fbpx

Advance your career with the Trinity DipTESOL course. Register for our free live seminar

Register now for any of our upcoming ELT events to celebrate 25 years of teacher training

My TEFL career path: course director on the Trinity Dip TESOL course

I started out as a TEFL teacher with a similar vision to most, I’ll do this for a year or two, travel the world, meet interesting people and then get a real job. Almost 15 years later, I’m still Tefling. How did this happen and what was my TEFL career path?

First of all I realised that teaching English was not as ‘easy’ as I thought it would be. Like any I made the assumption that because I spoke English I would be able to teach it. How hard could it be? Well, it is pretty hard if you want to do it well. So to the first reason I am still here- it is challenging and therefore interesting.

Secondly, I did meet lots of interesting people. I taught general English to all ages, business English and exam English in my first year of teaching, as most Tefl teachers do. I met a wide spectrum of people and found myself switching between different contexts two or three times a day. Not many jobs offer this possibility. It was fascinating to get a glimpse into different corporate cultures and this is the area I found myself drawn to the most. I taught in-company English for about 6 years.

I was lucky to work for a school that valued continuing professional development and soon I took the next step on my TEFL career path and I started giving workshops on how to teach. Realising I really enjoyed this, I started to think about further challenging myself and I did the Diploma! This was a real turning point as I quickly started diversifying into teacher training and writing. The variety I had found in teaching was now expanded into other areas of ELT. Again, I wondered what other professions could offer me this. Well, professions you can enter while living abroad anyway. Not many!

Another reason I am still here. I enjoy living in Spain and my job affords me this possibility.

For about 4 years I did teacher training at Certificate level and continued teaching business English and general English to all ages. Then, I started working on the Diploma course doing teaching observations. This was a further challenge which I felt I was ready for so I decided to make teacher training my main focus, and steer my TEFL career path in that direction.

A few years on I am now course director on the Diploma course at Oxford TEFL, and thoroughly enjoying the role. I work with teachers from all over the world as well as a wonderful team of trainers. I continue to be challenged and to challenge myself doing conference talks and workshops.

So…, that’s how it happened!

Meet the author

Innovate ELT Conference 2023

Come to Barcelona this May and join us at this exciting event!

During the conference we will discuss the role of innovation in language education and celebrate some of the most exciting things happening around us.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Download our Working around the world guide

Hey, wait!

Are you thinking of teaching English abroad?

Download our Working around the world guide and compare salaries, cost of living and entry requirements in 50 different countries.