The ESL for Life Journey begins.

We are very excited to share the beginning of our ESL for LIFE journey with all our readers.

What an adventure

This incredible adventure, with all it’s highs and lows along the way, has at times had us questioning our purpose.  Where is the Universe taking us?   We look back now knowing that the Universe has guided each purposeful step we have taken. And led us forward, to this very moment.

We cast our minds back to what we were thinking and feeling when we boarded that plane in Cape Town in March 2017.  We were excited, yet anxious and we both had a strong conviction that leaving the ghosts of the past behind us and venturing off into the unknown to start afresh, was what we both needed.  Asia held the key to a secret passage that would lead to a happy life and future together. 

Although we had visualized completing the TEFL course and teaching English somewhere in Thailand (even in a remote village), we had no idea how incredible this journey that awaited us, would be.  

 

When we think back to how it all started, there are so many people we are thankful and grateful for.

Thank you to so many people

Firstly we thank our children for their support and for being genuinely happy for us that we had found love together.  For understanding that this was “our time”.  Time to focus on ourselves and our future. 

We are also thankful for our family and friends, for their support, even though quite a few thought we were crazy.  How could we, at our age,  just pack up everything, throw caution to the wind, get on a plane without any definite plans or jobs and fly off to Thailand? 

There were those who never doubted us for a minute saying, “if anyone can do this,  it will be you guys.  The crazy care free happy hippy couple”. 

And there were others who tried to be the voice of reason.  The cautious ones who can’t throw caution to the wind and leave things up to chance.  They would not be able to give up the security and comforts of their  homes and lives .

And yet, they were all happy for us. 

Everyone, whether it be our children, our family, our friends, work colleagues, supportive or not, those that thought we were crazy, those who were genuinely happy for us and yet somewhat envious, have hopefully been part of this adventure with us, through our blog.

Our TEFL experience

We think of Linda Hanekom, a South African who owns a TEFL agency in Thailand.  Linda did everything to ensure that our transition from working middle class South African citizens, to unemployed, over 50 TEFL students and foreigners in a strange country, went smoothly.

And Kathryn Webb, the part owner of Samui TEFL.  Kathryn was an excellent trainer, who not only taught us how to teach English to foreign students but who also imparted her own knowledge, experiences and skills to us, in the few short weeks of the course.  We both successfully completed the TEFL course,  only to find that as we did not have degrees, we could not teach legally in Thailand.

After chatting to Gaye Wells, a past work colleague and friend of Mandy, and her daughter Jayne Wells, an ESL teacher in Siem Reap (who ironically is now our next door neighbour), we made the decision to travel to Siem Reap.

Cambodia here we come

We think of Craig Ellman and are thankful for his referral to Nico Millen (CEO and founder of TEFL International Cambodia).  We’ll never forget that dark and eerie night we crossed the border into Cambodia and the relief we felt when we saw Nico waiting for us at the border post. We’re forever thankful to Nico and his lovely wife, Sonnette for their hospitality.  After a short stay with them in Koh Kong, Cambodia and with Nico’s help and our visa’s sorted, we made our way to Siem Reap to seek employment.

Within the first few weeks we had found an apartment and teaching jobs.  We both gained valuable experience teaching Conversational English at the Western International School and Mandy went on to teach in 2 International Schools as both a kindergarten teacher and the Head of Kindergarten.  As Head of Kindergarten, Mandy was in her element as she was running Operations again. But unfortunately, once she had implemented all she had set out to do, the school decided they no longer needed her services.

Online teaching

Somewhat disheartened and disillusioned with teaching at another school in Cambodia, the idea of being able to travel while teaching online started to appeal to us.  Could online teaching be a door, leading to another world and all we needed to do was to find the key?

Learning to teach on an online teaching platform was a huge challenge for Mandy, who felt technologically challenged at the time.  If it wasn’t for Richard’s positive and calming effect on her, her laptop would have found itself either out of the window and floating on the pool down below or smashed against the nearest wall. 

This journey to Asia, has been an eye opener  for Mandy who always thought she was a patient person.  She has come to realize that although she has strong life coping mechanisms, she has very little patience when she is not in control of a situation.  Asia has taught her and continues to teach her, patience.

Hellokid and Lingokids

After a short stint with Hellokid (ironically the first company cousin Juan is now working for), and Mandy having to learn how to soften her voice, smile more, give praise often, be less stern and more child friendly, an opportunity arose with a new start-up online company, Lingokids.

As online teachers are in huge demand at the most inconvenient times, we decided that in order to make this work for us, we would sacrifice our weekends. Mandy would be available to Lingokids during their peak hours from a Friday to Monday.  A decision which would proof to be the best decision we could have made at the time.

Teaching for a start up online company presented many challenges.  Having to deal with system changes and upgrades, technical issues, booking and time zone problems and teaching from materials that were not always age appropriate. This was frustrating and stressful at times but both gained valuable knowledge and experience.  The teacher as well as her technical and moral support.

Finally after 6 months of building relationships with students and parents,  growing and maintaining a regular student base, Mandy had finally reached an income goal that she had been working towards since she started 6 months ago and she was ready to celebrate.

A bitter-sweet celebration

So you can imagine when she received and read that email from Lingokids informing her of their decision to shut down their online division and her subsequent notice, she was numb with shock.  It felt like her victory balloon had just been stabbed with a very sharp needle and had deflated before it even had a chance to float.

How could this be happening?  Why was this happening?  Why now? 

All the usual thoughts we as humans have when something out of our control changes.  We allow our thoughts to take control of us.  We focus on these thoughts and sometimes fail to see the light that is shimmering in the darkness.  Our journey has taught us both that we are in control of our thoughts and not to allow our thoughts to control us.  So after a brief moment of feeling deflated, Mandy pushed these dark thoughts aside and quoted her mantra, “THE BEST IS YET TO COME”.  Bring it on Universe.  we am ready and waiting.

Lying in bed that night, we thought about everything we had read, learned and were trying so hard to put into practice in our daily lives. The principles and teachings of Jesus and Buddha and the insights shared by many modern day spiritual teachers like Eckard Tolie and Jack Cornfield.  Authors of various books we had recently read like Micheal Neill, Rhonda Byrne, Byron Katie, Luis Miguel Falcoa and even Oprah Winfrey and the insights she and her guests have shared on her Super Soul Sundays.

Ready for new beginnings

While lying wrapped up warm and safe in Richard’s arms with her head on his shoulder Mandy thought, tomorrow is a new day.  So bright and early she would start looking for online work.  With the experience she had gained and Richard to help her learn a new online teaching platform, she would just start over and build up a new student base over the next few months. 

By the next morning, Mandy had changed her energy frequency.  She was positive  and determined that the Universe had something bigger and better in store.  She would find employment with another online company that had more to offer than Lingokids? 

Looking for work again?

She was on a mission to find new online work.  So when the parents of Mandy’s Lingokids students started asking her whether she would consider teaching privately, it took Richard to sit her down, to get her to breathe, to still her thoughts and to see that light of opportunity that was shimmering there in the distance.

The law of attraction has taught us that in order to manifest the lives we want, when an opportunity presents itself in line with what you are projecting, that you need to act on it.   Had the Universe been preparing us for this opportunity that was now presenting itself and were we ready?

The birth of ESL For Life with Teacher Mandy

Richard could clearly see the opportunity.  A new bright and colorful balloon to blow their positive energy into. An opportunity where they could work together and combine their experience, skills, knowledge and creativity.

Once they had both agreed and were willing parents of this new born venture, the creative ideas, images and concepts just started falling effortlessly into place.  They went to sleep that night knowing that the last 18 months had brought them to this point. And they were inspired.

Inspiration

 

The following morning, their eyes were drawn to a bright colourful wall hanging in their room, as it gently moved to the breeze from the ceiling fan.  As the wall hanging moved gently, the painted elephant seemed to be moving and breathing with life of its own.  This amazing creature. Known for its memory and who never forgets would be the perfect logo for ESL for LIFE.

Why the Elephant Logo?

 

 

As a South African, the wild animals of Africa are very dear to my heart.  Out of the BIG 5, the elephant is known for its strength and it’s MEMORY.  There is a famous saying, “An elephant never forgets”.  It is my goal as an ESL Teacher to instill in my students a love of English, to teach them vocabulary and conversational skills that they will not forget. 

English they will commit to memory FOR LIFE.

From concept to reality

While lying in bed and chatting about how they would present their lessons, Mandy recalled the Bitmoji that Nicole had sent her for Mothers Day.  They created bitmoji characters of Nicole, Wesley and Keagan. The “main characters” for the ESL for LIFE lessons started to take form.

They brain stormed various ideas for lessons, themes, subject lines and concepts. Then Richard went and sat down in front of his computer and the creativity just started to flow.  He was unstoppable.  There were nights where Mandy could not get him away from his computer. She would go to bed alone and finally fall asleep. Only to wake up the following morning to find Richard still sitting in front of his computer designing and creating.  Leaving Richard in his creativity bubble, Mandy set about drafting agreements, policies and putting systems and procedures into place.

ESL for Life comes alive

After 6 weeks of brainstorming and working together side by side, we have designed a logo and put together an agreement and an application form. We  forwarded our proposal to parents, sourced teaching materials, games, songs and ideas. We’ve drafted lesson plans for beginners, intermediate and advanced levels, designed lesson preparation packs, marketed these lesson plans to parents. We set up an invoicing process, set up a payment process, received applications, processed invoices, received and documented payments, booked and scheduled online lessons,  implemented  administration and record keeping systems and put processes and procedures in place.

We have students

And we are very happy to share that ESL for LIFE now has 15 registered paid up students for the month of  September, (some students taking up to 3 lessons a week) and 7 pending applications awaiting payment.

 Teaching starts  on Saturday, 1 September 2018 and we are fully booked for Saturdays, Sundays and Wednesday evenings for the next month. 

We cannot believe what an awesome response we have had from the parents and students. And we are deeply grateful and thankful.

The most rewarding part of it all is that we are being remunerated for working together. For doing something we enjoy and something we can do anywhere in the world. 

The world is our oyster

We recall something Linda Hanekom said when we first met up with her in Bangkok.  She said, “One night in Bangkok, one year teaching in Thailand and the world is your oyster.”

Well Linda, it was one night in Bangkok but one year in Cambodia and YES the world is our oyster.