TEFL Teacher Profiles - Roisin McGoldrick

TEFL Teacher: Roisin McGoldrick
Hometown: Co. Waterford
Teaching Location: Spain, USA, Australia

This Waterford local never envisioned herself jetting overseas to teach abroad, but when the chance came along she hopped on board!

In 1999, Roisin started her TEFL career in Barcelona where the job was lined up through her university, she said. With only a bit of summer camp experience, she had never taught before and used the TEFL course to get prepared.

“(TEFL) definitely gives you more confidence and something that you can nearly be guaranteed to fall back on- in some shape or form,” she said.

But with various TEFL courses, Roisin had just taken the basic course but without the full comprehensive training had run into some bumps along the way, she said.

“When it came to lesson planning I really fell down as they would only last about 5 minutes when they should have lasted 5 hours!” Roisin said. “I learned to be more self sufficient and trust my own instincts and I also learned that much as I enjoyed the teaching I definitely needed more training then the most basic course.”

But even with some rocky times the six months teaching in Barcelona was “the best six month stint I did anywhere,” she said.

“Go for it,” Roisin said. “Get the training before you go and be prepared to be flexible as things are not always going to be the way you expect them to be.”

While she had never planned on teaching as a career, after spending time in the classroom Roisin has thought of considering going back into TEFL in the future as it is a great way to travel abroad, she said.

“I feel with TEFL the learning will always be on going, which is a good thing!” Roisin said.

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© i-to-i, 2009