It’s World Teachers’ Day! A day when we celebrate and appreciate teachers worldwide, including our very own TEFL Org tutors and course graduates.
This year we want to pay particular tribute to the adaptability, resilience and determination of teachers. The pandemic continues to present difficulties for educators, but the way we’ve seen teachers work through the past 18 months, overcoming challenge after challenge, has been nothing short of inspirational. Education is a human right and trained teachers are integral to providing that.
What is World Teachers’ Day?
World Teachers’ Day was established in 1994 and is held every year on October 5th to commemorate the ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the Status of Teachers (1966). It’s a day to appreciate educators around the world and to reflect on and consider issues that concern teachers.
Every year, UNESCO decides on a theme and this year it’s “Teachers at the heart of education recovery”. The focus is on the effect the pandemic has had on teaching worldwide and how educators respond and move forward from it. According to UNESCO:
“On World Teachers’ Day, we are not only celebrating every teacher. We are calling on countries to invest in them and prioritize them in global education recovery efforts so that every learner has access to a qualified and supported teacher. Let’s stand with our teachers!”
You can find out more information and details of UNESCO’s programme of events here.
Celebrating TEFL Org teachers
Since The TEFL Org was founded in 2008, we’ve trained over 140,000 teachers! Our teachers are all over the world, teaching English in countries such as Spain, China, Mexico, Japan, Myanmar, and many, many more. As a company founded and run by teachers, helping others experience the same exciting opportunities TEFL opens up is something that never gets old.
But international travel has been difficult over the past 18 months, which has meant the recruitment of TEFL teachers abroad has been extremely challenging at times. Employers have held off recruiting for positions, visa processes have been delayed, travel restrictions have been in constant flux, and we’ve seen different approaches to handling the pandemic in different countries. Teachers working abroad this year have had to navigate a wide range of difficulties, and while the situation is improving it’s probably going to take some time before things are back to “normal”.
Online teaching, however, has been thriving. Many TEFL Org teachers working abroad have had to adapt to online teaching, just as many professions have. Others have studied with us in order to exclusively teach English online, and even got into it as a result of losing jobs due to the pandemic. Yvonne trained with us last year:
“First I was furloughed, then, along with many of my colleagues, made redundant. I didn’t know what I would do next, because all I really knew was the tourism industry, and the future there was looking bleak. A chance conversation with a friend led me to think about TEFL and I decided to look into it further.“
Since getting TEFL qualified Yvonne has been teaching English online with EF Teach Online and loving it!
Claire had just graduated from a Masters programme in Creating Writing when the pandemic struck – not an ideal time to be looking for work! But a call with her brother-in-law led her to look into getting TEFL qualified and she’s never looked back.
“After a period of uncertainty in my own life, becoming an online ESL tutor has been both fulfilling and eye-opening. The positive energy I get from my students means I don’t even mind when my alarm goes off in the morning! I enjoy helping people pursue their goals, pass an exam that will allow them to advance their education, or simply feel more confident in business meetings. I love cheering them up after a bad day, and they cheer me up in return. In fact, they’re not the only ones learning something new. I’ve been taught how to cook a mouth-watering Omani fish dish, discovered how the Vietnamese celebrate Tết (or New Year), and explored my students’ home countries through their personal stories. It’s a privilege to have this insight into the lives of people around the globe.“
Make sure to check out our interview with Claire below!
Celebrating our tutors
Where would we be without our incredible team of tutors? Whether they’re delivering in-person classroom courses in venues across the UK and Ireland, virtually over Zoom, or supporting our students throughout their online course, our tutors work tirelessly to train amazing TEFL teachers to work around the world and online.
When the world went into lockdown last year, we launched our virtual classroom courses. Teachers are masters of adaptability, so it was no surprise that our experienced tutors were able to make the switch to training over Zoom so well. Our virtual classroom courses have been hugely popular and remain so to this day, which is all down to the hard work and skill of our tutors.
All of our tutors have a wealth of experience in teaching English and training other teachers. You can get to know them better by heading over to our tutors page!
Get inspired by our teachers – check out their TEFL stories!
