Teaching English from the edge of the map

La Réunion sits in the Indian Ocean, 9,000 kilometres from Paris and about as far from
the London publishing world as a French territory can get. When I tell people I’m an
English trainer here, the first reaction is usually sympathy — as if distance were a
handicap. It isn’t. It’s a specific advantage I’ve spent years learning to use.

The island has a particular need: French professionals who must operate in English —
for business, for qualifications, for careers that extend beyond the island — but who
have almost no access to native-level English instruction grounded in a French-speaking
context. The mainland has London within two hours. La Réunion has me.

That’s a small market, you might think. But small and underserved beats large and
saturated every time. The IELTS student in Paris competes for attention with a thousand
tutors. The professional in Saint-Denis who needs a TOEIC for their promotion has
considerably fewer options. I am often the specific option.

And then there’s the remote layer. My CELTA, my IELTS preparation expertise, my Business
English background — none of it requires a physical classroom. A Zoom link and a strong
connection (and La Réunion’s fibre is surprisingly good) opens the entirety of the
French-speaking world. Antilles, French Guiana, Senegal, Morocco, Côte d’Ivoire — all
markets where English is an economic accelerator and quality instruction in a bilingual
context is rare.

The interesting thing about being far from the centre is that it forces you to be very
specific about what you offer. You can’t rely on footfall or proximity. You have to be
the person who does a particular thing well enough that people seek you out despite the
distance. That clarity — knowing exactly what you do and for whom — turns out to be
exactly what makes an online practice work.

I’m a CELTA-certified English trainer who speaks French, who has lived the French
administrative system from the inside, and who teaches from a place most of my students
will never visit but which gives me, daily, the experience of being a professional
operating across languages and cultures. That’s not a limitation. It’s the pitch.

The edge of the map is not the end of the map. For some things — remote teaching,
written work, specialised expertise — it’s just a slightly unusual home for a practice
that exists online anyway.

I stopped explaining the distance. I started using it.