Teach and Travel with a Non-Profit in Austria (TEFL/TESOL)

As someone with 6 months experience teaching in China I was very keen to finally experience teaching in Europe - and when I saw the advertisement for ABCi I thought that this would be a great route for me to go down. ABCi offered me a Trinity Cert TESOL qualification in return for my time - so I got an internationally recognised language teaching qualification for free AND 3 months teaching experience in Austria on top of that - a great addition to my CV. Another great advantage was the variety of experience: a different school each week provided me with the opportunity to teach students from 5/6 years old up to students in their early twenties; and the opportunity to experience small rural schools, huge urban schools and everything between. I could also spend my weekends and down time experiencing many different cities in Austria - from Gmunden, Salzburg, Graz to Vienna. But for me the most valuable part of this experience was helping kids for an NPO. Visiting schools for just one day to provide them with free and fun English lessons and seeing how grateful they were for my time and efforts was incredibly rewarding and important to me. Thank you ABCi for giving me this fantastic opportunity!

I came to ABCI and Austria off the back of finishing an English Literature degree. I was unsure of what I wanted to do and found the chance of moving to a new country for a short while and learning a new skill to be a fascinating prospect. Teaching, was not something that had interested me before or something that I thought I would ever consider. Throughout the course (January 2016) myself and other trainees were put under immense stress both through teaching and completing various assignments that were required for your certification. It was intense to the extreme, at times it seemed no matter how much time you put in to your assignments and lesson planning that it would not be enough. However, through the help of your fellow trainees and staff members you will find that the college has an atmosphere much like a well meaning, although at times; dysfunctional family. Each individual whether trainee or member of staff were always on hand to help with any problem whether small or large. While this doesn't always mean that things run as smoothly as planned (there will be highs and lows to your experience, as in any new place) it is an experience that I would thoroughly recommend providing you are prepared for one of the busiest workloads I have ever experienced.

Austria as a country is beautiful, while not every weekend will be free for you to roam around, you will find yourself with a little time at least to explore, meet new people and enjoy what Austria has to offer. Through ABCI and my experience in Austria I decided that teaching was in fact a career path that I wanted to explore, and now only a short while after completing the course I find myself about to go into my first paid teaching job in Poland, this can only be down to the support and encouragement I found at ABCI.

Although you may read discouraging reviews for ABCI (English training college of Austria) I would advise you to take them with a pinch of salt. Of course there are areas of improvement for the college but at the same time there are also many fantastic aspects to the college and your own experience that you will not find anywhere else (and "mature students" tend to have forgotten their own time at uni and carry somewhat unrealistic expectations of what living like a student in a dorm is really like).

09/29/2016
Apologies for the informality of this review but sometimes I think it is best to just hear it how it is.
This review isn't the average, it is aimed towards the 18-20 year olds that don't have a degree and are trying to find themselves.
I was in Austria around this time last year and everything changed from there. I still always talk about it!
Not only that but it gave me a direction..at only the age of 18. Sometimes it takes someone like Mr Stone to tell you to your face that 'you are a natural teacher' to make you think maybe I could do a bit more of this TEFL stuff.

SO WHAT WAS IT LIKE AT ABCI?
It is no walk in the park, especially if you are on the younger side. It is very demanding, long hours and there is a lot of learning involved on the course. You may get into the habbit of comparing yourself to the others, maybe they have a degree in linguistics, German or are just hyper intelligent. My advice to you is just concentrate on yourself, Rome wasn't built in a day and nor is a good teacher.
Something you will learn is you are constantly learning and so are those others in your group, what you will likely find is they will help you one on one if you ask them so don't be afraid.
For example I could never get the parts of speech down I actually failed the test, I was actually the only one. Everyone helped me every night to prepare for the retake and sure enough I passed. Even Ben Stone who could be regarded as the busiest man in the world, Skype called me to go over some of the things that could be on the test for over 40 minutes! Support like this really shows the caring dedication of ABCI and why people 18-20 can also be right for ABCI life.

IS IT FOR EVERYONE
ABCI is hard work you have some very early mornings, long car rides with your flatmates falling asleep on you and you have to feel the pressure of having your lessons assessed. The first week is non stop! Just remember I know you have never been to uni before so you are not used to staying up late and getting a deadline in early the next day. Do the smart thing a work hard first and play hard second, I get its all new and it will be your first time away from home with no rules but be sensible! If you take this into account you will be able to get up the next morning no trouble making life so much easier.
You will also get quite homesick but everyone is friendly and they are there for you, dont forget the senior teachers are people too. If that doesn't work you could always just bring your home to the classroom. For example, I always told classes no matter the age that the classroom was Manchester it helps you get the 'only English' point across and actually helps fight home sickness. I did it all the time at ABCI. I even think it started to annoy some of my group but it definitely helped!

SO WHY ABCI?
You will not find a more character building course any where in the world. Gmundens mountains, Sanct Poltons whisky bar and Graz' Christmas lights are breathtaking
It is a very good deal because you are very highly subsidised and even though they can't pay for you flight there and back, it is because it just isn't practical only once you have done a CertTESOL and got your certificate from ABCi do you have the experience for companies that would be willing to fly you out somewhere to even look at you. Also the people at ABCi will grow you as a person and a teacher. They gradually get you to grow a thick skin and show you how to give constructive criticism. For example, in my very first assessed lesson I actually said to the students 'come in, come in everyone for a..erm....plenary..' much to Ben Stones amusement.
Although, by far the best thing about ABCi is they contiue to check on us even after leaving, asking if there is anything they can do to help. This I think sets ABCi apart from the rest!
I would and have recommended ABCI to people of all ages but I think those of you like myself at 18 who think they know everything, but are not ready for University definitely should try your hand at TEFL teaching you might like it.
If you have any other questions about ABCi I would be glad to answer them.

I completed the fall course in 2016 and really had a great time. I had thought for a while about entering the world of teaching having previous worked as a lock-keeper, in hospitality and as an engineer. I am so glad I took the plunge.

The best thing about this course for me was the guaranteed teaching practice. This gave me the opportunity to believe, that by the end of the course, I can teach English. I would now have no problem preparing to walk into a classroom full of teenagers or younger kids and teaching them English after 300+ hours practice with C. 200 different children with different needs and levels. On completion of the course I received both the ABCi TEFL Cert which stated my teaching practice hours (great for prospective employers) , and my CERTTESOL from Trinity College London (recognised worldwide). The accommodation provided is very basic ( and free) however with such long hours (6:30-16:30) this was OK for me as I was away most weekend and just liked to relax in the evenings( There is a video tour of the accommodation on YouTube). Wifi was provided which I found to be quite good ( it did go down for 2 days but once the college was informed it was fixed straight away) and also the monthly food shop of essentials was also very good. Again this was just basics but for 15 people I found it to be quite reasonable. Weekends were all also free ( Germany, Cech Republic, Hungary, Italy and more were visited) and we had a nice Halloween break which gave a great chance to re-charge the batteries.

There is no doubt that this course is difficult and does require hard work however if you are looking for an introduction to TEFL... I would definitely recommend it.

I'll just start this review by saying I left 1 month into this 4 month experience.

This course was very disorganized from the get-go. I was given incorrect or downright false information about where I would be living/teaching, and what these arrangements would be like. This program felt like a constant bait-and-switch, and just seemed to get worse and worse.

Our first week, there were 27 of us living in one "house". I slept in a room with 5 other people in uncomfortable bunk beds in the summertime. It was mosquito infested, and worse, BUG BED infested. The place needed to be fumigated in the middle of our first week. We also did not get any food delivery until the middle of week 2, had no cleaning supplies, and the trashes were overflowing with flies everywhere.

As for the Vorchdorf campus, you will essentially be in the middle of nowhere if you are unlucky enough to get stuck based out of here (which my group did- Unfairly, we only got 2 weeks near Vienna and spent almost the entire remainder of the course in Vorchdorf). The town Gmunden is nearby, but the last train is at 8 pm so forget doing anything on weekend evenings.

As for the teaching, in week 2 you will be teaching for 6 hours per day for a class of usually unruly teenagers with no supervision. There is only one 15 minute break per day. At one point, my students got in a fist fight in my class and I had to scream out the door into the hallway for help, and nobody came.

The grading is extremely harsh. Failing grades are common. Instead of giving the new teacher confidence, we are often torn down. Written assignments are extremely tedious and it is also common to fail or get a D on these assignments. You will be working your butt off and feel like you are constantly on the brink of failure. Some of the course tutors are very nice and helpful, but the overall feel students had on the course was fear that they were not good enough.

The days are long. The commutes were sometimes over 1.5 hours one way to each school. School starts at 7:45 am, sometimes earlier. You will be up EARLY. After teaching 6 straight hours, you will have another 1.5 hour commute, and then have to go to campus for 1-2 hour input sessions.

You will have to walk to campus each day, sometimes with all of your luggage, as the staff refuse to pick us up or drop us off at our accommodation. Why go 2 minutes out of your way when you can make the student teachers suffer? It will be pitch black outside and you will be asked to carry all of your suitcases, teaching materials, and bedding down a long, twisting hill. When I asked the welfare team why we were forced to walk when there were 7 ABCi cars parked in front of the campus, I was ignored. By the way, several of my other emails to welfare were also unanswered. If they do answer, they will do their best to divert the question or deny any wrongdoing or blame.

On our first day, we were lectured about all the different ways we could get kicked off the course and given examples of previous students. You will get at LEAST 1-2 emails per week addressing a "student teacher warning" for things like "someone left the door unlocked", "you had 2 mattresses on your bed", "the garbage wasn't emptied" "you were 1 minute late today". If you get 3 warnings, you get kicked out. There is VERY little appreciation for your hardworking volunteers.

This place is constantly short-staffed but continually expanding, adding more strain to the remaining staff and volunteers. Why keep expanding? One answer: $$$$$$$. Teaching English is supposed to be fun. If you sign up for this, know that there is very very little fun to be had.

There are many things wrong with this program. One is that at the end of 3.5 months of a 4-month program, many many ST failed their observations. If they had taught us correctly we should have been sailing through the last lessons. There is inconsistent feedback, the accommodations are substandard, ie... a kitchen that is about 8 x 12 is supposed to support 15 ST. How do you cook like that, you simply can't. The "mattresses" are paper thin and are not conducive to a good nights rest, which you will definitely need since door to door is from 5:30 am to 5:30 Pm. You teach all day with no breaks, maybe a 10 min break for lunch. The living conditions are horrid. And the staff are equally horrid, except for some exceptional people. I felt that that no type of constructive criticism is heard. You must call them by their last names, in my opinion, this is very outdated. In response, they said that at Oxford and other universities students call their professors by their last name...WRONG..... AND BTW... this is NOT OXFORD.. this is some little college in Austria that wants to make a big name for themselves. Good luck with that. UNtilL you treat your VOLUNTEERS with respect, this will never happen. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the problems you will have if you decide to go with this program. You are constantly threatened with student warnings if you wear the wrong shoes or use 2 mattresses...and that's just the beginning. If I could just say to you, please please please ...go somewhere else.

This experience was pretty intense. They get you pretty much straight into Austrian classrooms, with a 'learning by doing' kind of approach. But that's not to say that there isn't a serious academic side to the course. I didn't have any proper teaching experience before this but I became fascinated with the challenge of keeping kids engaged with English while having fun with them. Working with the kids is a big upside to the course, sure sometimes they are difficult but most of the time they really keep you going with unexpected presents and unusual behaviour!

The main struggle is keeping up with the schedule and the coursework, as three months was barely enough time to fit everything in. You can certainly expect some unthinkably long days, where the idea of that TEFL certificate is just about the only thing keeping you going - but looking back I see the amount we learned in that time as gargantuan. Plus you get to be in Austria, always finding new things, people and places.

I could count myself as a 'success story' as I walked straight out of the college into a job in Salzburg - I feel very prepared to teach English in just about any scenario.

The saying 'Work hard and Play hard' comes to mind here. The CertTESOL intense programme really means what it says on the tin. The first month is truly long hours, barely any sleep. But once this is done, one gets to enjoy the teaching side more and focus on some more creative assignments throughout (for example, creating and singing (badly) a new song that we made up or found somewhere to our fellow colleagues.
My ultimate favourite part was meeting all the fellow people from all over (mostly from England though) and the teachers were all genuinely lovely.

Warning: If you do not enjoy swimming in lakes with views of the Alps mountains, this is not for you!