Interview With Stephanie Vogel: Building a TEFL Career
Show Notes
This week, we welcome Stephanie Vogel as our guest on the show. Steph has had a long and successful journey through the TEFL industry. After dropping out of med school, she felt inspired to try something totally different, so she went to Istanbul to get a CELTA certification. From there, she wound up in Vietnam, where she spent six years progressing from ESL teacher to assistant academic manager to CELTA and DELTA trainer. She then moved back to the US to further advance her career, eventually becoming the director of Teaching House, the largest provider of CELTA courses in the US. Join us as we talk about how she built her career in TEFL, share insights into the world of teaching and training, and probably have a little too much fun recounting hilarious teaching disasters.
“One of the special gifts of teaching is that you come away with a lot of amazing stories. The people you meet… it’s a way to create a life of stories. ”
In this Episode
How Steph became a “late entrant” into the field of ESL
Her CELTA experience in Istanbul and why she thought the trainers were “magic”
Her teaching experience in Istanbul, including being chauffeured to work!
Going off-site for business English classes
How to avoid burnout in your first year of post-CELTA teaching
What realistic lesson planning might look like after a training program
Her embarrassing first ever day of teaching, in which she found herself asking all her students about their underwear
How studying German refreshed her passion for teaching English
Why she decided to go to Vietnam
What her job was like there
What her daily life was like in Vietnam
The advantages of working in a large, well-established school
How she progressed from teacher to academic management
The fact that it’s not typical to be on a 9-5 schedule in the TEFL industry
How she achieved her goal of becoming a CELTA trainer
The DELTA course: CELTA on steroids
The training up process to become a CELTA trainer
The advice she’d give someone thinking about moving abroad to teach
What she wishes she’d known before she started teaching
What makes a teacher successful
Why authenticity in the classroom matters
The difference between a good lesson and a great lesson
What kept her in Vietnam for so long
How she transitioned back to the US and continued on her TEFL career path
How she became the director of Teaching House, the largest CELTA provider in the US
The pros and cons of moving into an admin role in the TEFL industry
Making TEFL a career and not just a “gap year”
How skills developed as an ESL teacher translate into other fields
Her favorite travel destination(s): Hoi An, Vietnam and the Zeugma Mosaic Museum in Gaziantep, Turkey
And of course, a shout-out to her hometown of Detroit
