TEFL in South America
Amy and Luis' Story
Amy and Luis trained to teach English abroad on our TEFL courses last year and have since worked in schools in Peru and Mexico. Amy tells us about their experiences:
"Before TEFL, Luis studied Art and Design at Leeds University and I studied Marketing at Leeds Met University. We were working temp jobs in admin for a few months. After our studies, we travelled South East Asia for three months and this is what inspired us to do TEFL. Last October, Luis and I completed the 20-hour weekend TEFL course. It was lots of fun, very informative and it was a great start to teaching.
Once we had completed the course we looked online for jobs. There are thousands of websites, such as Dave's ESL café and ESL employment, and finally we found our first jobs in Peru.
A month later we landed and started our very first teaching job. We were working in the small Amazonian town of Chachpoyas, Northern Peru. It was a small remote place, everybody knows your name. Beautiful countryside and many many excursions to go on at the weekends. The weather was great bar the occasional storm! On our first day we were nervous but remembered everything the TEFL instructor had taught us. We both taught from the age of 10 to Adult. I had a mix of students, ranging to about 50. We taught advanced and basic English. We were at this job for 4 months before moving onto our next adventure. By the end of it we had some experience and a little knowledge into what to expect in our next job. The job paid us a stipend, plenty to get by, and we could afford a nice little house. Food was great and we got to experience some real Peruvian culture. Eating guinea pigs was not unusual!
After this we accepted a job in lovely Arequipa, southern Peru, but in-between we were lucky enough to have a month to travel. We traveled up and down all of Peru including visiting the lovely Mancora, a coastal town in the North and Iquitos, the start of the Amazonian Jungle. Here we saw all sorts of animals, from alligators to spiders to capivaras! We made the long 5 day boat journey sleeping in hammocks to get there and saw many indigenous tribes along the way.
Eventually we arrived in Arequipa. A lovely city in the South of Peru. This was an American institute, a little different from the small school we were used it. 30 teachers compared to 5! A great experience we worked for 3 months here before moving on. I taught Advanced and Luis taught basic. The students were great, keen to learn, and I learnt many new teaching skills as well putting into place the ones I had learnt in TEFL. We had support from teachers and a book to guide us. During teaching we had a guideline to follow and the flexibility to put into place anything you wanted. You meet teachers form all around the world and can share your experiences together.
After Arequipa, we saved some money and decided to travel South America before heading to Mexico for our next job! We visited many great places in all of Peru, including the amazing Machu Picchu, Cusco, Lima and many many more places. Peru was a great place to visit; travel was cheap and easy to use. So many places to visit and the weather is usually very good! We visited Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Colombia and Mexico. I won’t forget the experience of seeing the wonders of the world.
Right now we are both working in Tepotzotlan, near Mexico City. We work at a private school teaching children from the age of 6 to 15. It’s very different to what we are used to as we worked in institutes before but it’s great fun. There are many perks to working at a school, paid holidays, free food and accommodation and we are enjoying the Mexican culture. We have gone back to the indigenous routes and living in a small town again! After, we plan to visit Central America and finally make our way back to Europe.
I would recommend TEFL to anyone. It’s a great way of meeting people, learning about cultures and giving something back. It’s a very satisfying job and we have seen many great things along the way!
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