Staff Spotlight: Fabian Strassgüttl

Fabian was born in Austria and studied English and History to become a teacher in Austria. In 2015, he took the opportunity to study abroad in Ireland at the university of Limerick with the ERASMUS+ program. At the moment, he works in the admissions team of the GET Academy in Upper Austria.

My favorite memory was traveling through Southeast Asia in 2017. My girlfriend and I stayed near the Mekong Delta in Vietnam and took a local food tour, tasting dishes I had never heard of before, like pan-fried rat, noodles with snake and frog ragout. We met young adults from around the world (Canada, Italy and South Africa) and had fun talking to them about these adventurous dishes.

Since I am a certified teacher, I thought I had learned everything there is to know about teaching English to kids. Well, I was sooo wrong! Since working with GET Academy, I have been able to observe many new and innovative ways of teaching English to Austrian pupils (using songs and drama).

I found out that it is crucial to get pupils to interact with each other as much as possible. Also, since I have international co-workers, I also engage with a number of different cultures and I have to say that I really enjoy it, because you can learn a lot from people whom otherwise you would have never met.

The best stories I heard from students was that the whole concept of teaching abroad had expanded their horizon in many different ways. They had the chance to see amazing new countries and places and to meet lovely people they would have never met at home. They had the possibility to exchange their knowledge of teaching while making new friends from all over the world.

I would take the CertTESOL teaching program, because you get the unique experience of teaching English in lots of different Austrian classrooms with lots of different pupils. Unlike other TEFL courses, after finishing our program, you will have had over 300 hours of teaching, which really gives you an advantage over other students. Also, your colleagues come from English speaking countries from all over the world, bringing their own way of teaching with them from which you can profit.

Our company is unique because we offer courses no other company does. Our students GET over 300 teaching hours, 150 hours of face to face tutoring and 15 hours of assessed lesson monitoring. Furthermore, we have 3 different campuses in Austria, which means that you can also travel around this beautiful country. All these things give you the best set of skills you need if you want to teach young learners.

In my opinion, the biggest factor of being successful is to be passionate about what you do. Whenever I’m talking with my co-workers, I notice that they really enjoy their work. If everybody works together as a team and believes in the company, success will follow. GET Academy aims to maintain a professional, motivating and fun environment for us to work in. I am really enjoying this experience!