Student lands teaching job in China

A student from Sussex Coast College Hastings will be moving to China later this month to start her career as a teacher.

Sarah Hazelton recently completed the Cert TESOL teaching course at the college and has landed her first teaching job with International Language School, EF, in Shenyang.

“Teaching has always been an idea for me to pursue,” said Sarah. “I was looking at a lot of different options as I came to a bit of a dead end after I finished my degree. I did consider doing a PGCE course and going into primary teaching, but I couldn’t resist the lure of travel and thought the possibilities with the TESOL would be endless.”

Sarah started the 24-week Certificate in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages course back in January, and managed to fit it around her full-time job at the college.

“The course ran on Wednesday evenings and on Thursdays from 10:30 until 3:30, which worked out really nicely with my reception role at the college. There was quite a lot of work to get through, but my tutors were so supportive and were always available to help with checking over lesson plans before I taught them.”

Sarah applied for the teaching job shortly before finishing the course, and had a Skype interview in February with the recruitment manager, who is based in Shenyang. She was offered the job shortly after and will join the EF team in northern China later this month, before starting her 12 month teaching contract at a local school in September.

“My contract is for 12 months, but I have the option to extend it by another year in Shenyang if all goes well. This course has opened so many doors for me, and working with EF means that I have the flexibility to work all over the world teaching English!

“I am both nervous and excited right now. Starting a new job is scary enough, on top of that it’ll be the first time that I’ve travelled abroad by myself, thousands of miles around the world. However, I’m really excited to be starting a new job in something I’ve become really passionate about and have worked so hard to get.”