United States
US
Emily O'Driscoll
Teach Enrich Empower
English Summer Camps
Before I was teaching English, I was attending college. Now I do both. After the summer camps I moved to Madrid (for Erasmus) where I taught English privately on a weekly basis.
The reason I decided to do a TEFL course was mainly because after a year of au pairing in Spain, I fell in love with the country and started thinking of my future and the possibility of moving there and teaching full-time.
Right now, I am on Erasmus in Madrid and I teach private classes every Saturday to a professional adult. Our classes are mostly conversational to help improve their English for business situations, but we also discuss some of his articles for work and we correct any mistakes. Spain is an amazing country and such a melting pot. As I am on Erasmus I have friends from all over Europe now and it has made me want to go to all these different countries to teach. As these classes are private I think it is better to speak about my first teaching job after the TEFL course which was English camps in Italy.
“Teaching in Italy was the BEST experience of my life!”
Teaching in Italy was the BEST experience of my life! I was sent to amazing camps and locations. The English camps are called Lingue Senza Frontiere (language without barriers). We spent half of the day in the classroom and the other half outside doing fun activities which we all enjoyed. My first camp was in Scarperia, just 30 minutes outside of Florence, and my other was in Gravedona, Lake Como. My class in Florence were 11-13-year olds and in Como I taught 5-8-year olds. This was great because I had two completely different classes and levels of English. The older children had a very good level of English while the youngest had very basic English. This let me experience both ends of the spectrum. We opened and closed camp every day with a song circle which at the start can be scary but in the end, was so much fun and everybody including the teenagers loved doing it. We had family fun days, water games, Olympics – all through English. We ended each camp with a big show for all the parents and there was a lot of tears when the other teachers and I had to leave for our next camp. For the older kids, I had the idea for them to make daily vlogs which was very popular. I had a week of intense training which can be intimidating but a lot of the stuff we were learning I had previously learned to do during the TEFL course, so that helped me massively.
My immediate plans are to finish my Erasmus in Madrid and to continue teaching privately. Long-term, once I finish my degree, I plan to move across Europe and teach English and eventually settle in Madrid in a teaching position.
The most useful piece of advice for anyone wanting to teach English overseas is to just enjoy it. It can be scary and hard to adjust but once you start you will never want to leave! Teaching the children is amazing but you experience so much more than that when you teach abroad: culture, love, new friendships and overall AMAZING EXEPERIENCES.
Find your campus!
Choose to learn at one of our global TEFL campuses
The TEFL Academy has over 70 TEFL courses running every month in locations throughout the world.
Our combined TEFL course will give you the qualification you need to become a confident teacher abroad, wherever you decide to study. Select from the search options below to find the right course location for you.
You need to choose country and city!
Accreditation Partners
The TEFL Academy was the world’s first TEFL course provider to receive official recognition from government regulated awarding bodies in both the USA and UK. This means when you graduate you’ll hold a globally recognised Level 3 (120hr) Certificate or Level 5 (168hr) Diploma, meaning you can find work anywhere and apply for jobs immediately.
