Hi—I’m Will. I’ve been a teacher here at Talk Talk English for nearly 3 years now. A lot of people ask me what its like to teach English in Mongolia, so I thought I’d use our blog to share some info about what it’s like to be an English teacher in Ulaanbaatar.

It’s important to note that teaching in UB is very different from teaching in the countryside. Some of our teachers are former Peace Corps volunteers, and they come here with these stories of living in a ger, subsisting on fermented mares milk and sheep fat. Often their students don’t have access to a good education and have few opportunities to use English in their daily lives unless they snag a job as a tour guide.

In the city, on the other hand, many of our students have jobs in large international companies where they use English to interact with customers, suppliers, and even co-workers. For these people spoken English skills are vital. In our school we get a lot of businessmen and people who are maybe in the lower ranks of their current job, but who are hoping to use their new English skills to leverage a raise. This means that most of our students are very motivated.

It’s great being able to come in to class everyday and have a group of students who are completely motivated to learn English. It isn’t necessary to force them to do their homework or drag them through their lessons—they’re already chomping at the bit!

I’ve found the people here in Mongolia very intent on bettering themselves through education and as a teacher here I’ve found it such a joy to teach!