WORKING OVERSEAS - EF TEACHER INTERVIEW

Vuyo is from Johannesburg, South Africa and currently works for Academic Partnerships at EF.   

I chose to work for you because there's the accountability, it is a global company that is legitimate. I knew that by coming to work for this company in particular I wouldn't have to worry about visa issues or and I also like the fact that the TEFL was sponsored. This was a huge factor towards me choosing to come to work for you and just from the very beginning since we arrived here as a group we were supported. From the time that we touched down in Shanghai just the first several weeks we were trained thoroughly you were told exactly we would be we were prepared fully for the China experience and for me that makes my experience with EF premium. 

I first arrived in March 2017 as a kids and teens teacher like many of us and I worked there for about a year and a half. At that time I grew a lot as a person, particularly my presentation skills. Before then, I had been working for EF already back home but in the online center so I wasn't accustomed to actually teaching face to face so in terms of that EF really helped me to develop as a person. I taught kids for about a year and a half and afterwards I decided to go into Academic Partnerships which means partnerships between EF and universities across the city in Shanghai. 

I've had the opportunity to work with local Chinese people and through that I've learned a lot about Chinese culture and just the Chinese way of doing things and then even beyond that I've worked with Americans, people from Britain, from Jamaica, etc. It's honestly such a United Nations! An eclectic mix of people and I think that cross-cultural sharing of ideas and even working customs and working ethics has transformed me for the better and I'm really really happy and glad that I've had this opportunity. Shanghai is very international, very cosmopolitan, I mean you could walk out to the streets and meet someone from Brazil and then just around the corner meet someone else from Argentina for example. 

You need to put yourself in a position where you can easily communicate with people from different parts of the world even if they don't come from the same culture as you. I think being here is a very good training and has exposed me to different cultures and showed me how to work with them. I think ultimately it's just showing me that even though there may be a lot of differences between us there's actually quite a lot of similarities as well.