Episode Twenty-one

Interview with Orlando Delgado Mata: Teaching and Training at IH Mexico, and Being a Non-Native Speaker in the ELT Industry

Show Notes

Welcome to Episode 21 of Expand Your Horizons! This week, our guest is Orlando Delgado. Orlando has been working as the Director of Teacher Training & Development Operations for IH Mexico for 7 years now, leading the 15 IH TT Department branches in the country, and he is also a member of the executive board of directors. He has worked as a teacher trainer for over 10 years, in Mexico, the US, the UK, Ukraine, Italy, Canada, Tunisia and Argentina, and as a freelance course book writer for the University of Dayton. Additionally, he is a very active CELTA, ICELT and Delta Assessor, traveling in Europe, and North, Central and South America assessing other CELTA centers. He remains actively involved in professional development and reflective practice and holds an MA in Teacher Education from The University of Manchester. He is currently working on his MBA through Warwick University Business School. As Director of Operations, Orlando leads and implements projects to make teacher training at IH Mexico as effective as it can be, and he also gets to work with the sales and marketing team to develop innovative new products and courses.

In our interview today, we’ll be talking about his career path and how he got to where he is now, as well as what it’s like to be a non-native English speaker in the ELT (English language teaching) field, and what it’s like to teach or get certified to teach in Mexico.

“If you think about it, as a non-native speaker, you are the students’ role model. You are the non-native speaking teacher, and if the learners in your classroom are aspiring to be like anybody, it should be you. ”

In this Episode

• What Orlando does in his work at IH Mexico

• The role of an “assessor” on a CELTA course

• How CELTA courses are held to the same standards around the world and how trainers exchange ideas and stay motivated

• How Orlando got started teaching English

• What it was about teaching that held his interest

• A brief description the DELTA course

• Why someone would pursue a DELTA certification

• What makes a good CELTA candidate and English teacher, in Orlando’s opinion

• Why it’s important for teachers to take on constructive feedback

• The system of giving and receiving peer feedback on the CELTA course

• Why Orlando feels a candidate’s attitude coming in to the CELTA course is more important than their knowledge of planning and methodology

• How being a non-native English speaker affects CELTA candidates

• The advantages of being a non-native speaker on a CELTA course

• Why native speakers don’t know their own grammar

• How being a non-native English speaking teacher affects someone’s experience in the English language teaching industry

• Advice on finding a job abroad as a non-native speaker

• Factors that affect the job search for both native and non-native English speakers

• Why reputable employers don’t have prejudice against non-native teachers

• What International House is like as an organization

• What it’s like to get a CELTA certification at IH Mexico

• Why candidates often find CELTA stressful and what IH Mexico does to try to mitigate candidates’ stress

• Teaching opportunities at IH Mexico

• What Orlando wishes he’d known before he started teaching

• Being intentional about your career path in teaching English

• Orlando’s favorite things about working in the ELT industry

• Why professional development means to much to him

• What makes us so lucky as English teachers and ELT professionals

• What we need to keep in mind as English teachers and trainers: why we have to keep up to date with new trends and methods

• His two favorite travel destinations and why he loves them

Interested in IH Mexico?

You can apply for a CELTA at IH Mexico or find out more information here.

Or email: orlando@ihmexico.com or visit https://www.ihmexico.com/

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Episode Five

In This Episode…

How Theresa got started

• Why she decided to try teaching

• How she chose a certification program: why she landed on CELTA

• How her four weeks in the CELTA program compared to four years of doing a BA

• What she really got out of her certification

• What she wishes she’d done before doing CELTA

• How grammar for teaching is different than grammar for speaking/ writing

Her first local teaching job in Washington, DC

• What it’s like to teach in a private language school in the US, and what incoming teachers should expect

• How she transitioned from CELTA to teaching in her own classroom

• What affected her students’ motivation

• What she found so helpful about being in a multi-cultural, multi-lingual classroom

• The biggest challenges she faced

• The practical advice that most helped her in planning and teaching successfully

• How she got ideas for lesson content from her students

Da Nang, Vietnam

Her teaching experience in Vietnam

• How she decided on a location

• Why she says teaching in Vietnam was completely different from teaching in DC

• How her expectations compared to reality

• What the teaching schedule was like

• The three big differences between teaching children vs. teaching adults

• What to expect in terms of teaching resources- what you’ll have access to and what you’ll need to seek out

• The meaning of “edu-tainment”

• What kind of teachers different schools attract

• How she went from teacher to school director in a very short time

• Her duties as the Director of Studies

Hoi An

Theresa’s recommendations for traveling

• Da Nang’s white sand beaches and paragliding

• Hoi An’s gorgeous old town

• The Cuchi tunnels in Ho Chi Minh

• The Beer Corner in Hanoi (but watch out for pickpockets!)

Top advice for living/ working in Vietnam

• Why you’ll want to know the differences between options for working environments: whether you’ll be around partiers/ backpackers or more serious teachers

• Decide whether you want to be in a big language center vs. a smaller private school vs. a public school

• Just go! Get to Vietnam and find a job once you’re there, not before

• How to rent an apartment

• How to make sure you get to stay in the city where you want to be

• Choosing between Vietnam and Taiwan depending on your personality

Interview with Theresa Troyer: Teaching Locally and in Vietnam

Show Notes

Have you ever dreamed of changing careers and running off to Vietnam to teach English? Theresa Troyer did just that. In this episode, we’re talking with Theresa about how she decided to teach and what it was like to dive into the field of TEFL. She gives us the lowdown on why she chose to get a CELTA and how intense it really was, and then tells us all about what it was like to teach locally before transitioning overseas to teach in Vietnam. If you’ve ever thought about Vietnam as a work or travel destination and you’re looking for some advice (or just a good breakdown of expectations vs. reality), then you won’t want to miss this episode!

Theresa in Da Nang

Daily life in Vietnam

• Living in Bắc Ninh for three months

• Living in Hanoi

• How English teachers live lavishly

• Saving money while still going out/ traveling often

• The dangers of driving

• What the food is like

• Healthcare

• Whether you need to learn Vietnamese

• Finding a community: expat groups vs. locals

“...You can live very lavishly for not a lot of money (. . .) Also, you’re in Vietnam, and in Southeast Asia it’s so easy to travel to anywhere else in Southeast Asia. ”

At the beach in Phu Quoc

The best things about living in Vietnam

• Her favorite food: bun cha

• The cost of living- affordable!

• How easy it is to travel around Asia

The less ideal aspects of living in Vietnam

• Food-related health risks

• Driving risks

• That time a live cockroach crawled out of her dinner

with a very young learner group in Hanoi: “edutainment!”

“Be really honest with yourself about who you are and what you value. If you are someone that likes a lot of structure and order, things being on time, a lot of organization (. . .) Vietnam is not necessarily going to be the place for you. But if you are very ‘go with the flow,’ if you don’t mind rapid changes at the last minute, if you aren’t particularly bothered by doing what’s required (. . .) then Vietnam might be the place for you. ”

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What other destinations do you want to hear about?

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Episode Four

So you want to want to get certified…

Show Notes

You’ve decided to get a certification like CELTA. Great! Where do you start? What’s involved? Do you really have to interview? Why does it seem like such a process- can’t you just pay your money and start? In our last episode, we (hopefully!) convinced you that getting some solid training before you start teaching is the way to go. Now we’re looking at exactly what to do once you make that decision- from choosing the right training program and getting accepted to showing up on day 1 ready to succeed.

In this Episode…

How to vet a certification program

·       what the price range really means

·       criteria for choosing the right one for you

·       whether university certifications are CELTA-equivalents

·       whether you need a bachelor’s degree to teach abroad

·       the red flags to look out for

The application process

·       why it’s even a “process” in the first place

·       what certification providers are looking for on your application

·       what the “pre-interview task” is and how to do well on it

·       what happens when you’re not good at grammar

The interview

·       why interviews are required

·       what the interviewer is looking for

·       the main parts of the interview

·       how to prepare for it

·       whether you should ask questions

What happens when you’re accepted

·       what happens next

·       when it’s time to put money down

·       how to start preparing for your course once you’ve been accepted

·       the resources the certification provider should send you

We’d love to hear from you! Leave us a comment below and tell us what you think of the episode, or head over to iTunes and leave us a review. Thanks for listening!

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Why you might not be accepted

·       reasons for rejection

·       the level of English required

·       what the rejection really means

·       how to go about applying again- and how to get accepted the next time around!

The start of your course

·       what you need to know on day 1 of your training program

·       why you’ll want to show up with an open mind

·       professionalism- is this a training course or a job?

·       what your trainers are looking for

Want the best possible preparation for the CELTA course? Enroll in our free CELTA prep course: Ready, Set, CELTA