So why did I spend that $750 to get a TEFLOnline certificate?

Because I kept prolonging my class, it cost me a pretty penny. And, as I said in the previous post, it wasn't really necessary to have a TEFL certificate to get hired as an English teacher in Saint Petersburg.

It wasn't really necessary to the school, but it was to me. I would never have had the fortitude to walk into a classroom (or business meeting room, or student's home) if I didn't feel confident. The TEFL course made me feel very confident, and the reason was because it was really hard.

I had a great teacher, Dean Psaras, whom I would love to give a big shout out to. He was ROUGH! I hated him at one point, because he was so hard on me. My lessons came into him so sporadically and I was so all over the place (literally) but he always made me focus. He was a demanding jerk, but very fair (in hindsight).

My homework from the class has served me well in real-life classrooms. I use my homework all the time.

Ugh, this totally looks like an online advertisement, but it's not. I got no monetary breaks from my course and no one has paid me to post about it.

I can't express enough how much I love teaching English in Russia. I am kind of a broken record. It's not an easy job. It's quite taxing and difficult. I spend more time than I probably should preparing lessons, but I really care about my students.

Okay, I had to get this portion out of the way so I can actually start posting about what teaching in a foreign country is really like.

Teaching English in Russia

I will start from the beginning. I finished my TEFL Online course. It took me six months longer than it should have because I was trying to live in Russia at the time. (I had cashed out my retirement early and just moved. This is not possible for most people, I realize, but living in Saint Petersburg is nearly 10X less expensive than living in San Francisco, where I had been living previously.) Before becoming a teacher, I could only get a commercial visa, which meant: every six months, I had to be out of Russia for 90 days.

Of course, if you arrive in Russia at 23:59 on a certain day then you have been in Russia the entire day, so 90 days actually meant closer to 110. Last year I traveled to 23 countries, following the deals, being out of Russia. I spent the summer in a lonely cabin in Finland, which I hope never to have to do again.
The wonderful thing is travel to Europe from Saint Petersburg is crazy cheap and only a couple of hours, mostly. It's not like traveling to Europe from America. And I am not allergic to really crappy hotels (or cabins), so that always helps. I also have no problem eating anything cheap so it was easy for me.
BUT trying to keep up with my online studies when I was in a Polish (where the heck is it?) dive motel or in the Czech Republic in a (fantastic! to me) brutally Soviet-style hovel--with no internet--was really difficult. I pressed on where I could. In cafes, a lot of the time.

So I finished my TEFL Online course. Now what? I can read Russian fairly well, but I can't write it. I understand spoken Russian extremely well, but I can only speak it rudimentarily. Finding a job was overwhelming to me.

A friend here in Saint Petersburg sent me a link to a school "desperately in need" of native American English speakers. Their website stated they would only consider people with college degrees. I don't have one. I thought it futile but I called and was asked to come in the next day. I did.

I had all my papers in order, my certificate for having completed the Master's course along with Business and Children's EFL, plus the Grammar course. With an "A", I was quite pleased.

"A TEFL Certificate is preferred but not necessary. If you speak English natively, we want you," I was told. I started teaching the next day. What?!