(upbeat music)
- Hello everybody.
My name is Zach and welcome to my Instagram takeover
of my experience in Tulum, Mexico.
I just woke up, if you can't tell.
I need to get ready.
I just made my coffee.
Unfortunately there was a big storm.
It is hurricane season here,
so I don't have internet in my apartment.
I'll probably have to upload this video
when I get to school.
And I'm about to leave.
I have my first class at eight o'clock in the morning.
It's about 6:45 right now.
Hey guys, I am back.
I apologize for the lull there.
So yes, it is hurricane season here
and Tulum is a very, very small town.
It's located in a state called Quintana Roo,
and that is like one of the Southern-most states
that butts right up against Belize.
So if you would visit Tulum, you would fly into Cancun,
and it's about like a two hour drive south.
But again, yes, internet service can be very spotty,
especially when it rains.
So a little bit about me.
I am Zach, I am 29 years old,
and I am a teacher here at El Camino.
My journey to Mexico was actually very random,
and the reason I ended up in Tulum is also very random,
and I got extremely lucky.
So before this, I was dancing
as a professional ballet dancer for 10 years
in New York city with a company.
And then when the pandemic hit, that kind of
shut the company down for a very long time
and all arts and dance in the States for a while.
So, I decided to enroll in the ITA online course.
With that, I decided to actually move to Mexico before
I was even finished.
It was about September, when I
lined up,
or much of a plan, to be honest.
I just knew that I was like,
"I'm gonna make this work and it's gonna be great".
And all in all, it has been
an incredible, incredible experience.
How I found my school?
So, my school is called El Camino.
It is a private language school.
We teach English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German.
So there's three English teachers
and one teacher for each of the other subjects.
How I found it?
So, I basically was living in Tulum
and I was finishing my ITA course.
This was around October and I just typed into the internet
"International schools Tulum"
and amidst the pandemic, most schools had closed down
because there really wasn't much
government relief or support.
So I found El Camino,
and I called,
and I talked to my now boss, Stefan.
He is the director of the school.
I will show him a little bit later
and have him introduce himself.
And I was like, "Hey, I really would love
to observe and learn from you guys.
I need my observation hours."
So I was like, "Why not do it in person?".
And he was like, "Well, with COVID and everything,
we can't have you inside and observing classes".
It was a very vague conversation, very quick.
And he's like, "But you know, I'll get back to you
when a position opens up".
So I'm like, "Yeah, cool, awesome."
Like, so excited, I was riding my bike back to my Airbnb,
like so ecstatic.
I needed to figure out how
to get these observation hours.
And again, with the internet being insanely spotty,
teaching online was not out of the question.
I'm not saying that if you live in Tulum
or you live in Mexico, you can't online teach.
No, that's not the case at all.
Just with my internet that I have, it really
makes it hard to be consistent with
these consistent schedules that you have
with most of these online companies.
I waited a while, actually.
I had just finished my course and I was like, "Wow,
I need to get this done. Oh my gosh, what am I going to do?"
And I had no plans on going back to the States.
I was like, "No, I'm going to do this".
In Tulum, most business things are done on Facebook.
There's certain Facebook groups that you ask
permission to be a part of.
So there's one main group on Tulum Facebook
that is just kind of like a community forum.
And I posted on there offering private English classes,
gave the details, really focused it
towards the business English side.
I worked in restaurants
most of my adult life,
so I knew that I could probably teach really good
service skills, bartending skills in English.
So that's how I marketed myself, as that.
So they came to my house, my apartment,
and I would teach them for an hour
and they would pay me.
I charged really cheap and I got my hours done so quickly.
So yeah, it was a really awesome experience.
And I met a lot of cool local people that I still talk
to and hang out with today.
And so then, around Christmas time,
I got a call from Stefan and he's like, "Hey Zach,
I have a position open for you. Do you want it?"
I was like, "Oh,
yeah, let's do it, perfect".
So I started this job on January 1st.
My contract is for a whole year,
and then I'll have a chance to renewal.
And then in six months, we do a meeting to decide
about my salary and about my days off
and everything like that.
But all in all, I'm incredibly happy
and I'm really excited to share a day
in the life in Tulum with you.
(dog whimpering)
This is our school dog, Suzy.
I will now drop the question box in
so you guys can start sending me questions.
I do have a very busy day today.
This is our backyard.
So I'll try to get to all the questions that I can.
So yeah, send me anything, I'm excited.
I'm inside one of the classrooms right now.
We have four classrooms.
They're pretty small.
They're really pretty.
And there's the backyard.
So a little breakdown of my day.
I start every day at 8 a.m. and I have an hour and a half
group class, all adults,
ages of 20 to 50.
Altogether, there's six in this class,
but usually four or five,
sometimes there's some absentees.
And then right after I have a private lesson with a
intermediate-advanced adult as well.
She's around 28, 29 years of age,
and she works as a manager at a hotel in Tulum.
So a lot of her stuff is focused around customer service and
restaurant and hotel, and
a lot of permission requests,
but she's doing great.
And then right after I have children.
I teach two children's classes a day, one at 11
and one at five.
Ages from eight to 13, they're all together.
So, I have to do a lot of prep work with trying to make it
suitable for somebody so young, as well as an older student.
So our adult course is called SpeakEasy.
And it's basically level one, two, three, and four.
I teach level one and it's consists of 16 classes.
So it's four a week and 16 a month.
And this is an example of the card they get.
Today we're doing shopping, I have a few people
that work in boutiques in my first morning class.
So we're gonna focus on shopping vocabulary,
a lot of shopping conversation.
A lot of it's very conversation-based.
But again, I am responsible for all material.
And I'll show you where I get a lot of my material next.
This is the infamous wall of
everything you need as far as material.
We have books down there in all the languages.
We use "Four Corners", actually.
I love "Four Corners",
students that are on the chapter of review a textbook.
I love "Four Corners".
"English for Everyone", I was gifted by one
of my private English students.
And actually I really love it. It's a self-study book,
but there's free audio online.
And it's really nice, straightforward,
and really awesome for beginner students.
Here's our backyard.
This is honestly,
the coolest thing.
It's so fun.
Sometimes I teach classes out here.
If I have the children, we're gonna do some games,
Or if a private wants to be outside.
Like today, it's so nice because it rained.
We hold a lot of events here, weddings and all that jazz.
So at 12,
I will have a break.
Usually, I teach private ballet lessons
at 1:00 and 2:00 p.m.
There are new ballet studios being built.
I actually met this guy through my private English classes
that I posted for my observation hours.
He's building like a holistic center with Qinggong,
Tai Chi, dance, and he hired me
as one of the ballet teachers.
So it's super exciting and I'm so excited
to still be able to dance and teach English.
My next class is then at three.
I have a private student at three,
another private student at four, a group of kids at five.
And then my last group class of adults at 6 to 7:30.
So it's usually my day.
Today's a little bit more of a heavy day than usual.
Sometimes I don't have those privates at three and four,
but I do teach ballet almost every single day
for about an hour, an hour and a half privately.
Okay, so I just finished my first adult class.
We did some shopping, some comparative adjectives,
indirect object pronouns.
It was really awesome, really fun.
I mean, I have some time right now.
I have a student that's going to be about a half hour late.
So I have some time to answer some questions.
First question, do I speak Spanish?
Depends on who you ask.
I would say I'm at intermediate level.
I take Spanish classes and private lessons
here at El Camino.
Currently. I'm very busy, so I don't have the time to
give to my learning of Spanish.
But yeah, I have known enough to get by,
go to the grocery store,
get my motorcycle registered, have friends.
I actually was enrolled in an online Spanish course
before I moved to Mexico.
It was through Coursera.
They do like recycled college classes. It's pretty cheap.
I think it's only like $50 a month, but it's self-study.
Was it the best course I've ever taken? Absolutely not.
But it did give me the basics and gave me something
to study alongside my ITA studies.
Next question. What visa am I on?
Currently, my work visa and residency is in process.
My director at the school is taking care of all of it for me
with his lawyers, but I know it's in process.
So basically my next step is going to be getting that
in-person appointment at the consulate so I can finalize
everything and have my work visa and my temporary residency.
So right now I am on a tourist visa.
In Mexico, you get 180 days,
but since my visa is in process, I can get paid.
Yes. My next question is, do I have a bachelor's degree?
Yes, I do have a bachelor's degree.
Thank you, mom and dad for making me get it.
I was dancing at the time and I was like,
"I don't need no bachelor's degree".
No, get your bachelor's degree.
I got it at Butler University. Go Bulldogs.
Was an awesome experience,
so I definitely, highly recommend you getting
a bachelor's degree, especially in Mexico.
You don't need it. I didn't need it for this job.
He never really asked me for it,
but I think it was just kind of assumed.
But definitely get your bachelor's degree,
especially if you want to work in a public school
in Mexico City or Merida, any other of the big cities,
you will need a bachelor's degree, yes.
Next question. How much did I save before coming to Mexico?
When I left New York city, I had an apartment.
So, I had to get rid of all of my expenses, my US expenses,
I had US private health insurance,
I had other small things like a credit card bill.
I was very fortunate to be able to take care of that.
I had moved from New York to Michigan to work
for a friend and his business,
and I was able to really save money that way.
And then I moved back in with my parents for like August,
and I was a substitute teacher for
the Avon Community Schools in Indianapolis.
And I didn't get paid super a lot,
but enough that I was able to save about, I would say,
I think I had about like $3,000 saved, not super a lot,
but I was pretty proud of being able to have
that much saved to come here.
So double that, the cost of living here in Tulum
is actually pretty high compared to other places in Mexico.
I will do a price breakdown in upcoming slides,
but that amount of money I said I saved didn't last super,
a long, a super long time.
But again, I got a job right away.
I started working kind of under the table for a boutique,
which I still work at on Sundays.
And I was able to make like 5% commission
and things were pretty expensive in the store.
So, I was working full-time at a boutique
while I was giving private lessons.
And then I started to give private ballet lessons.
So, I was, been very fortunate to not really be,
touch my American dollars.
I've just been living in pesos.
Next question. What is one thing I wish
I had known before starting this journey?
I guess it's not something I wish I had known.
I wish I had paid more attention
and prepared for culture shock.
I experience culture shocks still every day,
nine months into it.
But thank God, I have my dancing.
I'm teaching dancing. I have a job on Saturdays.
Also, being a teacher is
a lot of work.
There is that scheduled time you have,
and all the prep time you have to do outside.
And I have kids. I have adults. I have privates.
They're all different levels.
Finding all your materials,
creating activities can be very difficult.
This is also one of my favorite materials
to draw from Oxford University Press.
"Highly Recommended English
for the hotel and catering industry".
So awesome.
It has everything in it.
Receiving guests, desserts and cheese.
It's so, so much information.
Health and safety at work.
Okay, to tell you more about El Camino Language School,
this is my director, Stefan.
- Hi. I'm Stefan, I'm the director of
El Camino Tulum Language School
here in Tulum.
We've been open for almost 10 years now,
and we offer classes in Spanish, French, English,
Italian, and German.
And yeah, feel free to come whenever you want.
- [Zach] Amazing, thank you.
All right guys, so I'm gonna give you
a quick apartment tour.
So, it's a one bedroom apartment.
It came fully furnished.
This is the living and dining room area.
It came with pretty much everything.
All of the vanities and tables.
This is my kitchen. I have a stove,
which is like a huge deal.
Coffee maker and fridge.
Here is my bedroom.
Came with a nice king size bed.
I have two big screen TVs, which is pretty awesome.
Two AC units.
I have this big Amarillo, another TV.
This is my bathroom.
Yeah, sink.
This is my shower
Really lucky finding this apartment.
I actually found it on Craigslist.
It was kind of like a random attempts.
And I found this American couple that
is only here part of the year.
And all of their friends kind of
live in these four apartments.
I also don't pay electric bills or gas
because in exchange, I teach my landlord's daughter English.
So he takes care of all my bills for me,
which is incredible.
All right guys, I'm in the last stretch of my day.
I'm about to start my last two classes,
but I did want to touch on how much I really enjoyed my ITA
course and how much it truly prepared me for my life here.
Each chapter that you guys do, I use every single day,
even down to the reviewing of your textbook.
Like, I didn't think that was gonna be my favorite,
but it turned out to be like my favorite
and the one I use the most.
So definitely I would choose ITA, it's definitely worth it.
The online program is incredible.
I feel so prepared and so ready.
(low-pitched splash)
All right guys.
Thank you so much for tuning in. I am back home.
If you have any more questions, please DM me, I put my gram
right here.
Thank you.