Chile Forum

To the OP, one false move and your account will be banned. It is just too full of troll material.

My inclination is this is some sort of attempt at social network spam for Languagecorps, which I think anyone that has been around English schools anywhere in the World will immediately put it in the scam box along with being an indentured Peruvian servant in Santiago.

I don't know anything about LanguageCorps, but it sure has the ring of a scam organization...let me guess.....they are running a "school" and they charge the students to attend class and they make the teachers pay for the privilege of teaching there....I've seen this before....PT Barnum said something about suckers....prolly applies here.

A lot of these "pay to be employed" operations run real hard up against the line of criminal visa fraud laws in Chile (and almost always some form of tax evasion because of it).

In fact, with most there is not much difference between what they are selling and operations like the football team that employed the 50 Colombian "secretaries". At least the secretaries had to have some sort of skills, qualifications, and likely paid their taxes.

I'm keen on using posters' visiting times as one indication of probable spoofs. "tommy" hasn't been back since he posted his one and only message, thirty-seven hours ago.

Wow, thanks for all the great replies! =) I'm not sure why some folks seem to be acting hostile about this...I apologized in advance for how some of the questions sounded, and again, offending anyone wasn't my intention. Someone mentioned something about this being a "real" post...I can't figure out why anyone would say that. What's "fishy" about politely requesting information from informed expert sources? Languagecorps seems like a good outfit, but naturally, one can't always trust advertising alone--most reviews of the company are positive, and I've run across a good deal of positive feedback about Languagecorps, but nothing beats the invaluable voice(s) of experience. Apologies if I broke forum policy or norms, or offended someone, or did anything like that. Truly, I did not intend to. However, I did attempt to create a thoughtful and clear post; I thought the lack of "i wants to muv to teh south amerca can sum1 tell me how do do it" type content would demonstrate my sincerity toward this subject. To us, it's a very real prospect.

- Yeah...about Jen. I know how she sounds, but she's really a sweet person. She just likes the comforts of home and is a little nervous about not having home comforts for a long time. The disagreement continues, but she and I will get it worked out.

- We chose Chile or Uruguay because we're a little uncertain about finding work quickly--we don't want to drain our savings. Naturally, we'd much rather earn income than deplete our bank accounts, and Languagecorps says it places teachers after training. While we needn't do the same work forever, getting placed in positions quickly seems like a good plan until we acclimate, learn the neighborhoods and local culture, and find a permanent home. My research on Chile/Uruguay seems to indicate that these nations are very stable economically and politically; also, Languagecorps has lots of advertisements for teachers in these nations, so it seems like a good match.

- Researching a move to another country from scratch yields tons of information, especially while researching several nations simultaneously and doing one's best comparing all that data. I'm certainly no expert, and I still don't really grasp the benefits/downfalls of becoming or not becoming a citizen. The user zer0nz states, "Most people don't [become citizens]", but I'm still uncertain about why this is the case. I'll continue researching. Besides, I'm confident that either Languagecorps folks or the new friends we make can explain these details further, and we can make our decision at the appropriate time.

Also (and some may laugh because this seems cheesy or maudlin), we feel like our new lives and work in Chile/Uruguay will be not just satisfying to us, but actually useful and helpful to those in need of English instruction. Having been a student of English for years, I've witnessed many students' apathetic attitude toward the subject. I feel like in South America we may have greater opportunities to be needed, at least more than we're needed here. Teaching in South America will fulfill one of the nation's important needs while providing us with new roads, income, and senses of self-fulfillment, career-wise. While I'm certain that South American students aren't perfect either, perhaps their responses to English studies will be more open and positive--these are our personal reasons for going to a nation that "needs" instructors/workers like us. If I'm wrong about this, well, then we'll deal with it as it comes. It won't break our positive spirit for the experience.

- Actually 49 was just a number I picked randomly. It didn't seem to matter much.

- I don't know who EL P is, sorry about that. I chose this forum because it's up to date and seems to have lots of members in the know. But that was my first visit and post to the forum.

- Tennessee, no. Now THAT seemed random, lol. Does Languagecorps recruit lots of people from that state, or something?

- It seems like the amount of our savings isn't as great as we'd anticipated. Glad I asked, because I was fairly sure it was more than enough to live comfortably until we acclimated. It looks like we'll have to get more funds together or plan on living very frugally. While we aren't planning on living a hot tourist lifestyle, we want to err on the side of caution financially, trying to keep funds available in case of emergency.


I appreciate all the responses to this really long post. The information will help us so much while plotting out brand new lives in a different country, permanent or otherwise. Please feel free to lend us a hand with any further info you feel is essential, helpful, or in any way useful regarding a move to Chile or Uruguay.

Wow, ok, I just read the last reply...so you guys think this is a Languagecorps thing? Why in the world would I want to know more information about moving to Chile, type a huge long post asking all these questions, eagerly anticipate friendly responses (funny, the sources I've run across said people from Chile are very friendly and open...I was hoping to experience that here), and then come up with embarrassing questions that I have to apologize for profusely? What person doing something like that would actually give enough of a damn to make sure there are no typos and that everything is written clearly? Are you telling me that anyone...anywhere...finds a topic like moving to South America interesting enough to spend an hour writing a phony post just for the hell of it? Just for kicks? That's so ridiculous. Sorry for adding the stuff about Jen. That info was superfluous and just took up space needlessly, and it's our personal problems anyway.

Honestly, my guess is that because this is an Internet forum, anyone who submits a clear, well-worded post is automatically suspect. Well, that's just such bull. And it's sad that there are more hostile responses than useful ones.
I didn't realize my one little post would be interesting enough to capture everyone's attention every hour upon the hour ("OMG he hasn't written back in 37 hours!!") 37 hours, are you for real? Did you consider that work and fun occupies most of my life, and that I wanted to let replies accumulate? To be honest, I was hoping for 1-2 replies at best, and I wasn't sitting in front of my laptop checking the forum every thirty minutes. I guess others...do.

The sad thing is, your conclusions couldn't be more inaccurate. Do you make every new user feel like a troublesome burden instead of a welcome guest? Sorry I was such a terribly upsetting bother. I didn't realize anyone would feel that way-. If I had, I'd have steered clear. And I'm still not sure what pissed everyone off so much in the first place--I apologized in advance a hundred times. I don't know what else a person can do.

tom