Rolling with the Changes COVID upended a dream of teaching English abroad. Instead, the world came to me By Julie Fanselow In February 2020, I traveled to Mexico to take an intensive four-week course in teaching English. I did it both as a sabbatical from my long career as a freelance writer and editor and as a possible entrée into a retirement career I could take abroad. But mostly, I relished the challenge of being in a classroom for the first time in decades, both as a student—at 58, I was the oldest person in the class by nearly 20 years—and as a teacher. It was a rewarding experience, even if I was unsure whether or how I’d use the teaching certificate. My days in Guadalajara were filled with lesson planning and student teaching; my evenings were often spent online surveying the wide
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3rd Act magazine | fall 2021
array of English teaching jobs around the globe. Maybe I’d apply to be a conversation assistant in Spain, where native English speakers work about 15 hours a week in the public schools, leaving plenty of time for travel. Perhaps I’d join the Peace Corps, or work my way around the world teaching informal “coffee shop English.” But as the course neared its conclusion, my options became clouded by the specter of a strange new virus, its impact becoming more dire by the day. I arrived back in Seattle on March 1, 2020, feeling very much at loose ends. A few days later, I attended a volunteer orientation at Literacy Source, a hub of English language
and citizenship classes in Seattle’s Lake City neighborhood. I was intrigued, but I decided not to apply, wanting to keep my travel options open. Although it had become clear by mid-March that no one would be traveling anywhere for a while, many of us hoped that the pandemic would be contained by summer, maybe fall. Yet, as 2020 wound down and international travel prospects remained murky, I finally decided to volunteer as an assistant teacher in Literacy Source’s morning conversation class held twice a week on Zoom. As I write this, I’ve just wrapped up my second quarter of volunteering, and I plan to return later this year
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