United States
US
Mark Hampton
Teach Enrich Empower
Classes, Culture and Comedy Adventures in Pretty Poland
My name is Mark Hampton and after several years working with various bluechip clients in business, I decided to act on my dreams and become a teacher.
This had been a dream of mine for a long time and as a people person, I longed to see if the profession was something I could see myself developing a career in. I had always been interested in travelling and after hearing from a few friends about TEFL, I decided to purchase and take part in a TEFL course through The TEFL Academy in Newcastle in September 2015.
The course involved two days of face-to-face intensive classroom training before completing 100 hours of online practice through modules online where I was helped by my tutor and given plenty of feedback. The course enabled me to bring my teaching skills to life through presentation and practice.
After passing the course in the summer of 2016 I applied for and was accepted for a role working at a small school in Łuków, Poland, a small town of 30,000 people around one hour drive from the capital city, Warsaw.
I spent an amazing first year teaching there before moving to Łódź, pronounced (Wodge) in English and bizarrely in English translation it means Boat despite the city only having a small stream. I started working at a Cambridge Examination centre with a small team of around ten people and helped students to prepare for their upcoming exams in FCE/CAE and CPE.
The students are super clever, polite and funny. One of the funniest moments was when I asked a group of teenagers to complete a role-play exercise and all put on their best British and American accents, which had me laughing in amazement at them their ability to do this.
I was fortunate to find such an amazing place to hone my craft and become a better teacher learning from teachers with over 30+ years of experience in the classroom with regular feedback and observations where required to help me develop further.
Over the six years that I’ve been living in Poland I’ve met some incredible students, some amazing people and friends for life during my travels.
The country is amazing for travelling around in as you can see amazing cities within a couple of hours’ drive or a short train journey, such as Kraków in the south, Wrocław in the west, Warsaw in the east and the beautiful Northern Baltic city of Gdańsk.
Poland is a great country to start your TEFL journey in. Not only is it relatively cheap compared to the cost of living in the United Kingdom, but everyone I’ve met so far has been super friendly despite the language barrier.
The national dish Pierogi, dumplings with various ingredients inside, are also amazing to try. But don’t take my word for it – start your journey with The TEFL Academy and you could soon be living and working in Poland!
My advice to anyone thinking of teaching abroad is just to go ahead and see if it is for you and learn a bit of the language and about the culture before you go and just be yourself!
If it doesn’t work out the UK is always here waiting but if you make the most of what you experience you’ll have an amazing time, make friends for life and have many memories.
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