Program Reviews

I decided to teach abroad with Greenheart Travel after seeing a high school friend doing it. At the time of applying, I was living outside of Washington, DC and teaching 4th grade. I loved my teaching job, but knew I wanted to teach abroad at some time during my life. While I said I wanted to do this, I had NO idea where to start, until I found Greenheart. My initial talks with Sara were so natural and I felt I had found a personable organization that would help me figure out the best steps for me to talk. Sara, and the rest of the Greenheart Travel team, made the transition seamless. Once arriving in Thailand, I was handed into the care of a company called Xplore Asia. Xplore Asia provided me with my TESOL training courses in Thailand, and helping me land a teaching job in southern Thailand. I graduated with a BS in elementary and special education, and spent time teaching in an ESL classroom in the United States. Because of this, I did not need the TESOL course, and looking back on everything, I wish I decided not to do it. The information was extremely useful for people without backgrounds in education but it was not what I needed. The entire process of Xplore Asia finding you a job was so easy though. They did EVERYTHING for us which lifted a weight off of our shoulders. I am extremely happy I made the decision to come abroad with Greenheart Travel. I have fallen in love with Thailand and have NO plans to leave anytime soon!

I had the pleasure of living with a family outside of Bangkok for one month. I lived with grandmother, mom, dad, two boys (8 and 14) and three dogs. My focus was on preparing the 14 year old for his yearlong homestay in the U.S. the following year. I taught American History and Lifestyle lessons and worked on his conversational English.

I choose to participate in this program to help decide if I wanted to live and teach English in Thailand. My experience was so profound and inspiring; I am already planning my return.

I would highly recommend this program to anyone wanting to fully immerse yourself in another culture. Whether you are in high school, recently graduated, or a 30-year-old looking to make a life change like me, take the plunge and expand your comfort zone.

10 out of 10 overall because there wasn’t any confusion or anything that I felt like I wasn’t provided. I loved communicating with the staff because they answered my all of questions with patience, and 5 months before my actual trip. The program was great! I really liked that the application was really thourough, because I was placed with a family that matched! We shared a lot of hobbies together and I’m grateful to have been placed there! And also I loved that you are placed instead of being able to choose where you want to stay, because I’ve been able to visit places that I would’ve never even heard before. Although I didn’t have many questions during my stay, I’m pretty sure they’ve would have been answered quickly by the staff, great overall! I recommend this program, because it helps you with a bigger understanding of someone’s everyday life.

Originally, I am from a small, mountain town in Arkansas. I love where I'm from, but I thought the big city might be the change I was looking for to shake things up a bit. So, I settled on Bangkok for my placement school. I went a more non-conventional route in my living situation. I managed to find an abandoned clothes factory turned studio apartment by a few local artists, and I now live with 10 other people from all over the world - from Thai to Russian. We cook dinner together, we go out into the city night-life together, and they provide new insights into the "unseen" Bangkok than I ever could have imagined.
But amid the exhilarating highs, it took quite a number of lows to get where I was finally happy in my placement town. This will happen whether you're in Bangkok, Phuket, or a small village in Isan. Change is hard, and the loneliness will follow suit. The people you love back home will find it hard to connect to those pains, but they are there for you. Ultimately, It's a time to grab yourself by the bootstraps and feel the waves of a real adventure lapping at your shore. Don't miss out because you're afraid of the sea.

Introduction:
As an ESL teacher with some experience teaching abroad, I would like to share with you my experience of this program. It is a good program to do whether you are a newly certified ESL teacher, or a seasoned one. It brings together a good amount of teaching time, with the community life in Costa Rica, and the knowledge that you are making a real difference in students lives. It’s great to see the students being enthusiastic and learning, they want to do their best and you are helping them to make the most out of a great situation. They get to learn English through the Costa Rican government, and you are helping them achieve this and more with the opportunities the language will provide them in the future. I was already in Central America when I was informed about this opportunity, and was very happy to begin on a new adventure!

It is still a very new program. The interview process, and submission of documents were simple and fast. It was done through Greenheart travel and I was assisted by Lauren, she was very friendly and helpful and I received some introduction materials prior to the start of the program. There were a lot of useful materials in there and good guidelines for what to expect while in Costa Rica. If it is your first time travelling overseas, it will be super useful for you, but even as a seasoned traveller I found the information very good. I liked how the insurance and housing is provided within the program too. The only thing you need to worry about is your teaching.

Orientation:
Once the program had started, I went to San Jose to do the orientation. The orientation and program are run by an organisation called Aliarse in Costa Rica. It is still a new program so some of the pieces are still being put together. You will be told about your placement location and host family during the orientation. The orientation itself was detailed and we were told what to expect in the classroom, and were given lesson plans. We also had the opportunity to print our resources ready for the first week. We had a mock lesson with opportunities for feedback on our teaching methods, which was also very useful.
I liked that they were putting a good emphasis on the overall needs of the student because they really wanted their students to succeed and stay in the program and to also help them once the program finished in securing a job. I really like that this was a socially responsible program, and it is what the heart of volunteering is all about. I believed in the work that I was about to do, so I was feeling excited to do it!

With that said, we were told that our orientation would be for one week, but it was actually quite rushed, and within the second day I was told I’d be reaching my placement location - the very NEXT day ready to teach! We left early enough to reach my town and begin teaching straight away, it was quite overwhelming being taken to my placement that quickly. Additionally, the host family that I would stay with were also not confirmed until after we reached my placement town.

What the lessons are like:
Once we arrived in my placement location, I was introduced to my class and the rules were explained to the students in Spanish. (TIP: It’s going to be the best thing for you to learn at least a basic level of Spanish, even though you will learn very quickly while here, it’s going to be a greater experience if you already have an understanding of the language. Babbel and Duo lingo are good and easy ways to learn, but ideally you should practise your Spanish with a teacher before submersing yourself in this experience in Central America.)
The teaching materials are all provided through the program. Lesson plans are ready and there are many good materials for you to use. You can come in as a complete beginner with little experience, and still have the plans laid out waiting for you, you need to personalise them of course to make the best of the lesson ;)
You are teaching on average a total of 6 hours a day, with breaks as well. You teach four days a week, with Friday’s for planning and making copies of materials for the students. You can expect to do a lot of planning and marking, it is a full workload for sure. The cost of the copies are provided for by the organisation as well as the transport to the school so you don’t have other costs. I chose to walk to my school in the mornings because that was my preference in the little hilly town where I stayed.

Host family:
The people of Costa Rica are very “Pura vida” :) That means relaxed and easy going. They all are warm and good folks. When I entered my host family’s place, it was a nice feeling when we were welcomed with breakfast. And while getting to know them on my first day, they picked me up from my classroom to have lunch with them at home on my lunch break and then dropped me back to class. They were a big family of four, and very festive and loud. They loved singing and karaoke, and are a musical family with many dogs and one cat! I loved how they all got together to do things like that. You are treated like one of their own, and introduced to many more family members, grandfathers, uncles, cousins and so on.
With many international exchanges, it’s completely normal to sometimes have a miscommunication if you aren’t completely fluent in the host language. My program director and social worker were really helpful to me in a situation where there was some misunderstanding. It was nice to know that I would have help here, when you are in a new country without your regular support systems in place, it can be a little bit tricky to understand how to navigate situations. You’re in a new culture, with new folks, and many new customs to understand, and of course it is a lot to understand! They were available for me to talk to if I needed that. My host family showed me Tamale’s which are a traditional special occasion food eaten in Costa Rica, and I showed them Pavlova, a dessert from New Zealand where I am from.

More:
One of the things that appealed to me about this program was that you were not going to be placed alone. I really liked that we would have a social worker and an English co-ordinator in the classroom, and also one other fellow volunteer in the same town as you. I was happy about that! So far, in my town I am actually the only volunteer here and it wasn’t until a few weeks after starting that my social worker arrived in my placement town. We don’t have an English co-ordinator either. It is still a very new program so I can understand that some of the things are not yet in place, however it was very difficult for me in the first few weeks of starting this program. I didn’t know anyone here, my Spanish is not perfect and I was the only person in the classroom, it is a lot of work - and without the support in the beginning it was very hard. It was different to what I was told we would have in the program. I think that this might change as more pieces come together in future, and I also know that in other placement towns that there are more volunteers.

Overall
If you speak Spanish, are interested about teaching English to adults that want to learn and will do all they can to study AND if you are excited about travelling to a “pura vida” place like Costa Rica, I think that you will have a good time :) Keep in mind it is a new program, and things are still happening for the better. You will have a good time, and have a fun experience. Gracias!

I spent a month living with a family in Bronnitsy, a town SE of Moscow. Dad, Mom, two sons (9 and 11) and their dog. The family went out of their way to show me Russian life, including trips in to Moscow, to plays and ballets, and to their dacha. I met other members of their family, their friends and several of the boys' teachers. Their school actually made a really big deal of my visit, inviting me to classes, a forum where advanced English students spoke, and a special presentation and tea. They even put me on local TV! I tailored my English instruction individually: helped the younger son with his English homework and worked on reading; traded history lessons in English (me) and Russian (him) with the older boy; worked with Dad every morning over breakfast; and worked with Mom in the kitchen, practicing vocabulary and listening. I met Grandmother, and an older daughter who is at university. I really felt one of the family, and enjoyed the experience immensely.

Our daughter is spending the first semester of her sophomore year of High School studying in Spain. She has completed her first three months and is having an incredible experience. Her family is wonderful and school experience has been both challenging and incredibly rewarding. Her Spanish has improved tremendously. She began the program with only one year of High School Spanish and has been able to participate in succeed in all of her classes. She has joined the volleyball team, which has been both fun and a great way to learn Spanish. She has made many friends and is learning how to navigate life on her own in Spain. We could not be happier with the experience she is having and the support we have gotten from Green Heart Travel. They were very helpful and responsive from the beginning and helped my daughter complete her application in a relatively short time.

I will start off by giving a shout out to Allison Yates, my homestay coordinator. She made this all happen for me in a matter of weeks. I'm eternally grateful for her patience, hard work and expertise! Since I was a pre-teenager, I'd wanted to live and teach in France. I learned about the culture and learned French, never having the opportunity to stay more than 1 week in Paris. To say the least, Southwestern France is incredibly different from Paris. While I can appreciate Paris for it's amazing arts and culture, living in Tarbes was beyond worthwhile as my French skills were used every day to do just about everything! I loved the fact that not many people spoke fluent English like in Paris. I grew to love my host family, they truly became my family away from family. I spent my weekdays teaching English and my weekends traveling around Southwestern France. This trip was something that I'd wanted for a very long time! As a former classroom teacher, I solidified my teaching skills and expanded my cultural perspective. Depending on where you live in France, you should have a basic grasp of the language so that you can be somewhat independent when you're on your own. The French will appreciate any effort that you make, trust me. Greenheart found a family that would be able to accomodate my dairy allergy and this felt like a miracle in a country like France where so many staple foods are dairy products. I really can't speak highly enough of the program! It's a great deal for the experience that you get.

Hello, Viewer! I shall try to keep this short and sweet...at least to the best of my ability.
So Im Noah, 16 years old, and a Junior in High School. I completed a two week language-camp in Arcachon, France. I was stuck with one year of French in school after the instructor retired and I was eager to get credit for a second. My Father had been encouraging me to go through with this program for a different reason, however: for a nice experience. He was very supportive and I was nervous and doubtful beyond belief. I was worrying about the smallest details in making the decision to go or not, then I decided to "jump off the bridge and build the plane on the way down," as it were. I knew that, without all those tiny stressors I was thinking about, an experience such as this was bound to be fun and fruitful all around.
So, I told my dad I'd do it; I was still nervous, and still anxious, but I found a comfort in knowing the decision was irrevocable. In the couple months I had before Summer, I realized how trivial the little problems were; TSA trouble, Airport maneuvering, Family introduction. Ha, I laugh at myself now.
I got to France and the family was so welcoming. Greenheart Travel did in amazing job in placing me with respect to my preferences. In Arcachon, I'd say it was about 90% of the students that took the train to school along with me (my host mother sorted the ticket out and drove us to the station most mornings. A few times one of her friends, also hosting a fellow student, picked us up). It was EXTREMELY FUN! I felt like a French local (we even sneaked into first class once, but it wasn't even a big deal).
The other students there were extremely friendly as well, and most of them spoke strong English too! And as for the city, it was so clean and nice, and it seems all the parents were more than happy to cooperate in pick-up times for us, as some days we wanted to stay a little later.
It was sad leaving, but I still keep in touch with my host family, and all the many friends I made. We have agreed to meet in the future again; the only problem is they are all kind of close to each other in Europe and I am on the furthest side of the US!
I strongly recommend going through with the program. PLEASE contact me if your iffy or doubtful, or just want to talk about the program. My email is torresnoah@gmail.com.
I am SOOOO happy I took the risk AND I really hope you do too!!!!!!

I was able to teach on the North Eastern side of Italy, about 45 minutes from Venice, and it was amazing. The teachers I worked with were very excited to utilize the skills I have and I found that I ended up learning a lot more than I ever thought I would! I taught primary, middle and high school Science, English, Media, and History 18 hours a week. The students were all very interested in learning English and it was a great opportunity to learn a lot about Italian culture. The host family I stayed with were incredibly welcoming, encouraged me to travel by train on my days off, took me to see different cities and famous sights around that area, and I was able to try numerous delicious dishes from all over Italy.

As someone who has traveled a fair amount, I felt prepared to step out of my comfort zone and really embrace Italian life, and my host family encouraged me to cook American meals and share American culture with them. The weekend before halloween, we carved pumpkins, had an American dinner, and also made pumpkin gnocchi!

SavannahMcDermott was an incredible asset for this program and was always timely in responding to emails and answering any questions I had. She was a great person to work with and I felt very prepared once I arrived in Italy because of all the behind the scenes work Savannah did. Thanks Savannah!