{"id":2168,"date":"2016-05-19T16:42:38","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T20:42:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/?p=2168"},"modified":"2017-01-27T16:29:27","modified_gmt":"2017-01-27T21:29:27","slug":"why-different-is-ok-when-teaching-english-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/why-different-is-ok-when-teaching-english-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Living in a Foreign Country is Different and That\u2019s OK [VIDEO]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this video, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/tesol-tesl-tefl-course\/instructors\/\">Oxford Seminars instructor<\/a>, Jennifer Goodnow discusses how living in a foreign country is different. She admits she was initially overwhelmed with all the changes she faced while teaching English abroad in Japan. Many things were different, unfamiliar, and confusing, but then she came to the realization that, just because it was unfamiliar, that didn\u2019t make it wrong, only different from what she had known. This helped her adjust to her new surroundings while teaching English abroad and has become a life lesson that she takes with her wherever she goes and whatever she does.<\/p>\n<h2>Enjoy Living and Teaching ESL Abroad<\/h2>\n<p>This lesson is applicable to people who are new to traveling and concerned about what it will be like living in another country, as well as experienced travelers looking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/teaching-abroad\/where-you-can-teach\/\">teach English in another country<\/a>. You shouldn\u2019t try to recreate your life at home while in your new country, or compare your life at home to the one you lead abroad. Instead, simply embrace the differences between the two without directly comparing them or trying to label one as better or worse.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/H19QKawIZ8M\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"TextRun SCX10935307\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX10935307\">Interested in learning more about living in an exciting new country and teaching English abroad? Want to learn where the jobs are, how much money you can make, and what you need to make it a reality? Sign up for a <\/span><\/span><a class=\"Hyperlink SCX10935307\" href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/teaching-abroad\/free-info-sessions\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer\"><span class=\"TextRun Underlined SCX10935307\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX10935307\">free information session<\/span><\/span><\/a><span class=\"TextRun SCX10935307\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX10935307\"> or <\/span><\/span><span class=\"FieldRange SCX10935307\"><span class=\"TextRun Underlined SCX10935307\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX10935307\">download our course guide<\/span><\/span><\/span><span class=\"TextRun SCX10935307\" lang=\"EN-US\" xml:lang=\"EN-US\"><span class=\"NormalTextRun SCX10935307\">!<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Video Transcription<\/h2>\n<p>Jennifer Goodnow: \u201cWhen I lived in Japan, everything was really, really different and I had a hard time at first. The food especially was really, really different, and I got to the point where I was having such a hard time lining up my experience in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/country\/japan\/\">Japan<\/a> with what was \u2018normal\u2019 in my head that I got to the point where I had to decide for myself \u2018It\u2019s not good. It\u2019s not bad. It\u2019s just different.\u2019 And I have to say that changed my life. I talk about that every single time I teach an Oxford Seminars class because that\u2019s a decision that I think all of my students have to make too. You cannot hold what you are experiencing up against your own experience from back home. It just doesn\u2019t work, and you can\u2019t compare. And so getting to that \u2018It\u2019s not good. It\u2019s not bad. It\u2019s just different\u2019 helped me a lot in Japan, and it continues to help me today. It helps me to work with people from all different countries and all different places who approach life differently than I do and not judge them, and that\u2019s been huge. That\u2019s been the biggest life experience to date.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this video, Oxford Seminars instructor, Jennifer Goodnow discusses how living in a foreign country is different. She admits she was initially overwhelmed with all the changes she faced while teaching English abroad in Japan. Many things were different, unfamiliar, and confusing, but then she came to the realization that, just because it was unfamiliar, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":2172,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[76,348,343,197],"tags":[8,133,179,90,178],"class_list":["post-2168","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-asia","category-bachelors-degree","category-travel","category-video","tag-culture","tag-japan","tag-life-abroad","tag-teaching-english-abroad","tag-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2168"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3347,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2168\/revisions\/3347"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2172"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2168"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2168"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.oxfordseminars.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2168"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}