Highlights:Teaching and traveling were the highlights of TEFL Corinth. The variety of age groups and language levels provided me with a diverse teaching experience. I loved the cross-cultural aspect as well. When I wasn’t teaching, I was traveling throughout Greece. Each weekend, the program director drove us to different modern and ancient sites: the domineering Acrocorinth, peaceful Nemea, heraldic Mycenae, picturesque Nafplio. One weekend, my mother and I traveled on our own to Sparta. We explored Ancient Sparta’s amphitheater, ate gyros for less than a euro, and saluted a towering bronze statue of Leonidas. TEFL Corinth is a cultural, culinary, educational experience. Moreover, its exceptional certification program shaped me into a competent, confident, well-trained ESL instructor.
Morning: I woke up each morning around 8am in the lovely home provided by the TEFL program. We lived in the small village of Vrahati, just outside of Corinth. I would walk towards the beach to get fresh bread at my favorite bakery. On the way home, I usually plucked a few ripe oranges to make orange juice. After breakfast on the porch, I literally walked across the street to the training center. Class began at 10am, and covered a range of useful topics, from phonetics to grammar, language acquisition theories to present perfect progressive.
Afternoon: Afternoons began with a lunch break. Sometimes I walked the three blocks to the main street for hot Greek dishes, other times I had a light lunch of feta and tomatoes while soaking up the Mediterranean sun. After lunch, I convened at the training center to prepare for the classes we would be teaching that evening. We made detailed lesson plans with the collaboration of our knowledgeable trainers. I prepped for classes—made flashcards, colored photocopies, and grammar activities. My trainers encouraged me to be creative, to think outside the box when conducting a lesson.
Evening: Around 4:30pm, we would leave in the bus provided by TEFL, which drove us to Kiato, a nearby seaside village. Sometimes I taught back-to-back classes, other times I had a free hour before teaching. The private English school in Kiato was located in the square, so I rambled down the streets, ate honey-drenched baklava, or relaxed at a café and drank frappes. Despite the charming square, teaching was the reward of the evening.
I taught young learners, pre-adolescents, and high school students. The first two weeks, the trainers observed our classes. The students were inquisitive, charming, opinionated, and self-assured speakers of English. The pre-adolescents challenged me the most; incidentally, my classroom management skills improved. After teaching, we were driven back to the training center and given feedback on our teaching effectiveness for the day. By the end of the second week, I felt confident and competent in teaching a class on my own.