Teaching internship & TEFL Certification (Thailand, Vietnam, Europe, China, India)

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.

I have really enjoyed having an opportunity to visit multiple places in Shanghai, not only the tourist spots but places where local people enjoy to spend their time. Meeting new people in Shanghai was very fun as well. It has benefitted my understanding of independence and overall confidence as a person. I have spent a lot of time by myself exploring the city as well as making new connections.
A chance to work in a school was very unique because through that experience I got to see the other side of the learning process, help student and to certain extent improve my understanding of the English learning process. It has been very valuable for both my personal growth as well as the understanding of future opportunities in China. Definitely give it a try if you have been curious what it is like to teach!