Why and How?

As we meet you you often ask why we are doing this and how we found and chose Malaysia.

Initially we knew we wanted to travel in our retirement. This led to a discussion of alternatives that included doing some teaching early in those years. We contacted a couple of acquaintances, Bill Roach and John Futa, who were involved in recruiting for overseas schools and we went to lunch in December with Bill Roach who represents Taylors University College in Kuala Lumpur (KL). After his presentation Kim said she would "go right now". We wanted to review other possibilities to be sure this was the right decision.

We had applied for and were accepted to attend the Teaching Overseas Recruitment Fair (TORF) operated by the Faculty of Education at Queens University. This weekend invites over 100 international schools, all of whom are looking to hire many teachers. The fair also qualifies a limited number of individual job seekers through a detailed documentation package and a nominal fee. This assures that only committed job seekers attend. We highly recommend the process for those interested in teaching overseas.

The fair took place the weekend of February 9, 10, 11, 2007 and since Bill was skiing in BC during the week and only returning on Saturday (Feb 10) Kim went down to the job fair on Friday. She registered and attended several information sessions on Friday and went to a number of interviews on Saturday. Very early in the process Kim was able to establish certain parameters for our search. For example, we preferred a Canadian curriculum. A large proportion of the international schools teach an American curriculum. We also sought a place that was relatively safe but culturally different from Bolton, Ontario, Canada. Via a telephone conversation we agreed that the KL opportunity best matched our wants and needs. Kim met with Bill Roach and with the current director (principal) of the program, Frank Meagher at which time she committed us to a verbal contract.

On Saturday Bill flew into Toronto from BC and almost immediately boarded a flight to Kingston to meet Kim. On Sunday we attended several presentations including Bonn, Germany, Kuwait, and one with an accounting firm that advises on the financial implications of these overseas contracts. We were still in agreement that the Taylors College was right for us and we met Bill and Frank to sign a letter of intent.

Okay; so what were the factors that made us choose Taylors:

• It is a Canadian, Ontario, curriculum. What we are learning is that everywhere except Ontario it is considered to be a prestige education.
• It is a high school program. We have both taught elementary and adult education. This was an opportunity to try something new.
• Culturally it is different but not totally alien. KL is a modern city (look at the Petronas Towers for example). The functional language can be English since this was a British colony until 1957. The local language is Bahasa Malay.

• It is in a part of the world that we might not choose to visit in our planned travels.
• The cost of living is reasonably low This allows us to live comfortably while we work and travel.
• And so much more.