What is your favorite travel memory?
After so many years of traveling, I don’t know if I can pick just one! I enjoy traveling to all different kinds of places and doing a variety of things while I am there. These days I prefer traveling to see natural beauty and visiting friends, rather than sightseeing in big cities. Some of my favorite memories have been hiking trips with my family, mostly my father. We have done some beautiful hikes all over the world, from our local Sierra Nevada Mountains in California, to the Inca Trail in Peru, high up in the Himalaya, as well as some beautiful hikes here in Europe. One of our most recent trips together was a hike from Chamonix, France to Zermatt, Switzerland. It was a very demanding trip, zigzagging across the Alps, but the views made it worth it!
How have you changed/grown since working for your current company?
I believe that everyone is constantly changing and hopefully constantly growing, so of course teachers are no exception. Before I started working as a teacher trainer with Live TEFL I had been teaching English for many years, as well as teacher training for a couple years at another TEFL school in Prague. Each job I’ve had has taught me something unique. I think being a teacher trainer is a great job to have for my own personal growth, because I am forced to constantly learn about new methods and approaches to teaching that I might not otherwise learn if I were doing normal classroom teaching. Teacher training “keeps me on my toes” and prevents me from becoming a lazy teacher who is set in her ways.
What is the best story you've heard from a return student?
At Live TEFL I focus on teaching our TEFL students about English grammar and phonology, as well as how they can teach this information to their own future students. Many students, especially those who are English native speakers, have never studied English grammar, and find it quite difficult to wrap their heads around so much new information in such a short period of time. It is very rewarding for me when past students, who had often struggled with learning the grammar during the TEFL course, tell me that now they love teaching grammar. These students often go on to teach English all over the world, and I love hearing about their different experiences.
What do you believe to be the biggest factor in being a successful company?
The biggest factor in becoming a successful company is making sure the employees feel secure and enjoy working for the company. If the employees are not happy, they will not make the customers happy, and none of them will want to continue working for or with that company. There needs to a friendly working atmosphere and a high level of respect between all members of the company. The more satisfied the employees are, the longer they will want to stay with a company. These long-term employees will become more skilled at their jobs, and they will bring more profit to the company than a high employee turnover rate would.