Center for Teacher Development

If you are interested in teaching ESL abroad, this is the program for you! All of the class instruction was relevant and really prepared me to be an effective teacher. I have been teaching English in Costa Rica for over a year, and I really enjoy what I do.

This course was extremely book heavy with a lot of homework. There is a heavy focus on theory. If you pay attention, you will learn a lot, maybe even more than you ever wanted to. One of the 2 instructors was extremely knowledgeable and a fantastic teacher.

I had my own lodging, but the housing where the course administrators usually put people is over an hour away (by bus) from the facility where you learn Monday - Friday.

The teaching curriculum hours are with local high school kids and you can expect that there aren't any resources available for teaching beyond a chalkboard and maybe access to a copier. The students all have wonderful, positive attitudes and are fun to teach. The only problem was that the feedback provided after curriculum hours was lacking anything constructive. However, the main institute that CFTD pairs teachers up with has teacher coordinators who do give good constructive feedback (so you learn more on the job).

I did manage to teach part time while going through the course, although I wouldn't recommend it since it was exhausting and this left no time for fun. The reason I taught part time was because the institute they paired me up with for a job after the course wanted me to begin before the course was even over. Plus, it was nice to start earning a bit of cash before the course was over.