English teaching in the Alps

I completed a four month placement back in July and enjoyed it enough that I stayed on – the chance to live and travel around Austria whilst bringing English to school children, by basically playing games with them, was too much to pass up. Teaching was about more than just games though- it is a tailored active learning approach that makes the learning both fun and useful, as learning a language should be. Seeing the change in a class from Monday morning to Friday when you leave makes for a really special experience
Life as a trainee with can be pretty intense – Austrian schools start between 7:00 and 8:00 in the morning and with travel time to a different school each week added on I had to quickly adapt to some early starts. With feedback sessions and training in the afternoons this makes for a long day and you definitely have to be prepared to work hard but the senior teachers are always there to help you with advice and training. They are a small but growing not for profit organisation so there were times I had to be adaptable and use my own initiative to get by but that just adds to the life experience I gained. Accommodation and travel was all provided for as well which meant I saw and did so much more than I would have been able to travelling alone or paying for things out of my own pocket. Staying in the centre of Vienna for a month, including during Eurovision, was definitely a highlight.