Teaching English is bar none the easiest way to live in another country temporarily. Even the basic preparations can be made in the country you want to live in. It's not really meant to be long-term. Once you are where you want to be, it is much easier to find something more to your liking, since you are at least already in the country.
I personally got sick of teaching after about two years, but mostly due to administrators and paperwork. The teaching itself can definitely be rewarding, but I always found that the ever-growing amount of tasks I got assigned unrelated to teaching and grading tended to make the job much less enjoyable than it could have been. It definitely was cool to see students making progress, or to carefully plan and execute a well-done lesson that the students enjoyed, but those little victories came sandwiched between a lot of unnecessary BS: pushing back constantly against schedule changes, endless amounts of documentation, employer threats, new time-consuming responsibilities assigned at the owner's whim, etc. Employer-employee relations in Colombian educational institutions can feel a bit feudal at times, and I've definitely stiffened my backbone up a bit in standing up to my bosses when they were being unreasonable, but what I dealt with was nothing compared to the reaming that other Colombian teachers seem to get from the bosses on a regular basis.
Bottom line, unless you really think you'll love teaching, it's gonna wear you down over time. But it is perfect for getting out of dodge in a hurry, and figuring the rest out later on.
I personally got sick of teaching after about two years, but mostly due to administrators and paperwork. The teaching itself can definitely be rewarding, but I always found that the ever-growing amount of tasks I got assigned unrelated to teaching and grading tended to make the job much less enjoyable than it could have been. It definitely was cool to see students making progress, or to carefully plan and execute a well-done lesson that the students enjoyed, but those little victories came sandwiched between a lot of unnecessary BS: pushing back constantly against schedule changes, endless amounts of documentation, employer threats, new time-consuming responsibilities assigned at the owner's whim, etc. Employer-employee relations in Colombian educational institutions can feel a bit feudal at times, and I've definitely stiffened my backbone up a bit in standing up to my bosses when they were being unreasonable, but what I dealt with was nothing compared to the reaming that other Colombian teachers seem to get from the bosses on a regular basis.
Bottom line, unless you really think you'll love teaching, it's gonna wear you down over time. But it is perfect for getting out of dodge in a hurry, and figuring the rest out later on.