'It's all about hustle': Language House founder Chris on how to make it work in Prague

Every month, a fresh wave of wide-eyed foreigners—hailing from the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and beyond—touch down in Prague, ready to refresh or restart their lives in the heart of Europe. Their golden ticket? A four-week intensive TEFL (Teaching English as a Foreign Language) certification course that opens the door to job prospects in Czechia’s thriving English-teaching market.

As the number of expats in Czechia continues to rise, this pathway remains a desirable one—something Chris Westergaard, founder and director of The Language House, recognized when he arrived in Prague in 2002. We sat down with Chris to discuss the allure of Prague, the TEFL experience, and what it takes to thrive as an expat.

I came here in 2002. So I was a very young guy; 22 years old. I got on a train and exited the main train station, and it was back when you wouldn't be able to book a hotel or anything. There would be someone with a sign that said “accommodation”—I remember just getting in this woman’s car, and she took me to her apartment, and I stayed in the guest room. So kind of like an early 1990s version of Airbnb, I guess. 

The first day I was walking around and I stumbled upon Old Town Square and I just remember looking around and saying, “this place is incredible.” And I knew immediately after being here for just a week that this was where I wanted to be.

In many places in Europe, it's nearly impossible to get a work permit (compared to Czechia). I also think from my own business that deals with people coming over, many people are looking for some sort of newness or excitement in their lives. 

It's always surprising to find out what our grads are up to. You have 3,000 people that have gone through the course, some people leave, but many people stay here. 

Just recently I was watching YouTube and I got served a random commercial, and I saw one of our grads. He and a whole group of people from his cohort are all in movies and films and advertisements in the Czech Republic. And I think that's what has always been interesting about Prague: as it is a small city, there are opportunities to do a tremendous amount of things. 

I think if you look at New York or London, for example, it's so big and there's so many barriers to entry. But I guess the Czech Republic is a smaller fishbowl. There's all these opportunities. I mean, there's people that never did acting and then they're suddenly doing plays. Or there's people that start their own companies or they work for different fields. 

It's all about hustle. And the good thing about it is if you do so, you're probably going to be successful.

In the early days, my Czech business partner, a guy in his 60s, thought it'd be a good idea to greet the new class with a shot of Bechorovka. So it's 9:30 a.m: we have all these people that are still jet lagged, that are kind of suspicious about what's going on—there's no social media, so we're all just in this unknown building. He met everybody and he was smoking at the time, so he had a lit rolled cigarette on a cigarette holder. You can imagine this kind of character coming in. 

His first words to everybody were, “congratulations, how about a shot of Bechorovka?” And all of these people are intimidated and they don't want to offend anybody, so we just lined up these shot glasses and had all of our new students have a shot of alcohol. We wouldn't do that now, but 2004? Sure, why not?

Without trying to stereotype too much, I would say, at least historically, Americans tend to be a little bit more outgoing. If you get a group of Americans in a room together, they're naturally just going to start communicating with each other and finding things out about each other. And I think, again, stereotypically, if you get a group of Czech people together, they're probably going to just say “dobrý den.” But of course, this isn't always the case.

You can't base Czech people on a personal experience. Most Czech people have to communicate in a second or a third language. And I think a lot of times people forget that. If you're an average Czech person, you have to speak English, you have to speak German, you have to speak all of these different things—and they're communicating with people that really know nothing about their culture or their language. And personally, I think they're really doing a good job. 

And my experience has always been that Czech people are some of the most friendly people that I know. Don't forget that for most of their lives, they never had to learn English at all. They never had to interact with foreigners. And this change can be a lot for them. They deserve as much grace as possible.

I think if you're planning on going anywhere, it's always good to do it. No matter where you go, whether it's Prague or Asia or any other country, have that living abroad experience. I look back and sometimes I'm walking on a bridge and I look back and I go, “oh my God, what a life.” There's been ups and downs, of course, but I think how lucky I am to have had this experience.