Hi everyone, I'm new here to the forum. I currently live in the US, My boyfriend is Turkish and just finished his military time. I will be moving to Izmir, Turkey in the next few months and I am looking for advice.

I plan on getting a teaching certificate so I will be able to teach english. Im currently taking Turkish classes here in NYC. So really I am just looking for some general advice, when it comes to residency, working and things like that. Ill become a Turkish citizen once I get married later this year, so that isnt a problem but I know the 'tourist visa' only lasts for 90 days. Is it really practical to leave the country and come back to get a new visa? how many times can you do this before they catch on to it?

Im really open to any and all advice that you have to offer :)

tesekkurler :)

hey there,

you can leave the country just for an hour by visiting Chios Island (Sakiz Adasi)...

I am sure you have knowledge about general things life styles of Turkey you must have an image thatsa why Im not gonna mention about that.. I am an Izmirian, Izmir is the west coast of Turkey, in general Izmir is known the most modern city of country people are tolerated you can drink alcohol on the streets you can kiss your bf nobody even looks at you. but in other cities people stare at you which annoys you so much...

life is cheap here you dont have to afford so much for clothing or having delicious meals or transportation or housing...

weather is quite nice here it rains so much in winter period but the summers are great there so many beachs in İzmir which you can enjoy...

btw I know some guys from states who had certificate of teaching and was professor in Izmir Economy University... may be you can check it out there... anyway if you have more spesific questions I can reply...

hoşçakal!

Hi,

I am an American living in Izmir. My fiance is Turkish and from Izmir, but at the moment he is in the US finishing up his last semester in college. I graduated a year before him and decided to live in Turkey for this year teaching English. Being without him is tough but his family lives nearby and they help me out a lot especially with learning Turkish.

Izmir is a really great place to live and there are lots of opportunities to teach English. I work at a large koleji which happens to be my fiance's former school The school got me my residence permit but it took a long time so I had to make the day trip to Sakiz (Chios) once. I got really lucky with my job because they provide furnished apartments on campus, but to be honest, working in a Turkish school not knowing much Turkish has been really really hard. Most of the class teachers and many of the administrators don't know much English.

It is possible to make good money giving private English courses. I have heard that people are willing to pay 50 lira/hour for courses with a native speaker.

What kind of teaching certificate are you planning on getting? I have a 120+ hour TESOL cert. from a 4 week residential course and was able to get my job even though I had basically no experience.

If I could give you one piece of advice it is to be prepared to feel lonely. Turkish people are very warm and welcoming but for me it has been really tough to form real friendships with Turkish women. I found a group of foreign women called Izmir International Women's Association but I didn't end up going to any meetings because from their website I saw that the members were on average much older than me (I'm 22). I have met a few other foreigners close to my age but living on the other side (Karsiyika).

One more thing to check out is Yasar University. They hire native speakers for positions in their preparatory program. I applied online last year and had an interview but canceled because I was happy with my job offer and didn't want to live so far from my fiance's parents.

Good luck!

Hey,

Don't want to sound rude or anything, but you can use the search function and find the answer to all of your questions above. If you have more specific things that you did not find in the search function, then please post here. I know I personally have answered your same question many different times in different posts. There is tons of information if you are willing to search for it.

again not trying to sound cocky, just want to let you know that you will get a lot more information by using the search function.

also try searching for American companies in Turkey, might have a better chance being hired out of the states and then moving to turkey for work.
Good luck with everything.