Gotoco FUNDED TEFL Adventures (Bali, Thailand, Colombia, Europe, SE Asia!) Reviews

I would describe it as a once in a lifetime opportunity, it was simply breath taking to wake up each day surrounded by mountains, to eat mangos and swim in the Yulonghe river, take mopeds to secret beaches and waterfalls, and make some amazing life long friends. I am starting a teacher training course in September so teaching the children in the camp has really boosted my confidence, leadership, communication and team working skills. it has also shown me I could easily move and work abroad as a teacher. Meeting and teaching lots of different children of all abilities, meeting the other teacher and teaching assistants, learning about Chinese culture, living in a small remote village and doing just as the locals do are some of my highlights. :)

Gotoco is a great point of contact between schools in China and people who want to teach. It can be difficult to find places in China where foreigners, especially students with no qualifications yet, can work. By also offering the TEFL qualification it makes Gotoco even better.

I was based in a small village called Chaoyang, in the Yangshuo area, at Zhuoyue English School. I adored the kids in my classes as well as my TAs. Living in Chaoyang for 7 weeks was incredible, the scenery never lost its wonder and the locals were all very friendly. Our course coordinator (our boss?) at the school was a sweetheart and brought us mangos and took us to fancy restaurants on the weekend, couldn't ask for more.

My favourite memories of the trip are scootering to and from Yangshuo, only 20mins away and roughly £5 for the scooter rental for the full day (7am-12am)! An absolute steal!! Tea picking and tai-chi were also a lot of fun.
We were fortunate enough to be given free Chinese lessons twice a week as well which helped us pick up basic phrases such as ‘how much is this?’ (多少钱) and ‘have you eaten yet?’ (how you say hi to close friends, 你吃饭了吗)

I have discovered I really love teaching and am now confident enough in my own abilities to know I could become a real teacher in the future. I have also gained the confidence to navigate a foreign country by myself and can't wait to travel more of Asia and the world!

The time I have spent in China is unforgettable and the friends I have made are irreplaceable :)) If I have enough time and money next summer I would love to teach in China again.

It was a really exciting and challenging experience, great opportunity to develop yourself and meet likeminded people. I spent my summer program in Dongguan, in the south of China, somewhere I had never heard of before being accepted there. The school I was teaching at was full of friendly, helpful staff, and the children were all very eager to learn! Outside of the classroom, there were plenty of opportunities to explore the local area, such as going on a mountain hike, visiting traditional Chinese gardens and going for meals. The location was also close enough to Hong Kong that I was able to visit during one of my weekends off from teaching, and it was certainly worth the travel. At the end of the program, almost everyone went to Yangshuo together, which was the perfect end to the experience.

My experience with Gotoco was amazing; it is an excellent opportunity for learning and development whilst having a lot of fun at the same time! The program I was on was centered around Beijing but also had a 2-week international development course in Wuhan. Wuhan was really interesting as it offered a variety of activities such as mandarin lessons, day excursions and cultural activities such as Tai Chi and Calligraphy. Teaching in Beijing was indeed eye-opening as it forced me to recognise my use of language and helped me further understand English. Fun overall experience that I see as an amazing opportunity. It depends what you want, you’ll get as much out of it as you put into it so I think it depends on the individual also. Regardless, it is definitely worth your time and consideration.

Teaching at the BoB Vocational Training School in Shantou was an unforgettable experience, full of opportunities to explore the city and its surrounding areas, and to learn about Chinese culture. The Chinese teachers were very supportive and provided some training days before the programme began, and both of the phases of teaching ended in Bilingual Festivals. This is when most of the classes perform a song/play in English (with or without their foreign teacher) in front of a large audience; truly an amazing ordeal.
I ended my trip to China by staying in Yangshuo for 5 days with the majority of people from my programme, as well as volunteers from other programmes across China. This was my favourite part of the trip as we were able to explore on our own; we even hired e-bikes to ride around the mountains!
During my 7 weeks in China, I have made many lifelong friendships and definitely will visit again.

I enjoyed this program very much! I particularly liked the style of my Yangshuo program which was Teach And Travel. We got to explore Guilin and Yangshuo. This program allows you to not only see some amazing nature views but also to try your hands in a teacher's role. I gained confidence in myself and got to practice how to create lesson plans and just overall activity plans. I also got to practice how to make kids be attentive in the classroom. The program was really fun and the kids were great! The coordinators of the program were very welcoming and friendly. And the application process was very easy. Even though I did not get accepted into the first offered program (I failed the interview part), they offered me a different program straight away which was an even better choice for me (because for the start/end dates)

Personally, the highlight of my experience was working alongside like-minded Gotoco-ers to try and navigate a drastically different culture together. I also gained a lot of confidence from teaching and I realised that working with children is something I'd love to do in the future, especially abroad. It is a great experience to explore China with the safety of staying with a school and being given fun activities to help run. Witnessing a different culture gives you a new perspective upon your own privileges and certainly encouraged me to work hard and explore as much of the world as I can. This programme has benefitted me as I have taken on a lot of responsibility to teach the children new skills. I have gained confidence by having to stand on a stage and take authority, but I have also gained independence and feel proud of myself for travelling to China alone to pursue a new opportunity.

This was a wonderful experience, learned a lot, and a great way to see China. They really support you, was very good overall. They do a good job of matching you up. I think in future they plan on doing more social events with participants which would be really awesome. They also helped with visa things although they recommend an agent which didn't work for me and I found the consulate much easier. They are always there to help with questions but there is no emergency phone number (but you do get their wechat). The program was wonderful, a great learning experience with great people. Can't wait to come back to China again, and I would definitely recommend this program to any student who want to see China and also get a very valuable and unique experience out of it.

I had an amazing time while participating in the programme. While teaching can definitely be challenging at times, the local TAs helped a lot, and seeing the progress of the kids and getting positive feedback from them and their parents undoubtedly makes it worth all the effort. I’m thankful that Gotoco worked hard to ensure that my friend and I get assigned to the same school so that we had the chance to experience all the difficulties and highlights together. After hearing some stories from other participants, I came to realise that we were exceptionally lucky with our particular placement, as it allowed us not only to visit some beautiful local sights (such as a tea plantation) on school outings but I also had a lot of free time to explore the wonderful area near Yangshuo on our own.

This program has benefitted me by providing me with extensive teaching experience, including lesson planning, communicating material to young children in the classroom, on-the-spot thinking and changes to lesson plans (to accommodate the children in classes), time management and organization, and communication skills with other teachers and program leaders. On a personal level, the program has helped me develop more confidence and better communication skills.

The application process was fairly simple in my opinion. I found it easy to access and the questions asked were additionally reasonable in terms of content and length. The waiting times for the results were reasonable as well.

I would recommend the program because it was an affordable way to gain both teaching experience and knowledge of the culture, education, and society of another country. Moreover, if it were not for the program, I would not have found an opportunity to venture out on my own to China and visit Asia.