Hi everyone,

I’m John. I started teaching ESL to students of all ages in Jakarta Indonesia in 2009, and since then, I have been teaching students all over the world.

I am from a small town called Birkenhead, which is in Merseyside, England. Merseyside is well-known for its football teams Liverpool and Everton and also a famous band called The Beatles.

In 2009 I decided to leave the rainy weather of England and go to the more tropical Jakarta, Indonesia

Thinking I would be surrounded by beaches and sunshine, I was surprised to find a very big and busy city full of tall buildings and many traffic jams. This is where I started my teaching journey and where I starting teaching for English First. This is the place I started to gain experience and become the teacher I have become today. In my four years in Jakarta, I became senior teacher and for a short time Director of Studies before I decided to leave for the much colder climate of Russia.

My first stop in Russia was at St. Petersburg, this is where I did a Summer English camp and also supervised and created theatrical plays for the parents and friends to come and Watch. This was a very interesting time in my ESL career as this was something totally new to me and seeing my students perform is one of my best memories of being a teacher.

After the Summer finished, I moved to the capital city of Russia and yet another big city, the city of Moscow. I think I would say this was the most difficult time in my teaching career. Not because of my students, but because of the long cold Winters. These Winters seemed to last forever, month after month of -30+ weather made it very hard to motivate me, but because of the students and the love I had for teaching it made it easier to walk through the cold and snow each and every morning.

After 2 years it was time for a change again, and I decided to go a little more south where the Winters were less cold. I moved to a very small village called Zlate Moravce which is in Slovakia. Here I worked for a small family English school, which was also the only English school in the village.

In my 2 years at this school, I helped the business grow and often visited junior and high schools to talk about learning English and motivate more students to want to learn.

The time in Slovakia was much different than in Indonesia and Russia as I was in a smaller community where I got to know many of the people in my neighborhood, I felt like a bigger fish in a small pond and this sense of family and community made me feel very welcome compared to being just one of the millions in the bigger cities.

And this brings us to today, After leaving Slovakia I moved to Florida, USA, and have been working online as an Esl teacher for 4 years now. Since then I have enjoyed working at home and not needing to worry about the busy traffic of Jakarta or the long cold Winters of Russia. Even though I enjoyed living in all of those places and loved teaching in classrooms and Meeting students, it also feels good to be settled in a new place that I know call my home.

It has been a journey of a lifetime. I’ve learned so much in my time as an Esl teacher. Culture, language and self-confidence are just a few areas I have learned about and I am looking forward to sharing that knowledge with you. This isn’t just a job to me; it is an adventure and an experience I would never want to replace and I am looking forward to continuing my story here at GlobeABC.

I hope you are excited about it too… See you in class.

John S.