Program Reviews

LoveTefl has opened many great big golden doors for me. Not only has it given me the opportunity to teach within a safe yet challenging environment; it has also provided me with a life changing experience. My internship has given me something to smile about on a daily basis. Waking up at 5am is an absolute pleasure as I know I'll be seeing my amazing students. The friends I've made will last a lifetime. The experiences we've shared unforgettable. The staff of both LoveTefl and my internship, have been so warm and kind hearted - nothing is ever a problem. It really is impossible not to love LoveTefl.

To be honest, just after signing up for my South African internship, I was filled with thoughts of 'what have I done?' and 'why have I done this?'. Although, those worries and qualms couldn't have been more wrong; signing up was the best chance I ever took.

My day to day experience at the school couldn't have gone better. My teacher was extremely welcoming and helpful. She was happy to give me as much help and independence with my teaching that I wanted. I assisted for the first few weeks and then I started to teach 1/2 planned lessons a week. I also often took activities last minute and worked with children one-on-one. However, some teachers at the school did take me out of my class to simply mark their books. I know they are very busy with their heavy work load, but I felt like I could have been doing other activities (like working one-on-one, helping with reading or teaching lessons) that could have been more beneficial for the children. I was told another teacher had asked my class teacher, the majority of my teaching days, if she could borrow me for marking. I felt this was unfair on my class because they were probably the most boisterous in the foundation phase. Therefore working one-on-one with them, especially when one or two had to catch up with the others, helped the teacher immensely. We would also sometimes have to wait an hour-ish for our transport back home from Simonstown School, which was quite problematic if we had plans after school. Overall, my class was amazing and the school was accommodating to allow me to get what I wanted from my South Africa teaching experience.

The city of Cape Town and Fish Hoek village are incredible locations for the internship. I have never been to such a beautiful place! The house was adequate, mostly, for the duration of our stay. However, we did encounter quite a few problems with it. For example, the roof in our room was leaking for the first week (at least) during our trip. This made the room smell, our clothes smell and even ourselves smell. It wasn't pleasant living in damp for at least the first week; especially because it was tipping it down and freezing cold at the time. The TEFL team in England seem great, however the South African TEFL team didn't seem to make this a priority and deal with this quickly. I know that the South African way of life is much more relaxed, but the roof wasn't properly fixed when we arrived, and it wasn't great settling in to a new place that smelled of damp. We also encountered problems with the hot water, which for the duration would only allow 2 hot showers at a time. With 5 girls in our room all attending the same school hours and socialising together, this was tricky to manage. However, faults aside I think the house is suitable for the amount of people in it. The lounge and the pool room are great for socialising.

Probably the biggest highlight of my trip was visiting Hermanus; a cute village about 2 and a half hours from Cape Town. The place was famous for whale spotting and it's beautiful scenery. There was loads to do there and we stayed in an amazing place which wasn't that expensive. I would definitely recommend future interns to check Hermanus out.

I would also recommend warning your future interns more about scamming from ATMs. Some criminals convince you that they are helping you with the machine but then steal your card and your pin number and you don't even know it's happened. It, unfortunately, happened to me and nearly happened to 2 other interns. This seems quite common over there so would recommend emphasizing this as it put a downer on my trip for quite a while.

Overall, not including the ATM scam, my South African internship couldn't have gone better. I learnt so much about South Africa and got a real feel for the place. The township tours and just being part of the local culture was extremely important to get a feel of all walks of life over there. Cape Town is an incredible place and one which I would definitely return to.

I had a wonderful experience which allowed me to explore a new country, get valuable teaching experience and a recognised TEFL qualification. Plenty of information is provided before and during the trip making this new experience an exciting adventure rather than a terrifying trip. The week days were spent teaching in an environment where you had freedom to plan your lessons how you want but access to ideas and help from the teachers in the school if needed. This was reassuring as I had no teaching experience before this. The weekends were spent exploring and travelling with like minded people and the last week was an island break on Koh Samet. We went to the full moon party, temples, museums, famous landmarks and an elephant sanctuary just to name a few things. It was something I had never thought of doing until I had seen it online but it was the best decision I've made and would thoroughly recommend it to anyone and everyone.

What an incredible trip. I personally think that this type of thing is so much better than just travelling around SE Asia. Getting to know real Thai culture, living in a community, having a base at the school in-between the crazy weekends around Thailand, made this trip so much better! As someone that can be particularly shy and had never travelled like this before, I was surprised how quickly you get into it, with no worries or issues. Teaching is a huge learning curve and can really be enjoyable if you give it your all. Kids were great and teachers so so welcoming. Needless to say that I met some amazing people and hope to keep in contact with a few of them for the rest of my life. Surreal experience and something that cannot be summed up easily.

Coming to China would be without a doubt a challenge, but with the internship a lot of these challenges are manageable. Being placed with people means that you will experience these difficulties together and of course make life long friends and experience the good times! This is what made the internship appealing to me. I was going to be placed with other interns and I would have my accommodation waiting for me. If I didn't have these things, coming to China would have been a whole different story. Also five months is not long at all-time flies in China. It was such a new experience for me that it was good to only commit to something for five months rather than twelve in-case I really did not like it. I am so much more open minded now. I would advise anybody to just go for it, don't be scared to go alone and just be ready to experience some amazing and crazy times! Teaching can be tiring and difficult sometimes but it is a rewarding job. I was placed with high school students and it can be difficult. Sixteen year olds all over the world still tend to have their 'bad days' lets say!. I was also placed in a somewhat rural area with no foreigners which was difficult at first to find places to go/things to do. However, it made it more fun in ways-my placement partner and I ended up having the best Chinese and South Korean friends. I would advise people to come to China who are in any way open minded or willing to experience a new culture. Go for it!

2005 was a time I felt I needed to broaden my horizons and gain more knowledge in a subject I would enjoy. I was 27 years old and had travelled to many places either alone or with other people but I felt that I had not truly immersed myself into the countries and cultures enough and I wanted to pursue a REAL travel experience. I found I-to-I and I visited their office in Leeds (conveniently my hometown) They made me feel so welcome and made me a nice cup of tea and sat me down to advise me. To cut a long story short I fell in love with their company’s ideas and it matched my burning ambitions to find a real travel experience and finally, I found a subject I really wanted to do, and that was to teach the English Language. The question was how would I begin this journey? Well it turned out I-to-I had that answer for me.

I enrolled on a 60 hour course but instead of completing it in one fell swoop; I took my time and researched many of the modules covered. The tutors (Judy Mabe and Alex Semakin) were lovely, helpful and full of the knowledge (and patient with my many questions) I needed to pursue my goal to become a teacher. I learnt a lot of theory on this course and I supplemented that with a 20 hour intensive course which was great for a real hands on teaching experience. I enrolled on short courses too such as Teaching young learners, a 20 hour grammar course and teaching larger classes which all taught me the skills I needed. It was amazing to have completed them and the knowledge they provided was extremely helpful as it gave me the key ingredients in order to teach effectively.

In October 2007, I took the BIG Step and applied for a three month teaching placement in Hanoi, Vietnam. You are probably wondering why did I choose that place, well I believe it was where I needed to be and as I will reveal later I was exactly right! :) The organization was great and I-to-I were there every step of the way. It was nice knowing they were there to back me up if anything untoward should happen and they were great at organizing everything and made me feel safe. The school, which was called Binh Minh (Sunrise) Secondary school, was amazing and the teachers there were welcoming and really helped me to fit in to their school way of life. Having the teachers say to me that I was a real English teacher made me even more thankful to I-to-I for providing me with the training.

When I returned to England, after traveling through the rest of Vietnam and Southeast Asia, I visited I -to-I's office again to give them a hearty warm thank you for providing me with not only the training, feeling safe, the organization and professionalism but also making me more confident in myself to continue to pursue my dreams and that I am eternally grateful to them. Since 2008 I have been the happiest I have ever been. I was offered a job in Hanoi because of my TEFL certificates with a great language school where I stayed for nearly 3 years perfecting and always improving my teaching skills. I taught all ranges from Beginner levels to Advanced, young learners (Young learners course and teaching larger classes course from I-to-I helped greatly here) I can now teach TOEIC, which is The Test of English in Communication, which also provides students to gain access to higher employment and higher salaries. I taught many high – level Business English classes for reputable companies. The students were just as enthusiastic as me and were great students to teach and to see them progress in English, which is a tough language for them to learn, really made me very proud to be doing something I love and helping people to pursue their dreams really made me thankful to be in the job I really loved.

I wanted to improve my teaching skills even more and delve deeper into the different methods of language teaching with different theories so in 2010 I enrolled on a CELTA course in Hanoi. Due to the knowledge from I-to-I, I gained the highest mark which again was thanks to I-to-I’s training. I really would love to advise more people on what these courses and placements can achieve because I truly feel that I-to-I's courses and placements are a foot in the door for people who are not quite sure about going it alone. I see on the website people are often confused about the differences between I-to-I's TEFL courses and The CELTA course. All I can say is that I-to-I was a great step because by taking their courses I gained great knowledge and experience and with deciding to pursue it as a career it helped enormously with my CELTA as I had already trained on many of the aspects of ESL teaching with I-to-I. My decision to do both was one of the best decisions ever. Also, the confidence that the project has given me was unique in that it made me even more confident to go it alone.

I am currently teaching for a language school called IBEST which provides professional training for Vietnamese students wishing to study overseas. I am currently teaching IELTS (International English Language Testing System) and TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) I had to complete another intensive course on these difficult English Language Testing Systems in order to be able to teach it but it was well worth it as my teaching skills, enthusiasm and love for the job have grown even more and helping students to achieve the score and level of English they need in order to achieve their dream of a master’s degree in The USA, The UK and Australia is one the greatest things to achieve and I feel I am really helping people with their lives It is very rewarding and to say I love it would be and understatement as I absolutely adore teaching there. It does not even feel like a job as every day is something unique and different. When I wake up in the morning I want to teach and they do say "To love your job is half the battle" Well in my case that is 110% true.

I have been living in Hanoi, Vietnam for almost 5 years now and have become fluent in the language after studying at a university in Hanoi. I feel this also helped me and think that learning another language is extremely rewarding in gaining a great insight into the country, culture and its people. It is also great for finding out the differences between the language of the country you are in and the English Language. It took me about two years with many mistakes (Failure is the mother of success) and getting into situations I thought I had not agreed on such as buying something I did not need by saying the wrong word, but eventually something clicked and my Vietnamese language just took off from there really and I have not looked back since and I still continue to learn as I have a deep passion for languages especially Vietnamese. It is just so different to English and I love the way the Vietnamese use words with extra feeling and deeper meanings which allow you to discover new parts of life and culture every day.

Why did I choose Vietnam out of all the places I could have volunteered in? Well as I said at the beginning I believe it was my calling as the first person I met in Hanoi at the airport just by chance became my soul mate for life. After we met in 2007 we were friends then became a couple for three years and now since 2011 we have been happily married and we have a great life here in Hanoi together.

If I had to give one piece of advice to anyone who is thinking about doing something new in a new place then all I have to say is go for it. Do not worry about the “if’s and but’s” they are actually what make the journey better. I feel that there are more people who are stuck in life and find it hard to pluck up the courage to do something that is completely alien to them but with I-to-I to help them in the first few steps I believe that anything is possible and can help more people discover things they never knew. I discovered things (and still continue to do so) that I never knew even existed. The possibilities are just endless and you may end up discovering things that will open up your mind, body and soul in ways you never even thought of. They do say that travels broadens the mind and I do believe this wholeheartedly as even times when I struggled to let go of some of my deep beliefs I learnt from others to share my beliefs with their beliefs which in turn made my life happier as I learn and continue to learn from others in order to teach to the best of my abilities.

I worked for 13 years in sports stores and never left Australia. I studied TEFL so I could enjoy teaching children and also see Europe. Everyone thought I was crazy to choose Moscow, Russia as I planned to leave Australia permanently. My work is safe as I started tutoring a wealthy family and now work exclusively for them. We regularly travel internationally, eat well and all at no expense to me. How many jobs can you go to France, Monaco, U.K, Latvia and Italy (several times) in 5 star hotels and not pay a cent (apart from shopping for yourself)!!! You are not limited to working in a school, though with this qualification, the door is really open to what you can do. Resources can be difficult to find at times, but so many people are happy to use an ipad and apps for learning, so it makes things easier. This place is fast, busy, and huge (15 million population in 1 city). It is worth the trip.

I did a TEFL course with i-to-i as I wanted to travel for a while after school. I wanted to make sure I could fall back on a skill if I needed cash (I didn't fancy picking fruit). 3 years later and I am still teaching!

The i-to-i site is so helpful, you can find resources, jobs and chat to people like you. The courses are well set out, easy to follow and understand and the support is second to none.

It really has been a life changer!

I have really enjoyed teaching TEFL in China. I teach high school (15-18 years old) and I've loved every lesson. I have been a teacher in the UK for some time, but have never had the job satisfaction quite like I feel here. The staff at the school are some of the nicest people I've met and the local people have all been very welcoming and made me feel at home. I have naturally had some minor issues, but with the help of the staff at Love TEFL I have resolved any problems quickly and to my satisfaction.

From the beginning of the whole LoveTefl process I have been impressed by the obvious passion, knowledge and dedication of the team, after some unavoidable problems their hard work secured a placement and just 5 months later I'm now sitting in my spacious, furnished apartment in China writing this review.
Living and working in China isn't easy, but who wants that? It's hard work... the language barrier, the food, the traffic and sheer volume of people is something to get used to, but when you have it is immensely enjoyable and satisfying.
Teaching a foreign language to pre school children is very challenging, and sometimes it doesn't all go to plan, but with effort, enthusiasm and perseverance it is well worth it. The School is a bright, happy energetic place with caring and helpful teachers and good facilities for the teacher and student. Teaching materials are good but a touch of creativity and imagination from yourself can make them even better. The best thing about the job and the whole experience are obviously the children, they laugh, jump, sing, shout and..wet themselves sometimes, but at the end of the day or week or month when they can speak a little bit of a new language, it's all worth it.
Outside of school you have China to enjoy, at first the sheer volume of people, the crazy food (chicken head kebab anyone?) and the scale of the place might be a bit daunting, but with a bit of patience and an open mind it's yours to enjoy. I just got back from the Great Wall on the weekend, ever thought of doing that? Well if your adventurous, open minded, hard working and don't mind if things don't run like clockwork then you could be here doing all of this and more. Apply now!