Taxis – your best friend or your worst nightmare

Hong Kong Taxi

By Liuchoi (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/)], via Wikimedia Commons

Every person who has travelled a bit has a taxi story to share. Over the past 30 years or so that I’ve been travelling, I can safely say that I’ve heard a taxi story from every continent. I’ve heard some shockers in Vietnam where I live and work nowadays, but equally, I’ve had my own less than desirable experiences in more developed parts of the world including Australia where I come from – and North America.

Some taxi-tales are a good news story – the birth of a baby in the back seat and alike – but most are about the kind of situations that travellers dread. We’ve all heard stories (or experienced them first-hand) about getting ripped off, taken to the wrong location, ‘lead foot’ taxi drivers, arguments about tips, traffic accidents and much, much worse.

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How to get work as an English teacher in Buenos Aries, Argentina

Teaching English in Buenos Aries

By ryanluikens (Flickr) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Buenos Aires may seem far away from the main English speaking cosmopolitan centres but it certainly has an English speaking oriented mentality. Raging from English-Spanish bilingual schools to high standard Teacher Training Colleges, the opportunities in Buenos Aires are sure to cater for any teacher of English looking for a challenge.

Teaching Adults

In order to succeed in this highly competitive and culturally bustling city, English is a tool required in most fields, especially tourism, commerce and business, as many of the office buildings around the city centre are owned by multinational companies. Most of these companies hire freelance teachers of English for group classes, or private individual lessons, generally at lunchtime. The fee could range between 80 and 100 pesos an hour. These lessons might have to focus on skills such as fluency and public speaking for business meetings and presentations. I have taught in companies for almost 10 years, and it can get really laid-back, as the student is constantly on the phone, or being summoned by his manager; or if he is the manager, he may have to call off your lesson unexpectedly, and you may find yourself with some free time on your hands. It is of vital importance to agree on a cancellation policy beforehand with your students, as they may not want to pay for a lesson they have not taken, but if for example they have cancelled 2 hours before the lesson, you may charge for it anyway, as you have invested time in preparing it and that time is part of the fee.

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