Program Reviews

This is my second year teaching through CIEE (first Spain, now Thailand). and both times have been very positive experiences! They make the Visa process very easy and I received email responses extremely quickly for all my questions. Moving to Thailand can be very daunting but you are given extensive readings and cultural guides..not to mention a very intensive (but fun) orientation in Bangkok. The only down side is that you have no idea where you will be placed. You could be in the center of Bangkok, or 10 hours away from it. Every placement has its perks, and everyone's experiences are very different! Thailand is an incredible place and I can't wait to see what the rest of my time here brings.

I am so happy I decided to apply to teach overseas through ciee. They provided so much support and when I got to my country I was able to meet a lot of amazing people because of ciee. I think the TEFL program really prepared me for teaching. I’m thankful for my job placement and the coordinator for Korea is great. I had a wonderful time at the ciee orientation. I think it’s great that ciee offers orientation and other events for teachers as it can be hard moving to a foreign country on your own when you don’t speak the language or know anyone there.

My experience in Korea has been very good with the CIEE program. Before I even left from the US, CIEE was right there to help me with everything I needed. They helped me get my TEFL as well as my Visa. The TEFL program was amazing and the teachers work really closely with you if you have any questions or concerns. When I arrived to Korea, they arranged for me to have transportation from the airport to my city which was great because the guide made sure to help me get where I needed to be. The overall experience has been really good so I highly recommend CIEE as anyone’s program of choice for teaching abroad.

CIEE is easy to work with throughout the process. One big strength of CIEE is there connections throughout Korea. They seem to have access and work with contacts throughout Korea. When I was in America I found it easy to work with CIEE to get the necessary documents in order to teach here. They helped me throughout that process quite a lot. One note I would say about CIEE is having the orientation three weeks into Korea is to late, as by then much of the information is repetitive. If I have needed any help from CIEE these past few months I found it easily. I have enjoyed working with CIEE and would recommend them for similar teaching positions for people. As CIEE is important to provide the necessary contacts and help to get around. I enjoy CIEE and believe that they would be useful for those who are new into the international teaching field.

CIEE was a pretty good recruiting agency- they guided me along all of the critical steps in applying to be an EPIK teacher and their communication with the Korean government made things a lot easier than if I were to apply alone.
I would say that once I got here in Korea the assistance stops- I didn't know what to expect as far as further assistance but I think that something as simple as providing a welcoming packet listing all of the usefull Korean apps, useful Korean languge learning apps and websites, and just helpful tips from past EPIK teachers would have been really helpful.

I also wish they would have chosen a better TEFL certification class. I didn't find the course I took helpful or insightful. It was very bland and clinical.fddddddddddddddd

I’m glad I went with CIEE. The whole process was a bit confusing at first; I wish I had more communication from CIEE staff during the interview process, especially when it came to getting information about the school.

Regardless, I ended up at a great school about a half an hour from Gangnam. I’ve been having a great time! I have fabulous Korean and Foreign teachers, and I am so grateful for them. Several of them choose to renew their contracts after their year. Thanks CIEE!

The housing situation is not as fancy as some others. Our teachers have modest apartments in a nearby city, much older than some of the newer places around the school. Some of my coworkers have to deal with roaches on a regular basis, but I’ve only had a few.

I like the area, though! It’s an old city with a lot of history, and fun things to explore. All-in-all, a great experience thus far.

I loved the peace of mind that using ciee to find my school gave me. I’ve never had a problem with my school but I knew that if I did someone would be there to help. When I decided to come to Korea I had heard a lot of scary stories about sketchy hagwons and was really worried I would fall into a bad one. After I heard about my school and community from someone who clearly cared about my happiness (and had personally lived in the area) I felt much more reassured about moving to a country where I didn’t know anyone or anything. My school turned out to be a perfect fit; largely because my recruiters listened to what I wanted and asked and answered all the right questions in order to get me where I wanted to be. In fact, I’m about to start my third year at the same school, I just can’t tear myself away!

I have been here for about 8 months now and I like the country and the people, for the most part. However, not liking the school I am placed at. The students are fine it’s management that’s the issue. But all-in-all I wouldn’t mind doing this program again, but just in a different city and school. Also, I feel that CIEE should do a little better taking care of their teachers, especially the new ones. When I first arrived no one called or sent an email to check-in making sure I was ok. I was the one who had to initiate the conversation few weeks after arriving. At least once a month call or email making sure the teachers are ok, i.e., living conditions, how is the school, how are they adapting, do they need anything, etc... that’s just my opinion.

I'll be the first to say I got really lucky. My school staff was super welcoming and quick to include me and share Korean traditions with me. My students are so sweet, many of them are artists and would draw super cute doodles of me as gifts. They often saw me out in public and would say hello to me and they loved to ask me questions about what I was doing with my time in Korea. The downside is that I didn't have too much freedom with my curriculum but I made do and I worked around it and through it the best ways I could. Some other teachers who also joined EPIK were not so lucky in their area staffs at their school were not so welcoming or accommodating, in this case it really is luck of the draw. I personally have had a great experience both with EPIK and doing my TEFL through CIEE. I had great support and learned a lot over the course of my experience.

I took CIEE's TEFL class because I was planning to teach English in Spain through their program. I had no formal teaching or education background, and this course helped me feel much more comfortable coming into a teaching setting.
I felt that the weekly tutorials with a tutor and classmates were interesting and helpful. Discussing ideas with other fellow TEFL students allowed me to think of things I otherwise wouldn't have come up with. The information each week was, for the most part, quite helpful as well. In particular, I enjoyed the brief history of the English language, as it has been useful in explaining the differences between various English words and their roots. I have also been very grateful for the many activity ideas provided throughout the modules and have used many in my classroom already this year.