TESOL Certificate in Vietnam

i was a chef for 10 years before deciding I needed a change of pace. A mate from school was working in Vietnam and he recommended I come here and try my hand at teaching.

There were 10 of us on my course. Apparently that is big for them. They like to keep things from getting too big so they can focus their attention. I was the second oldest. Most other trainees were just out of college. It was a mix of people from Africa, India, Vietnam, Europe as well as native speakers like me.

Now I hadn't been in a classroom since high school so, to be honest, I was quite intimidated. I felt kind of lost at the beginning but Diem and Andy and Jason were really supportive as were my fellow trainees. I liked how they broke down the process into steps, it felt like following a recipe.

The most important part was the classroom practice. If I hadn't gotten that feedback i dont think i would have survived teaching on my own. Thanks Diem especially. She was strict and I needed a kick in the bum to take things more seriously.

One of my classmates complained that there wasn't a guaranteed job. But i now know people who work for the center they trained at and they aren't very happy. And to be honest you don't need it in Vietnam. I had a job in less than 2 weeks after the course finished and half of that was because i took a short trip after the course finished. The beach in Phan Thiet is great!

This program opened so many doors for me. I had been teaching in Saigon for a year but I couldn't get an interview with any of the top schools in the city without a TESOL certificate. I had an online course but places like British Council wouldn't accept it. Right after I completed it I had the chance to work for universities and the best language centers in the city

This course also taught me so much about being a teacher. The online course I had done really didn't prepare me to be in the classroom. To be honest, I'm ashamed of the quality of my teaching from before the course. Thanks to the help and coaching I got from Mrs. Diem and their team of tutors, I became a much more confident teacher and i saw an immediate improvement in results from my classroom.

13 years later I am the one doing the hiring and if someone comes to me for work without a certificate I send them to TEFL International