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Showing posts with label Angloville. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Angloville. Show all posts

Sunday, 3 October 2021

Teaching English as a Foreign Language

This week I've decided to do something a little different and write about my experiences of teaching English as a foreign language. Although this isn't exactly a post about travel, I still feel that it's relevant to this blog, as this is one of the best careers you can choose if you're looking for a job with plenty of travel opportunities!

In this post I will talk about my own experiences of working in this sector, teaching training, online teaching, and my go-to lesson resources. Hopefully, it will serve as a useful guide to any readers who are thinking of getting into English teaching.


How I Got Started

It had always been my intention to have a job that involved travelling and languages, hence why I studied Spanish, French and German at university. However, my initial plan was actually to become an interpreter or translator, rather than a teacher. But during my time at university, I realised that being an interpreter probably wasn't the right job for me, and although I searched for jobs in translation after I graduated, I wasn't able to find any online work in this area - the only jobs on offer were in-person jobs based in the UK, which weren't, and still aren't, compatible with my particular set of life circumstances.

So I started to consider if perhaps teaching would be a good path for me to go down. I had some previous experience in the sector, having volunteered at a primary school during my Gap Year, and having worked as a teaching assistant for the British Council in two secondary schools in Austria during my Year Abroad. Although I had enjoyed both of these experiences, I still wasn't 100 percent convinced that teaching was for me, given that I am naturally quite an introverted person.

But one day shortly after I'd finished university, I was doing my usual fruitless job search, when an advert came up that intrigued me. It was offering free hotel accommodation in amazing destinations around Europe, in exchange for helping people learn English as part of an immersion programme. I thought that sounded like a pretty good deal, so I decided to go for it, though I was slightly worried it could be a scam. Luckily, it wasn't! The company is called Angloville, and though not everything about the experience was quite what I expected, I had an absolutely brilliant time completing a programme in Poland. It was hard work that involved lots and lots of conversation, but it made me realise that teaching English as a foreign language was an area I wanted to work in. So I got back home with the sense of finally having a bit more direction in life, and decided to sign up for a TEFL course...


Teacher Training

You don't have to complete a course in order to teach English as a foreign language, but it's definitely recommended, as it gives you a grounding in lesson planning, teaching the different skills involved in language learning, and teaching in general.

Some people choose to go abroad to study a TEFL course, and this was an option that interested me. However, it was simply too expensive, so I decided to do an online course instead. I chose to get my qualification through the TEFL Academy, and I'm really glad I did; as well as being reasonably priced, its course is officially recognised by both the UK and the US governments, so it stands you in good stead when looking for work later.

After you've qualified as a TEFL teacher, you can obtain some further qualifications in areas such as business English or exam preparation, if you're interested. Earlier this year I completed the IELTS Teacher Training Program, which IELTS Australia offers for free to any English teacher from any part of the world! I'd really recommend earning this certification, as many many students are interested in taking the IELTS test, so you'll get more business once you know how to prepare students for it. And it also looks good to have an additional qualification on your CV.


Where Teachers Work

The traditional path of most TEFL teachers is to spend a year or two working in a particular country and taking advantage of the travel opportunities there, before moving on to the next destination. However, we are now living in less traditional times when it comes to teaching!

The pandemic has caused a large amount of teaching to move from the classroom to the internet, which has led to a boom in the online English teaching market. Since I qualified back in late 2019, I've only ever taught online classes, working on a self-employed basis through two companies: Cambly and Verbling. The two platforms are actually pretty different, so I'm going to write a little bit about my experiences working with both of them.


Cambly

Cambly was recommended to me by one of the coordinators at Angloville, and therefore it was my first port of call when I started looking for an online teaching job. Now I've been working on the platform for nearly two years! Here are my thoughts:

- Cambly is a great place to start if you're a new teacher who's looking to gain experience teaching online. One reason for this is that it's a simpler, less formal platform compared to some of the others, and its main focus is conversation, rather than more structured teaching.

- Another advantage of Cambly is that it gives tutors three different ways of working. Students can book reservations with you, you can "go visible" and wait for students to call you, and you can sign up for "priority hours", where you must answer every call you receive during the hour for a guaranteed 15 minutes of pay.

- The priority hour system is very useful for new tutors, as it allows you to start working and earning money straight away, and it can also help you build up a base of regular students.

- However, I am personally not a fan of the priority hours and have not signed up for one in over a year. This is because I prefer to know in advance exactly when my lessons will take place, how long they will be, and which student I'll be teaching, so that I can feel prepared. During priority hours, you have no way of knowing whether the next class will be five minutes long or an hour long, which I find a bit stressful. You also have no way of knowing whether the next student will be someone who's actually serious about learning English, as not all students on Cambly are. The worst thing that happened to me was being sworn at by two teenagers, but I know that many tutors have had much much worse experiences.

- One of the most common complaints about Cambly is its rating system. It's not very transparent, and sometimes doesn't seem to make sense. My rating took a bit of a hit during my early months of working priority hours, and never really recovered, despite the fact that for several months I only worked with regular students, who I knew were giving me five stars after each lesson. A lower rating means new students are less likely to book classes with you, and you're also less likely to be offered priority hours, so it can seriously affect your earning potential.

- Speaking of earnings, the pay rate on Cambly is pretty low ($10.20 USD per teaching hour) and cannot be changed. You are also not paid for cancelled classes (even very late cancellations) and you only receive $1.10 for a no-show. For this reason, most tutors find that they need to work on at least one other website in addition to Cambly.

- Nowadays I just do a couple of lessons on Cambly each week, so it's more of a side gig than an actual job for me.


Verbling

I applied to work on Verbling in March 2020, after the pandemic started to affect the amount of work I was getting on Cambly. Now it's my main source of income, and I have quite a full schedule most days! Here are my thoughts on this platform:

- Getting started is perhaps the hardest thing. There is no priority hour system on Verbling, so the only way you can get work is if a student books a 60-minute reservation with you (though you can also choose to offer 30-minute trial lessons). I had to wait for two or three weeks until I got my first student, but the good news is that once you've worked with a couple of students, you start to get more and more reservations.

- The pay on Verbling is a definite advantage, as teachers have the ability to set their own rates. So I earn a little more for my work there than I do on Cambly. In addition, I get paid in full for no-shows and receive 50 percent pay for late cancellations.

- I feel that on Verbling more is expected of me; I have to show my skills as a real teacher, rather than just a conversation tutor. The platform has a lot of different features, which I found a little intimidating at first, as it was so much more complex than Cambly, but I quickly got used to it. Now I really appreciate the fact that I can edit documents with my students, watch videos with them, and create vocabulary cards, all within Verbling's classroom space.

- I've found that students on Verbling are very keen to learn English and are willing to work hard, so most of my lessons are a pleasure to teach.


My Favourite Resources

Here are some of the online resources I use on a regular basis in my classes:

- Engoo Daily News: This website has articles aimed at different proficiency levels, which cover a wide range of interesting topics. They're great for learning vocabulary, improving reading comprehension, and most of all, for stimulating discussion.

- Perfect English Grammar: Here you can find detailed explanations of every grammar point you can think of, as well as exercises designed to check understanding.

- British Council: Learn English: The British Council's website has a huge amount of useful content, from grammar exercises through to business English lesson plans. The kids section of the website also has some great resources, including animated stories and songs.

- Conversation Questions for the ESL/EFL Classroom: Occasionally, I get students who say they only want to practice conversation, but who aren't very responsive when I ask them questions. I've found that asking them to pick a topic we can talk about from this website is a good way of increasing their enthusiasm. It also means that I don't get stuck for questions to ask them!

- IELTS: It goes without saying that this is the best resource for information about the IELTS test and for sample questions.


June 2022 Update: I've had a message sent in from a reader, Amanda, who recommended this article about homophones. It's an interesting and very useful article, which illustrates the differences between English words that sound the same but have different meanings. Thank you for the recommendation, Amanda!


What I've Learned

Being an online English teacher has been a really educational and enriching experience. Since I started, I'm sure I must have spoken to students from at least 50 different countries, and I've learned a lot about their lives and cultures, and had some really interesting conversations. It's also very rewarding to hear my students' English improve over the weeks and months. In general, I enjoy my job a lot, and I think the last 18 months would have been so much more difficult had I not been working in this particular sector.

I also feel quite proud that I've managed to build up the student base and relatively full schedule that I have. I never really imagined myself being self-employed, and I definitely didn't imagine myself in a job that involved so much social interaction. But I've gained a lot of confidence since I first started teaching, and I've also developed skills in communication and organisation that will come in useful in whatever job(s) I have in the future.


My Future in Teaching

Within the next couple of months (if everything goes to plan), I'll finally be starting my first in-person TEFL job in Santiago de Chile, which is very exciting! I do feel a little nervous about working for a company and about working with students in person; I've got very used to being a self-employed, online teacher. But on the other hand, I feel much less nervous about it than I did last year, because I've now got more than 1000 lessons under my belt, and I know that that experience will be really useful for me. I'm looking forward to documenting my South American travel and teaching experiences very soon!

While I don't know if I will work as an English teacher forever (I'd like to try new work challenges after my year in Chile, whether that's in the education sector or somewhere else), I'm really glad that I decided to become a teacher, because it's been a great experience so far, and it's something I'll always be able to come back to in the future. And whether I'm working in a school in a foreign country or working remotely from my laptop, I know it'll give me plenty of opportunities to travel the world!


Where Teaching English Has Taken Me (and Will Take Me) so Far...





















Places where I've taught (or will teach) in clockwise order starting from top left: Modrzewiowe Wzgórze hotel in Poland; my home county of Wiltshire (pic is of Castle Combe); Oxfordshire (pic is of the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford); Feldkirchen in Kärnten in Austria; Santiago de Chile (pic is of Parque Metropolitano and the Costanera Centre).

Thursday, 22 August 2019

Volunteering in Poland With Angloville

On the 11th August, we travelled from Kraków to the Angloville venue, Modrzewiowe Wzgórze. I have to admit I was surprised by the place. All the information I'd received beforehand gave me the impression that it was a fancy 4* hotel. I did not expect to be staying in a cabin in the woods that seemed suspiciously like a haunted house!




On the first evening, I went to use the bathroom next to my room and found massive wasp-coloured bugs crawling out of the plughole! The only solution was to put a mug over the sink, close the door and never set foot in that bathroom again. Shortly after that, a massive spider appeared on the stairs. I'm really not good with insects, so I was seriously questioning whether I could complete the programme.

Luckily, as the week went on, I got used to staying there, despite finding out that someone who'd previously stayed in my room had supposedly been possessed by ghosts!

On the whole, the hotel was quite a weird place. The location was beautiful, but the following picture is kind of spoiled when you realise that the swimming pools were full of dirt and dead mice!




The food was also strange. One night there was a pasta dish that I avoided because I thought it wasn't vegetarian. It turns out it was vegetarian, but apparently the sauce was apple and cinnamon flavoured!

However, there were some things that I liked a lot about the hotel...






The dog (who we called Franek) was just adorable and so friendly. The family of kittens and their mum lived in an abandoned building near the cabin. They were more timid than Franek, but still very cute!

Finally, I will write a bit about the actual volunteering. We (the Native Speakers) did not have to formally teach the participants (Polish kids between 11-17 years old). The programme is based around conversation, rather than reading, writing and learning grammar. At first I found having to talk so much quite difficult, as I'm a relatively introverted person. But as the week went on, I found things got easier and more fun. The participants were a great group of kids, and I will miss speaking with them!

I also really enjoyed getting to know the other Native Speakers and the coordinators of the programme. I (sort of!) learned how to play the card game Mao, and had an amazing time singing and dancing at the talent show and the disco! I made lots of new friends, and I laughed more than I had in ages.

I only took part in one Angloville programme, because I didn't want to commit myself to more, in case I hated it. However, by the end of the week, I actually wished I had signed up to do another couple of weeks. All in all, it was just a brilliant experience!

My time volunteering with Angloville has given me more confidence and a bit more direction in my life. It made me realise that teaching English abroad as a foreign language is something I would like to do more of. So my plan is to become TEFL qualified and hopefully find some work in the near future. 😊

Wednesday, 21 August 2019

Ciężkowice

Halfway through the Angloville programme, we had a field trip to the town of Ciężkowice. A typically hard Polish name to pronounce! We were meant to go to a city of ancient rocks, but because it was tipping it down with rain, the plan was changed.

First of all, we went to a museum of natural history with an array of stuffed animals, just like in Wollaton Hall. Here we listened to a very robotic "English" voice telling us about the different wildlife that can be found in Poland. It turns out that there's quite a variety of creatures to be found there compared to the UK. This is something I'd already found out from my time at the Angloville venue!

Afterwards, we went to the town centre, where we could finally visit a shop and buy some food, after three days of surviving mostly on Nutella and stale bread! I picked up some snacks that looked uniquely Polish, or that at least couldn't be found in England!




Afterwards, I went for a bit of a walk around the town, which I found very charming.







The most famous sight is the statue of Ignacy Jan Paderewski, a Polish pianist and composer. If you press a button, the piano plays one of his compositions!




I think my favourite place was the church, which was surprisingly big and impressive given the size of the town.




It was really nice to escape from the venue and return to civilisation for a little while! It was also great to see a place that felt very authentic and untouched by mass tourism.

A cool thing I realised is that Ciężkowice is the furthest east I've ever travelled! So that was another reason why I enjoyed the field trip.

Next I will be posting about my time volunteering with Angloville in the venue of Modrzewiowe Wzgórze (try saying that)! It was a very varied but truly amazing experience, and I have a lot to write about it!

Monday, 19 August 2019

Kraków

The last ten days have been quite something! I just got back to England yesterday after volunteering in Poland with Angloville, helping young people learn English. It was such a fun and crazy time which I will remember forever.

I will write a few posts about my time in Poland in order to cover everything. Today I will start by writing about the city of Kraków, where my Angloville experience started and ended. The day before the programme officially began, there was a free tour of the city and a meal in a restaurant for any volunteers who were able to attend. The tour was a great way to meet some of the other volunteers coming to the same venue as me and to see the main sites of the city.

I liked Kraków even more than I thought I would. My favourite part was the main square, Rynek Główny, which is one of the largest market squares in Europe and includes St. Mary's Basilica, the Cloth Hall and the Town Hall Tower. It was really impressive to see in real life.








Every day at 13:00, someone plays a tune on a trumpet from the top window of the basilica. We were there at the right time to hear it!

The tour started at the Kraków Barbican, part of the historical defense network of the city. From there, we went on towards the city centre and then Wawel Hill.





It was cool to see that Kraków has a bridge just like the bridge of sighs in Venice.




An unexpectedly beautiful place was the courtyard of the Collegium Maius, the oldest building of the Jagiellonian University.




The final part of the tour was on Wawel Hill, where there is both a castle and a cathedral. This is one of the most famous parts of Kraków, and it was another really beautiful place.









After the tour, we had a three-course meal in a restaurant. It was the first time I'd had Polish food, and I really liked it. However, I wasn't as impressed with some of the other Polish food I tried during the programme!

I saw a few other nice sights during my first couple of days in Kraków, such as the opera house...




...this palace, which is now a Pizza Hut(!)...





...and this square in front of the railway station.




After the programme ended, I had one more day in Kraków before going back to England, which I spent hanging out with all the friends I made during the week. I definitely wish I could have had an extra day or two there, as it's a great city!

The majority of the programme took place at a hotel in the countryside. However, we did have a field trip to a small town nearby, Ciężkowice. I will write a small post about that next!

Sunday, 28 July 2019

The Next Adventure...

The last month or so has been a difficult time for me and my family. However, I do have something to look forward to, and it involves travelling...

Next month, I will be going to Poland to take part in the Angloville volunteer programme. It will be my first time visiting the country and I'm excited to see what it's like. (I did a language course in Berlin in 2016, and a trip to Poland was offered by the language school, but unfortunately, it took place on the day I went home! So it's great to have the opportunity to go now.) I mentioned on my Year Abroad blog that I have a bucket list goal of visiting every country in Europe (as well as visiting every continent on Earth). I'm also trying to visit at least one new country (in any continent) every year, which is something I've done since 2014. I'm glad I can continue the streak for another year!

I originally applied to do the programme in Malta, but there weren't any spaces left. However, it's just as exciting to be going to Poland instead, especially as the programme will start in Kraków, which looks like an amazing city to visit. I'm interested to see how it compares to cities I've visited in neighbouring countries, such as Prague in Czechia, where I spent a family holiday when I was ten, and Bratislava in Slovakia, which I took a day trip to during my Year Abroad.

The day after I arrive in Kraków, I will attend a city tour with some of the other Angloville volunteers. The following day, we will travel to the venue where we will be volunteering, a hotel in the countryside in the same province as Kraków: the Lesser Poland Voivodeship, also known as Małopolska Voivodeship. Here we will spend a week conversing with Polish teenagers learning English, before heading back to Kraków on the final day. The day after that, I will return to England. I'm looking forward to helping young people gain more confidence speaking English, and teaching them a bit about the culture of the United Kingdom. It should be a very valuable experience, especially because I'm considering teaching English as a foreign language again in the near future.

Only English is allowed to be spoken at the venue, because Angloville is a language immersion programme. However, I have started learning some Polish on Duolingo, which will hopefully come in useful during the few days I'll have in Kraków. As a lover of languages, I always find it fun to learn a bit of the local language every time I visit a new country! Since finishing my languages degree, I've been able to have a more fun and relaxed time learning languages. I've restarted Italian, which I started learning on the Year Abroad, and have also learnt a little bit of Russian. However, both of these have been put on hold for the time being since I found out I was going to Poland! Polish is quite a difficult language and all the words seem to have lots of consonants, but I'm enjoying getting to grips with the basics.

To sum up, I'm really pleased that I got my wish I made in my previous post: to go abroad again soon! There's definitely going to be lots for me to write about on this blog...

Do zobaczenia wkrótce!



Image by Kaboompics.com from pexels.com