What position do you hold at Christian TEFL? What has been your career path so far?
I’m Director of Studies and one of the Trustees of this TEFL training charity. I have taught English in Mexico, Portugal and the UK and have always loved this portable career and the opportunities to meet such interesting people and travel. At 22 years old, within 6 weeks of passing my TEFL course I was teaching English to the Mayor of Mexico City's chief advisor, from his office overlooking the Zocalo in the city center. I remember thinking - how is this possible? A TEFL can really open doors.
Years later, after further qualifications and management experience, I helped start Global English TESOL, one of the first distance learning TESOL providers in the world which is still going strong. In 2012 we started a sister organization, Christian TEFL, utilizing the same quality, accredited TESOL courses.
Did YOU teach abroad? If so, where did you go and what inspired you to go?!
A love of travel was my inspiration but I soon found something in teaching itself that was rewarding, exciting and inspiring – I also met my wife abroad which was an unexpected bonus.
What does the future hold for Christian TEFL - any new programs to share?
It is an exciting time to be involved in a TEFL training charity. We have the quality, accredited courses and now our aim is to get the word out further. I would hope that being a Christian Charity helps people trust that we will deliver - because who to trust is a major issue in online TEFL provision. Christian TEFL is quite a unique organization in outlook and ethos. While people can use their Christian TEFL certificate to travel and earn abroad like anyone else, we are also working with a number of partners, such as Interserve, TeachBeyond and ReachAcross to promote their worldwide mission placements. This means Christians can use their TEFL training to help improve lives. For many, a good knowledge of English is crucial to a job and a way out of poverty. All our profits go to these mission partners.
What about the future of the teach abroad industry? How do you think education will change over the next 10 years?
Technology is already improving ease of access to course and mobile learning. But the courses that will survive and be recognized as valuable will harness new technology yet still retain meaningful tasks, with quality tutor support, alongside peer-to-peer interaction. There are already cheap (and not so cheap courses) that are mainly multi-choice in nature and on their own are of little use in a classroom. Plenty of feedback from a qualified tutor so you can learn and develop and refine your knowledge is one of the key components of a quality course. I think this will still be the case in the future.
I see more learning taking place online, where students look to study in small or large community groups, where face to face learning will be only one of several options.
Which teach abroad destination is most underrated? Conversely, which is most overrated?
I would say Thailand is overrated simply because it is fashionable at the moment whereas a similar but less frenetic experience can be found in nearby Cambodia and Vietnam which are often overlooked. In Europe, France is still one of the most popular destinations for our trainees and we have seen this growing, with fewer people heading to Spain and Portugal.
