‘I’ve been teaching for a while now and try as often as possible to help out people new to TEFL or new to Latin America. Below are some articles that may help you make the transition to living in Latin America.’

Getting Started

● What’s the Best Country to Teach English In?
● Choosing a TEFL Course
● Writing a Teaching Cover Letter
● Writing a Teaching CV
● Using Connections to Get a Great Job
● The Interview and Demo Lesson
● Things to Consider Before Accepting a Job
● Know Before You Go
● What To Do Upon Arrival

Teacher Training

● Choosing a TEFL Training Programme
● Why You Should Attend Conferences
● Making a Career Out of TEFLing

Teaching Tips

● Learning about TEFL and Teaching
● Teaching Tips in General
● Living in a Foreign Country
● Sites for Lesson Planning
● Teaching Beginners
● Teaching Young Students

Money Matters

● Using the Internet to Make Money Online
● Ideas for Supplementing Your Teaching Salary (private classes, translations, etc)
● Teaching Online

TEFLing in Latin America

●Interview: The Latin America Job list and TEFL Tips in ELT World Horizons Journal, Issue 3, page 37
● The LA Job Guru in Movers and Shakers in TEFL News
● Finding Cheap Flights to Latin America
● Teach in Latin America

Guides to Peru

● The Ultimate Guide to Teaching in Peru in Transitions Abroad.
● A Country Guide to TEFLing in Peru.
● Breaking into the TEFL Market in Peru
● The Little Black Book of English Institutes in Peru
● Destination Peru in TEFL News
● Contributed to The Peru Guide Book in Vive Travel Guides
● Virtually Expats: Forums about Peru
● Living off of 500 USD a month in Lima
● Lima on 500 dollars a month – Peru, South America in Boots N All
● Peruvian Food and Drinks

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What Would Motivate you to Take a New Job?

What do we want from our jobs? There must surely be a reason for us to move on to bigger and better things at one time or another. So, what are our motivations? What are those bigger and better things? Why do we make the decision to up and move to a new school? The poll that ran on the blog and the forum during December shed some light on to why we move from one job to the next… read on

Interview: Teacher Reflections, Global Connections

Last month on the ELT World Blog I highlighted the excellent Teaching without Borders blog: Teacher Reflections, Global Connections, explaining what a great idea I thought it was to reflect on the different teaching experiences of the different countries of the contributors. I’m delighted that Jennifer Uhler and Jeff Mattison have taken the time and considerable effort to tell Horizons about their blog… read on

Teaching Collocations

Whilst learners often focus on the acquisition of new grammatical structures as a guideline to their progress in learning English, the same cannot always be said of an English learner’s regard for the importance of progressive vocabulary acquisition. Whilst it is true that language structures form the basic skeleton of a language , vocabulary provides the flesh to these bones. Without words, what do we have?… read on

Was your Initial Training Course Worth it?

The four-week TEFL course, a starting point for so many of us in our careers as English teachers. But is it really worth it? What do we really gain from these short, intensive courses that can’t possibly hope to adequately prepare us for a career in teaching? A great deal, it would seem, according to the poll that ran on the blog and the forum… read on

The EnglishUK Teachers Conference

Anyone who’s ever attended a TEFL conference will tell you it can be something of a mixed experience in terms of what you gain from it. It’s not unlike gold mining: you have to sift through a lot of stuff to get to anything even remotely of use to you. Presenting at a conference is, on the other hand, a whole different experience. Anyone thinking of venturing into the conference circuit would be well advised to read the following article… read on

Academicus Electronicus

For this edition of the journal, I offer you, my dear friends, two websites dedicated to the development of TEFL professionals… read on

Teaching English in New Zealand

The situation regarding English language teaching in New Zealand is pretty similar to Australia and not so different from the UK in many respects. As in those countries, there is a private language school sector in addition to state provision through various ESOL programmes… read on

My Favourite Waste of Time

At a certain point, we all get fed up with certain aspects of living in another country. The little things suddenly become big problems in your life. Some of these things, however, bug everyone, and not just us poor expat teachers. Facebook, for all its sins, seems to be becoming a way in which we are able to find kindred sufferers, as M. le Prof d’Anglais explains… read on

Politically Correct Revisited

Last issue’s article on political correctness was well received by many of you, who were able to relate to the ideas being explored. Luckily for Horizons, Istanbul’s Stranger has decided to follow up on the previous article, exploring further the linguistic barriers to the cross-culturalization of the notion of political correctness… read on

The Ideal English Teacher through the Eyes of ELT Trainees

Do you remember what you thought about teachers when you started out as a trainee? How much have your perceptions changed? This article explores the way that trainee teachers in Argentina perceive those already in the profession… read on

Interview: The Latin America Job list and TEFL Tips

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Why did you set up your sites?

I wanted to create a place where people could get information about teaching in Latin American, living in Peru, and hints to help teachers. I have three sites; two are about teaching and one about Peru.

Firstly, there’s the the LA Job List where in addition to giving information about teaching in Latin America, such as visas, how to find a job, etc. I have job lists for 19 Latin American countries.

TEFL Tips gives tips for teaching, such as Teaching English, Teaching Large Classes, Living in a Foreign Country, etc.

Finally, the Ultimate Peru List is a site which has information about life in Peru from working, immigrations, settling down, etc.

I have been gathering information on these topics on years and constantly update in order for people to have the latest information.

Why did you feel the need to start your teaching sites?

I feel that I have a bit of experience in teaching and living in Peru. For example, when I come to Peru I knew nothing, there was hardly any info on the web, so I had to struggle with things myself. I believe that now since I have more experience in teaching and Peru that I should share the info with other people. It makes the transition so much easier.

I suppose after you spend years posting in forums, people tend to know who you are and approach you for advice. I originally started posting information on forums due to the fact that people would email and PM (private message) me with the same questions. I thought posting the information would make it readily available to everyone. People’s questions were the motivation behind me creating the information that I have.

I only recently started the websites. I’m involved in several forums both about TEFL and Peru and had the information on those forums, I try to update as often as possible and it just became too difficult to update them all. I thought that instead of updating all the forums, I could just put the links in my signature and people could easily find the information on my website.

What’s your background in teaching?

During university I got the chance to do some short-term teaching in China, Taiwan and Venezuela. Once I graduated I knew that it was what I wanted to do. I’ve been teaching for five years. I did my TEFL Diploma with the Boland School in the Czech Republic in January 2003. Then I went to teach for them in Suzhou, China, later I went to a kindergarten in Changchun, China. In August 2004, I moved to Lima, Peru to teach at a university and had the intention to stay a year, but ended up getting married a year later. In August 2006, we moved to Lima where I taught at a university and secondary school. In November 2007 I made the decision to come to Korea to work at a primary school in order to do my thesis, but will be going home to Lima at the end of January 2008.

I think that it’s important to keep learning about teaching, so I try to attend conferences and workshops every couple of months. I also have presented in some of them. My background isn’t in teaching, so I started my MA in TEFL in February 2006 in order to learn more about it.

What are your favorite teaching sites?

I like ELT World (www.elt-world.blogspot.com) because it’s a breath of fresh air in the TEFL World. The forums are mostly made up of TEFL oldbies who know each other so the atmosphere is very friendly. TEFL Watch (www.teflwatch.org) is also very useful for finding info about good and bad schools.

As for teaching material, I think that good sites are One Stop English (www.onestopenglish.com), Boggle’s World (www.bogglesworld.com), also the Mark’s English site (www.mes-english.com) as well as ESL Galaxy (www.esl-galaxy.com).

What do you think is the biggest challenge facing TEFL teachers today?

I think it’s to overcome the stereotypes. Unfortunately, some people still think of EFL teachers as backpackers who are only in it to see the world, but more and more we’re seeing people who are making a career out of teaching. Seeing people serious about teaching is good for the students and employers.

What’s your most positive teaching experience?

I like playing games in class, so anytime I see students laughing and having fun while in class is wonderful for me. I like teaching children, so it’s fun to see them cock their head to one side and think how to say things in English and then they get a kick out of it when they can communicate with the teacher.

What are your future plans for your various websites?

I’ve had so much feedback about my sites and people have contacted me giving me heaps of suggestions about what to do, which I really appreciate.

For The LA Job List, I would like to have people add their stories about teaching in specific countries, so that people who want to teach in those countries can know what to expect as far as salary, numbers of hours, etc.

For TEFL Tips, I would like to continue adding more tips for specific teaching situations, such as teaching children, teaching business English, etc. I also hope to have people add their tips as well.

For The Ultimate Peru List, I have 50 Word pages of information and would like to work on the organisation so that people can easily find the info they’re looking for.

One thing that I think is important is giving people credit for what they’ve done. So many people have approached me and asked to help me out. I have a Credits section on The LA Job List where I list people who have helped me out with large portions of the website. When people give me small tips I always put their name next to it. Or if they add my website to theirs I do the same. I think it’s important for people to realise “what goes around, comes around.”

Visit the the LA Joblist, the Ultimate Peru List and TEFL tips websites:

http://www.thelajoblist.blogspot.com/

http://www.tefltips.blogspot.com/

http://www.theultimateperulist.blogspot.com

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