Meet our member: International TEFL Academy

2. The quality of our TEFL training courses, which are all taught by experienced university-level professors and exceed international industry standards. We take education very seriously and it is our belief that the best trained teachers represent the key to providing students with a quality educational experience.

3. Our passion. From the person answering the phone to the most senior instructor, every team member at International TEFL Academy possesses extensive international experience and is extremely passionate about teaching & travelling abroad. We’ve all been there and we understand the challenges & rewards of living, working and travelling overseas.

What is your favourite success story?  

With 5,000 new alumni teaching abroad in more than 50 countries each year, there are too many to count, but our favourite success stories are those students who travel abroad for the very first time when they get TEFL certified & teach English abroad. Due to costs & distances, many Americans are never lucky enough to live and travel overseas. Teaching English abroad provides a financially viable way for nearly any English speaker to get paid to live & work abroad.  That’s one of the best things about teaching English abroad – you can get paid!

What are your future plans?  

We always strive to provide more and better classes & services to our students and alumni. Whether it’s providing improved information on our website, offering classes in more locations, or developing more services and job placement assistance to our graduates, it’s all about enabling more people to have a better experience while living their dreams of travelling & teaching abroad.

Which trends do you see in volunteering, teaching abroad, internship abroad?

 With more than 1.5 billion people learning English worldwide, our field of teaching English abroad & TEFL certification represents endless possibilities. But whether it’s in China, South Korea, Spain, Costa Rica or anywhere else, schools that hire Americans & other native speakers to teach English are raising their standards and now, more than ever, possessing an accredited TEFL certification is required to get a job. The days when any backpacker could just show up and get a job as an ESL teacher by saying “I’m here and I speak English” are long gone. Bottom line: If you want to get a great job and be an effective teacher for your students, you need to get TEFL certified and receive proper training as a professional English teacher. It will qualify you for infinitely more jobs and it will ultimately enable you to enjoy a more rewarding experience.

Which challenges do you see in the volunteering, teaching abroad, internship abroad? 

It’s unfortunate that in the second decade of the 21^st century we increasingly see governments & political movements seeking to close off their communities & their societies from engagement with people of other nationalities, ethnicities & religious backgrounds. Mark Twain once said, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness.” That is one reason why International TEFL Academy is so passionate about promoting international education & travel.

What support/safety is provided for young people joining your programmes? 

As a TEFL training school preparing people to work as individual professional teachers overseas, we do not provide highly structured, chaperoned programs like many volunteer & study abroad organisations.  However, our students and graduates enjoy access to personal guidance from expert advisers from the moment they first inquire over the phone throughout their teaching stint abroad & beyond. International TEFL Academy is proud to provide the most comprehensive information anywhere about all aspects of teaching abroad (including safety & financial matters) & TEFL certification, including articles, webcasts, topical guides & most importantly, personalised assistance from experts in the field. In addition, our students & alumni enjoy access to an exclusive network of more than 15,000 English teachers worldwide through which they can connect and network at any time of their choosing.

What was your motivation to join WYSE Travel Confederation? 

It is a privilege to join such an elite group of organisations and institutions committed to promoting international travel & education. Naturally we see it as a great fit for promoting the benefits of teaching abroad & TEFL certification, but more importantly it provides us at International TEFL Academy with unparalleled opportunities to engage and learn from some of the top institutions and thought leaders in the fields of meaningful travel and international education. We hope to form more strategic partnerships with many great organisations by promoting more teach, internship, and work abroad opportunities to our TEFL graduates and offer our TEFL courses as an additional program or add-on to companies that send native English speakers abroad.

For more information visit their website https://www.internationalteflacademy.com/.

We are happy to let you know that International TEFL Academy will join us at the World Youth and Student Travel Conference (WYSTC) in September 2017 in Montreal, Canada. You can register for WYSTC 2017 at our conference website.

Join WYSE Travel Confederation

If you’d like to join WYSE Travel Confederation and benefit from new connections, free access to industry research, informative webinar sessions, discounts on industry events and brand exposure within the youth and student travel industry, click below to view our membership options and find out more.