My name’s Claire and I’ve worked in EFL since 2012. I hold the CELTA, the IHCYLT and the Delta… but how did I get there?
I studied Italian and Spanish at university, and when I was due to graduate in 2012, I had no real plan as to what to do or where to go afterwards. On a whim, I applied for a post as an English Language Assistant through the British Council, and was assigned to the Catholic University of the Most Holy Conception in Concepción, Chile.
After a year in Chile, I decided I wasn’t ready to move back to Europe, so I stayed on in Concepción, but worked at the University of Concepción for a year as a Speaking Tutor. I felt that 2 years of muddling through had been fun, but I wanted proper training so that I could develop as a teacher and work elsewhere. I moved home for a few months, and completed my CELTA with TESOL Strasbourg (now known as the TEFL Hub).
With a Pass A under my belt, I flew out to Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, and worked flat out for the best part of a year. I spent three months travelling around Vietnam, Thailand, Myanmar, Laos, Cambodia, Taiwan and Japan when my contract ended, and wound up back home while I worked out what to do next.
I think I’d been home about 5 days when I applied for more or less every job that was listed on the International House Jobs website. After interviews for IH Bydgoszcz in Poland and IH San Sebastián in Spain, I had jobs lined up and I was on a plane to Poland about a week later. The year was 2016, and I think I took the cringey #yolo to extremes: I worked from March to June in Poland, worked at a summer school in the UK in July, taught as a volunteer teacher for the school’s educational trust in Israel for 3 weeks, then moved to San Sebastián in September.
I finished the Delta in October 2020, and I’m now working on an MA in Applied Linguistics through the University of Birmingham. If you’re interested in getting into EFL but you don’t know where to start, or in any other aspect of EFL, get in touch! I love what I do and I’d be happy to spread the enthusiasm.
Claire’s English Classroom 