, I wasn’t teaching English to the residents here. Most people here were pretty adept in English. My task was to teach English to South Koreans who are billeted here for a two month vacation. It was winter in there country and they were vacationing in the Philippines. While the adults were busy playing golf and the teenagers were busy partying, younger children were engaged in three hours of English tutorial per weekday.

The pay was not that good compared to my Japanese gig which would come later but it already sufficed stuffing my bank account. After my two-month stint with the Korean kids, I got to go to Sulu, which used to be a rebel lair but now filled with US troops. It was there that I taught English to Muslim elementary kids. I felt the enthusiasm of young Filipino Muslims who wanted to be taught English. I was paid by USAID then. Of course, they pay much better than the Koreans.