J.K. Rowling taught English in Portugal before completing the first Harry Potter novel.
After graduating from Exeter, Rowling worked in several jobs and later moved to Porto, Portugal, in 1991. There she taught English as a foreign language. She married Portuguese television journalist Jorge Arantes in 1992, and their daughter Jessica was born in 1993.
Rowling began writing Harry Potter before her time in Portugal, but she continued developing the manuscript during the period surrounding her move back to the United Kingdom. She returned to Britain in 1993 and eventually settled in Edinburgh, where she worked on the novel while raising her daughter.
Biographies sometimes emphasize her earlier job as a researcher and bilingual secretary for Amnesty International, which was a separate role in London. Her Exeter degree was in French and Classics, but the language she taught in Porto was English. That distinction makes the answer specific.