An interview with Teacher Zoe

We caught up with Teacher Zoe after 18 Months of teaching English in Thailand. She talks about how TEFL has changed her life and her plans for the future…

What is your name, age and current location?

My name is Zoe Roberts, I am 24 and I am currently back home near Edinburgh, Scotland.

What course and date did you do TEFL Heaven?

I did my TEFL Heaven course in September 2014 in Krabi, Thailand

What influenced you to take a TEFL course abroad?

I studied abroad in France in my 3rd year of university so I already had a taste of living abroad and in a different culture. After moving home for a year and completing my degree, I decided that I want to move/work abroad when I graduated. Towards the end of university, I started researching ways that I could achieve this and came across a lot of blogs from people teaching English abroad. I decided that this was something which I would be extremely interested in. Taking the TEFL course abroad made a lot more sense to me as it would allow me to get a feel for the country which I would be living and working in before I reached the school setting. Plus, I didn’t fancy sitting at home watching the rain pour outside whilst I completed hours upon hours of an online TEFL certificate!

What interested you in TEFL Heaven in particular?

TEFL Heaven particularly appealed because why wouldn’t you want to spend 3 weeks in a beautiful setting in lovely sunshine whilst obtaining your TEFL certificate?! I liked that I would also get to meet 20 or so other like-minded individuals during my training and also become part of a huge network of teachers, many of whom were friends throughout my whole time in Thailand and I still keep in contact with even now that I am home!

What was one thing that could have been better in your time in Thailand?

I have racked my brain and I honestly don’t think I would have changed anything about my time in Thailand or that anything could have been better!

Did you experience any culture shock? If so, how?

Having had previous experience of living abroad I was lucky in that I didn’t experience too much culture shock. Obviously, things (everything!) was very different to home but that was to be expected and I think that I quickly adapted to my new life. I would definitely say just anticipating that things are going to be very different and keeping an open mind definitely helps in the culture shock process! Try not to compare everything to “back home” and instead embrace the differences, you’re sure to gain a lot more from the experience this way!

Now that you are home, how has TEFL Heaven and your experience in Thailand influenced your life?

I now have my TEFL certificate and 18 months experience of living and teaching abroad which I will definitely be using to apply for jobs in the future! Personally, my experience in Thailand and the travelling I did around other parts of Southeast Asia has only fed and grown the travel bug which I have been well and truly bitten by!

What’s next for you?

I am off to Italy next week for 5 weeks to work at summer camps teaching English which I am very excited about! Following that I am going to return home to work for a bit to save up some money for my next adventure 🙂

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