It’s a mad world out there—and nowhere is that madness more perfectly captured than in the wild, weird, and often wonderful world of teaching English abroad. Getting paid in peanuts? Sure. Living out of a suitcase? Sometimes. Regretting it? Not for a second.

The Day the World Changed (and So Did I)

September 11th, 2001. The day the world held its breath.

Back then, I was living the corporate dream—an account manager in a multinational travel company. I had freedom, a decent salary, and even one of those fancy new laptops with email on it. (Yes, email was still considered space-age tech.) I worked from home or the office, met clients across the South of England, and thought I had life all figured out.

Until, well… everything changed.

Just as I was packing up to head home one afternoon, the news broke. Planes hitting buildings. New York. Then Washington. Chaos, fear, disbelief. The internet—still in its digital infancy—buckled under the pressure. I rushed to pick up my daughter from kindergarten, tried to contact my wife, and stared at the TV as those haunting images replayed on loop.

In the weeks that followed, the travel industry collapsed like a soggy deck chair. My job? On the rocks. My wife’s? Same boat. So what did we do? The only logical thing, of course—we booked a last-minute holiday to Dubai. (We clearly had the survival instincts of lemmings.)

“You Speak English. Maybe You Could Teach It?”

It was in the Dubai sunshine, sipping overpriced drinks and staring down a five-star hotel bill, that my wife had a brainwave:
“You’re English. You enjoy training people. What if… you became an English teacher?”

I nearly choked on my cocktail.

Me? A teacher? I didn’t even know what a “past participle” was. Grammar terms like “present perfect continuous” sounded like obscure diseases. And yet… the idea stuck.

Back home, I fired up Netscape Navigator (yes, kids, that was a thing before Chrome), and found a 4-week TEFL course in Wimbledon. I signed up. What could possibly go wrong?

The Course: Whiteboards, Wobbly Knees & Korean Housewives

Day one: twelve strangers. All nervous. All clueless. Our trainer? A bearded, laid-back guy who looked like he’d just returned from a gap year that never ended. He’d taught all over Europe and seemed to know everything. We hung on his every word.

That first week was a blur of grammar rules, phonetics, lesson planning, and panic attacks. On day two, they threw me into the deep end: a 30-minute lesson to real students.

Spoiler: I nailed it… in 17 minutes.

Cue awkward silence, panicked improvisation, and the dawning realisation that time slows down when you’re dying in front of a class. The feedback? “Nice energy. Now slow the hell down.”

I practised writing on whiteboards like a schoolkid with detention. I timed every activity down to the second. I taught Korean housewives how to order tea in a café and made my daughter roleplay confused foreign students at home. Slowly—very slowly—I started getting the hang of it.

Palm Pilots, Harry Potter & the Magic of Making It

Midway through the course, we had to teach our classmates something “non-English”. I proudly presented my Palm Pilot—a cutting-edge device that basically did what a cheap app does now. Others taught us Korean phrases and British Sign Language, both of which I still remember. (Can’t say the same for some of the grammar.)

By the end, we were bruised but battle-ready. The final teaching practice was looming, and I prepared like I was defusing a bomb—five hours of planning for one hour of teaching. When it was done, we all hit the pub… then wandered into a cinema showing a weird-sounding kids’ movie called Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Two hours later, I was a fanboy.

Oh, and I passed the course. Just in time to figure out what to do next.

The Accidental Interview That Changed Everything

Our original plan was Japan. Sushi, high-tech toilets, bullet trains. What’s not to love?

I applied for a job at a university there, but in a moment of strategic genius (read: desperation), I booked a “practice” interview with a language school in Bangkok. I figured it’d be good prep for the Japan one.

The Bangkok interview was on Skype. Ten minutes. Easy chat. No curveball grammar questions. And then came the twist: they offered me a job. Immediately. Starting in… five days.

Wait, what?

I hadn’t even done the Japan interview yet! But after some frantic discussions and the promise of Thai food, sunshine, and adventure, we said: “Why not?”

I packed a bag. My wife stayed behind to sort things out. I was off to Bangkok.