11/27/2020
hello welcome to another live session this week and yeah we're on at a different time
this week usually we're a little bit earlier um but yeah we have a special guest today and that's why because
she's on base in germany so we had to change the time a little bit yeah i'm linda from itt you've probably
seen me before if you've watched our lives and i'm here with brit today hi brit
hi thanks for having me and painting your time to meet my schedule yeah and thanks so much for
getting up early i know it's early in germany right now oh yeah just have my coffee and i'm good
to go yeah that's awesome where in germany are you exactly
so i'm based near trier which is along the border with luxembourg so very
close to luxembourg oh that's cool it's exciting have you been luxembourg
uh yeah i got i had one chance to go before all of the coved shutdowns and lockdowns
earlier yeah it's really beautiful place yeah yeah i really want to go it's so close
to germany i was born and raised in germany so yeah i really want to go to all like the
neighboring countries yeah i feel like when you're from a place you always think oh i have so much
time to go see them and exactly yeah later i'll go later
right so i see we have some people watching already could you please if you can see us and hear us could you leave a
comment where you're from where you're watching from and maybe also where you are in
your tefl journey i'm always very curious to know are you currently taking a tefl
course are you planning to take a course are you already teaching abroad please let us know that'd be really cool
and so yeah like i said we have brittany here today from the life of brit and we're doing a
tefl talk so sort of a casual tefl talk today
about um brittany's really exciting career path after tefl it's really exciting and i
think a lot of people who also want to teach abroad or take a tefl course are really going to be interested in
your experience and what you can share with them so please always drop your questions in the
comment box we are live on facebook and we're also live on youtube
so please don't hesitate yeah uh oh someone's watching from oman cool
watching that's exciting i haven't been to oman yet i hear it's really beautiful i really want to go yeah me too on my
bucket list for sure oh yeah okay then we have somebody from
australia cool i've worked as an e-a-l-e-s-l and t-soul teacher for five years cool
that's awesome i also want to go to australia haven't been yet
everywhere is on my bucket list but yeah um also if you are listening to this
episode as a podcast episode thanks for downloading we always turn these live events in
into podcast episodes so if you've downloaded it and you're listening to us thanks so much for downloading and for
anyone who's interested who's into podcasts i love listening to podcasts
you can find us on itunes on spotify google podcasts all the major
sites and if you type in itttt it'll show up it's called um the teflon tesol podcast by itt and you
can find it there i'll also drop a link later but yeah and
also please don't forget to like and subscribe so that you don't miss another live we go live
every week actually every friday sometimes the time might change or the day might change
but um yeah that's the plan and we always talk about you know everything teflon teaching related and sometimes we have on
cool guests like today yeah so cool so britney prepared some
slides that we can also put into you know with a lot of amazing pictures so let's look
at that and yeah britney
so i guess i'll just start with introducing myself so my name's brittany or brit for short
and i got my tefl certificate at the end of 2016 um while i was
working full time and then applied to teach english in korea and that kind of jump started this
whole exciting adventure for me where i found a passion for travel blogging
i got to travel around asia i started freelance writing to where i am now which is a grad
student in germany so it's been a very exciting adventure
yeah why did you pick south korea is there a reason or yeah honestly uh the perks
were just too good to pass up in south korea um i had my eye i had my sights set on asia for sure so
i was looking at the best places to teach in asia because i'd never been at the time okay um yeah in korea they
just pay so well yeah yeah that's why a lot of people go to korea for sure
yeah yeah cool okay oh yeah and your website right oh yeah
and i have a website yeah where i actually have written a lot about my experiences in south korea
as a tefl teacher um traveling solo and it's lifeofbert.com if you
yeah i want to check it out and i am very happy to reach out or have conversations with fellow tefl
teachers or aspiring travelers with any questions you guys may have so feel free to send me an email or a dm
awesome and can i ask you about the picture where was that taken it looks really cool oh yeah that was in india actually wow
after i finished my last contract in korea i went on a
backpacking trip throughout asia and spent two months in india which was just an incredible experience
all paid for by my savings i was able to scrim together teaching in korea and
yeah this is in rajasthan oh nice that looks really nice awesome okay cool
okay so why get tuffled certified i have a lot of people asking me um if it's worth it or what
you can do with the tefl um so for me personally i got tefl certified because
i was a little bit unhappy with where i was at my job wasn't really my passion i had worked in
marketing beforehand and i wasn't sure if that was really my path
um but i and i was always dreaming of traveling but i had student loans and i was kind of living paycheck to
paycheck so travel seemed really impossible for me um and i started
researching just how can i travel abroad while earning an income um
so i can pay down my loans and pay for travel and still have a good quality of life and that's kind of where tefl came in i
found tefl and immediately became interested in you know it's just such a great opportunity it takes english
speakers and places them all over the world in a job where you can learn about the new culture earn an
income and travel around any region of the world definitely yeah i agree for me too i was
always looking for i always loved traveling and so teaching english abroad is just it's such a great way and then
especially in a country like korea where you get you know pretty good salary and all the perks that you mentioned i think
yeah and the cost of living by american standards and it was just i don't know my money went
further than it did at home and yeah
cool did you have any teaching experience before you went no i did not i mean i did have some
volunteer experience with young children um but i was going to school for speech
therapy and when i was in college and then um after that i had to go to grad school
if i wanted to continue speech therapy and i wasn't ready for more school or for more loans
so i just nabbed the first job i could find which was marketing so i didn't come from a teaching background
at all right okay did you do you think your um tefl course helped you kind of
uh get gain more confidence or you know know what you're doing in the classroom that sort of stuff oh definitely yeah i
mean the i was so terrified of getting up in front of just the thought of getting up in front of a classroom of children
i mean they are our children but you know children are also extremely honest and
lively and they'll just say whatever yeah that's so true it's intimidating no
matter yeah if they're adults or kids or whatever yeah yeah so the type of course really helps
teach me you know um different classroom management skills and how to relate to kids and keep them focused and
yeah valuable yeah awesome okay cool
okay so some perks of online tefl uh there are many different tefls you can take
you know you can go into an in-person class that's you know usually about four weeks or you can do it online um for me i did an
online tefl i found it the most convenient because i was able to get tefl certified on my own
time so i actually got my tefl while i was still working full time
which was nice i could keep earning an income and i wasn't totally sure yet
what i wanted to do with that tefl afterwards so it gave me the time to think on it
it was affordable online tefl courses are generally a fraction of the cost
but in person which in person are still great they're really really good if you have the time to devote in the money
it's obviously super valuable to have physical in classroom experience but
for those of us who maybe don't have that opportunity or that privilege yeah the affordability of online tefl is
very good um i also appreciated that there was no travel required for class
i'm from a smallish town in wisconsin and i wasn't really near any
tefl classes you know if you have to take an in-person class you have to go to a big city like maybe chicago was the
nearest one which is two hours away or you know and that was just something too inconvenient for me to do
and yeah and it also gives you more time to decide where to teach so i wasn't i was between teaching in
korea japan in taiwan um and so when i was getting my tefl
um the itt blog has a lot of great resources sharing all the different experiences of where you can teach so it
just gave me more time to sift through and decide where it was right for me yeah cool and why
um why did you decide you want to teach english in asia what was like so appealing about asia to
you um as an american most americans travel to europe or to mexico or to south
america so for me maybe it sounds silly but asia was this place where i didn't know anybody who
had ever been i'd never been and it just looked so beautiful and so diverse and so vibrant and
i actually i had studied abroad in copenhagen in college three years so i'd already
kind of seen a lot of europe and um yeah it just made sense to me okay asia's the next
place i'd like to go yeah definitely cool it was actually kind of similar for
me in terms of the online tefl i was also working full time at at the time and i took the course and i
also just left the flexibility yeah how long did it take you to
complete the course uh i think it took me a little less than three months
yeah i think me too similar yeah yeah yeah you have up to six months to
complete the course with itttt but yeah most people like me and britt we completed it much faster and you can
even complete it faster right no people they completed in like a month or even a few weeks
but they're probably not working yeah so it's really great for anyone if
you're working full-time you're not working at all anyone can take online tefl course and
get certified all right cool um what about um your tefl
interview when you when you interviewed for korea how was that like yeah so it was
scary but i'm trying to think back on it because it was a little bit of time of year
um so i applied with epic the epic program very cool yeah which is the public school for
anyone who's doesn't know and they do a skype interview with you when you're in your home country
and i just remember my interviewer being very straightforward very just this is what
your application says can you confirm you know what are your
what are what are your thoughts on classroom management like how do you manage a classroom so having to rely on those techniques i
learned in my tefl course um yeah was it a korean interviewee or
i no it was actually another i think a british person who must have
been working for the dmoe the department of education cool okay nice all right
and then so you got your tefl and then you went to korea yeah and then i went
to korea so just to give a brief overview of teaching in korea you can choose public or private schools
i went public just because with the public school it's a normal eight to five day so
you're working you know just the normal work day and they do provide such good perks
it's very hard to pass up so um the public schools in korea you get a fantastic salary
you know it was less than i was earning in america but it went further because of the cost of living was much
more affordable you get insurance with the job public school job in korea
you get a pension you get free housing like a free furnished
apartment so that means you're not spending money on rent good vacation time so i believe right
now it's 26 days of vacation with korea's public schools plus i
believe it's 18 national holidays so a lot of time off in korea if you time it right
i just really appreciated how it was a good work-life balance you know you hear of some schools and other places where
you don't get as much vacation time or they expect you to work long late hours so for me that was a
cultural aspect of life and working in korea that i appreciated
yeah um and maybe was it hard to get into epic
could you talk a little bit more about epic the program yeah um so it's hard to know how competitive
epic is because they are quite tight-lipped and they don't really say like how many people apply
and how many people they accept at least not that i've seen maybe they do but
um the application process is a little bit intense they do ask you to fill out a ton of
like ton of paperwork you have to have a clean background check
um prove your you have to have a degree a college degree you have to have a tefl and then you
have to create a lesson a sample lesson plan for them to check over
and do an interview and then you have to come to korea and pass a drug test and a health screening
right what about all the documents you need you need like a a criminal background check and all that
stuff yeah so um as an american i had to get like a federal background check which is from the fbi
so depending on your country you have to go to the federal government and get um you know from the actual
your country's main government a background check showing you're clear um a copy of your degree
that's you have to get it officially certified your tefl certificates um
i'm trying to think oh i think i had to send a resume yeah
and you have to sign a bunch of waivers when i applied at least that were like i
don't have any tattoos that are visible talk about your piercings so korea is
still a little bit conservative or at the time right okay um while you were there so
how how long were you in korea for um i was there for two years so two contracts
okay and always epic always up yeah same school this is actually my school
the picture here oh really oh cool yeah so i worked at elementary school yeah in daegu
and i actually had two schools so i had a main one main big school that i was at four days a
week and a smaller like mountain rural school that was
about a 30-minute bus ride up the street um it was very small i only had maybe eight
students in a class at a time versus at this school i had i think 35
students in the class different yeah different kind of teaching experience i
actually have a friend yeah and she's also in the epic program and she also has like one main school and two side schools or something in the
countryside so that's interesting i didn't know that yeah different schools to work at at
epic that's kind of cool it's pretty common especially when you're kind of on the outskirts of the
city so that's where i was living and they do actually give you a little bit of a bonus if you have more than one
school i think it's an extra 100 a month
for uh professional schools so a little bit of a perk and it actually i enjoyed it i got to um mixed
up my weeks you know didn't feel so monotonous doing the same or seeing the same kids every day so it
was cool cool yeah i actually thought um i also topped my first year in korea but i
taught at a private school so the experience was quite different from the public school
yeah yeah so we had really long hours actually
um and my school was like in the morning you taught kindergarteners and then in
the afternoon the elementary kids came in and um so that was really fun i really
liked the kindergarten kids for sure but yeah we were always kind of jealous of the public school teachers because
they had like more time off and like not as many teaching hours and stuff like that so
do you have to work weekends oh sorry no no thank god sometimes
yeah actually sometimes we have to come in if like um for example it's like monday was like
the parents were coming in on monday or something then we had to come like on the weekends and like clean our classrooms and stuff oh okay
yeah so that was like not so great but [Laughter] yeah so that's something to think about
right for people who want to come to korea then you know what kind of school you want to choose
it's it's different yeah very different yeah cool and because you said um great
vacation time did you take a lot of trips like abroad while you were in korea as well
yeah so um the way the vacation time works in korea i think traditionally in western
countries teachers get the entire summer vacation off or winter vacation off
but in korea actually you are working through those vacations but those school breaks
are when you're allowed to take your vacation days so um you do have to kind of plant you only
have those two short periods to take your vacation but during that time i was able to travel i
think i traveled every school break i went to places like
indonesia i got to see bali which is beautiful i went to japan and the philippines
taiwan sri lanka and many trips throughout just south
korea as well because south korea has so many beautiful landscapes and places to see
so a lot of travel opportunity cool yeah i think you have some pictures for us right
cool yeah yeah so here's our just some a snapshot i guess of my time in korea
the upper photo of me sitting with kind of the beautiful temple building was taken in seoul i believe at
the gyeongbokgung palace yeah i think it looks like yeah yeah
that was actually taking one of my first weekend trips in seoul so it was really exciting to see the
traditional korean temples um photo next to it was taken at
the mud festival so there's a mud festival in korea every year where you go and you drink beer and soju
and you throw mud at each other have you been to the mud festival i no i
actually haven't no ah is it fun yes it's fun but it's also
it's just hectic yeah but i mean you have to do it right
you have to do it at least once yeah it's an experience for sure
oh yeah and those are all the friends that i are one of my a few of my good friends from korea so
when you when you are a teacher abroad the expat scene is just phenomenal
and everybody isn't even if they're from a different country everybody is in the same boat as you and
that they're in a new place and they're feeling a little lost feeling the same culture shock as you
probably are so it's also just a great opportunity to meet new people and make
lifelong friends like a lot of these people i haven't seen them in person in maybe a year or two but we still keep in touch
and are such good friends that's awesome cool and you went hiking
i see yeah so i i'm really into hiking in korea i think korea is perfect or was
perfect for you yeah korea's national pastime is hiking so um perfect place for me but the
corner picture with me and the pink flowers um that's a really beautiful spring
festival that happens near daegu where just the entire mountainside
blooms with um azaleas and it's just like this bright pink color and on the
opposite corner is a photo of me in sorakson national park
which was which is just breathtaking i can't even describe how beautiful it is yeah
and then a lot of city trips as well so in the middle um the rainbow village in busan with me
in the yellow sweater and having a cheeky rooftop photo in seoul really scary when i saw
that i was like oh my god yeah i don't remember that
yeah cool and um doesn't like the epic journey always start kind of in seoul
with like an orientation and stuff yeah so it actually depends where you're placed in korea
so um because my placement was in daegu which is a um a city in the center of the country
my orientation was actually in busan okay there was another thing that drew
me actually to korea was just how they the epic program they really
hold your hand throughout your process into moving into korea so
they they pay for your airfare or they reimburse you for the cost of your airfare
and when i arrived they picked me up at the airport and they took me to um the orientation
where i had room and board for 10 days and they immediately started teaching us
you know it was it was almost like another mini tefl course but from their perspective and giving
you cultural tips about living in korea and even a little mini korean lessons
wow that's cool yeah it was so nice it made my transition to korea so
relaxed like very stress-free and i i had a friend who was teaching in spain
and she had to do the whole process on her own like nobody picked her up and i just remember her being so
stressed and frazzled and so different from korea people imagine
that's another great perk when coming to korea for sure or of the epic program yeah it's
especially if you're new to the country i mean anytime you go to any new country it's overwhelming so just to have that
additional support was very valuable for sure and you probably already made some friends during the
orientation it's also really cool yeah exactly great opportunity
cool right yeah more pictures so kind of like we
talked about um i had a lot of opportunity to travel outside of korea while i was living and
teaching in korea so i got to go to bali um which is the top
corner of me standing between the temple gates um and that was my first actually so i'm
a big solo traveler and that was my first big solo trip in asia
um that's exciting yeah and it was a little scary but bali is actually a
super great place to start it's it's a little bit touristy but there's plenty of backpackers to befriend and i
actually made friends with two girls who we pretty much traveled with the whole rest of my time there which is awesome
yeah so i went to bali the photo next to that is in laos which i actually went as part of
that long six-month backpacking trip after i finished my teaching in korea
thailand and malaysia philippines and then vietnam in the red and yellow
with the red background in yellow i've been there it's beautiful
yeah vietnam was one of my favorite places i think super yeah what do you think was your best
part about teaching and living in korea if you had to pick
like oh that's such a hard question um honestly it was just such a carefree
lifestyle for me i was making more than enough money to
cover my living expenses and my student loans and i could afford
travel and you know coming from a really stressful job at home
that often i took home with me the teaching in korea you don't take
home with you you can get all your work done at the office and actually you only
teach i believe 22 teaching class hours with epic programs so that left
18 hours of lesson planning so more than enough time to get your get your stuff done and more
actually i mean that's why i started travel vlogging because i had so much free time at work right
um yeah just a carefree lifestyle and travel for sure yeah awesome cool okay
yeah so what tefl helped me achieve um we sort of already talked about a lot of
this stuff but um i taught english in korea you know i would not have been able to do that
without a tefl that's a requirement um and after teaching in korea i actually taught in
vietnam for a summer so um i finished my korea contract uh
in january or february i believe and then traveled for a few months and then moved
to vietnam that june and started a two-month summer camp there which was really incredible um i was
able to get a job at an international school and live in ho chi minh city for two months oh wow
was that hard to find that opportunity um that sounds amazing i
i got a little bit lucky in that i did a lot of googling and i happened to
just stumble after going deep in the internet i found my job yeah um
and then it just so happened that i knew somebody who knew somebody who taught at that school because so crazy
and they were able to give me a good word and i'm not sure if that helped or not but
i got an interview and yeah but it also was um advertised on the internet right
yes it was advertised on the school's website so if you have any aspirations
to teach in vietnam um honestly the best thing to do is just move to vietnam i know it sounds really
scary um but just move there and pass out your resumes that tends to work best but also
just search international schools in hanoi or international schools in ho chi minh and just find an email
contact and email them that's i did that for a few different schools before like finally
i kind of found the one that worked for me yeah that's a really good tip because we always hear like um international schools have such high
requirements for their teachers you need to be an actual teacher have a teaching license from back back home and like all that stuff
so that's really cool yeah yeah good position that's awesome i got a
little lucky i think but yeah i think it helped too that i had those two years experience already
as an english teacher so right yeah a nice resume in that regard but yeah
cool uh yeah after teaching in vietnam
i actually it was kind of a transitional um vietnam was coming to an end and i
still had a few months backpacking left planned and i was running a little bit low on money and i wanted to investigate teaching english
online which i think really became super common a couple years ago maybe
as i was ending my time in korea is when i started hearing about it
so i yeah i applied to palfish and started teaching online with palfish
which is a super super easy way to make either i know a lot of people do make a full-time income
for me i used it more supplementary so yeah especially as an american the time zone difference
isn't super great for teaching because you're on you're teaching chinese students who are after school which ends up being
very early morning in america right yeah but i taught english online
actually all this past year when covet hits and finding good timing
finding employment goes hard and also having to work at home so yeah um yeah if anybody has any
questions about that i've been writing a lot about teaching english online the past few months
cool how is um teaching in korea different compared to vietnam did you notice any
differences in like the students or just like the atmosphere at the school or something yeah well so i one main thing
is that i did teach just like a summer camp with kindergarten kids versus in korea i was teaching
public school curriculum for like elementary school like third grade to sixth grade but um
vietnam compared to korea is very laid back korea is very
bureaucratic they have strict rules you have to follow the rules a lot of
paperwork um teachers are a little bit more
polite and prim and proper it's just a little bit more lacks and
like i didn't really have any guidance necessarily for what to do in my summer camp maybe they would tell
me the main overarching topic but then i had the freedom to
create the lesson as i wanted it versus in korea they have a textbook that you you do the
lesson based on the textbook and then you can maybe add one extra activity after that right
cool uh what about the students was there like a difference between korean students and vietnamese students
um i think korean students they are tired a lot because they go to
so much school and they're very k-pop and they're very
into k-pop um vietnamese students seemed a little
bit more lively maybe they don't they didn't seem and also they were kindergarteners i
should really reiterate so maybe that's being young cool
yeah both were both were different and really lovely in their own way it's hard to yeah fully explained right
how was the transition from teaching like middle school and kit like actual children and then to
um online how was that um it's really weird actually because you're so
used to like when a child isn't fully understanding what you're
saying when you're there in person with them you have so many more opportunities to
like perhaps or other ways of getting the meaning across but when you're teaching english online
all you have is just the screen and you and maybe your hands and then
whatever prop you have immediately in front of you which you probably don't have access to so many so
it was a little bit of a weird transition um it's also different in that a lot of teaching online platforms are just
one-to-one with a student versus in person it's with a whole entire class
so in a way it's also almost better you have more time to get to know an individual student get to know what
they struggle with and what they need help with and how they learn best versus you
just and like when i was in korea and i had a class of 35 kids i just never had the chance to fully do that because
yeah it's just a lot going on yeah that's true cool and um how was the
process kind of getting into teaching online like with palfish or just like a general
was that difficult or what are the requirements and stuff like that yeah so for teaching
english online the requirements are pretty similar um depending on the platform
some require a college degree and some do not but most everyone does require a tefl so
you do at the very minimum have to have a tefl some people prefer seeing teaching
experience and some companies they don't care as long as you have the tefl and you can prove
you have a clean background and whatnot so for palfish you fill out a profile
you sign up i believe with your phone number fill out a profile with your name a bio what qualifications you do have
you have to upload photos of your qualifications as proof and then you normally have to do a
recorded interview which is often a lesson demo so they'll show you one of their lessons
and you have maybe 10 to 15 minutes to record how you would teach it and you
have to make sure you use lots of tpr which is like on the spot yeah wow
you can book you can book a date okay yeah you can do a little bit of prep yes
okay okay yeah so you book as soon as you fill out and submit all your
information in your documents then they let you choose a date and a time okay yeah
and there's tons of youtube resources that's what i relied on for how to best do these lesson demos
because they don't really tell you a lot about it um from the company themselves they're just
like okay do this lesson demo good luck and we'll let you know so youtube
for sure what are some things you have to watch out for then when you do the demo that are like some
specific things that's like don't do that or do that or avoid i have a problem with i
say okay a lot or filler words so like like i just i say like a lot they i
don't want that they don't really
just for 10 minutes don't say okay um like wow okay
yeah and they want you to be really expressive um very over the top happy and
a little bit of baby talk which can feel super weird but that's something they want to see props um it
doesn't have to be anything crazy i have flashcards um if you just have
one stuffed animal toy to get the kids attention you know that works as well yeah cool
and you were saying i'm pal fish you um teach chinese students yes so palfish is based
out of china and is primarily chinese students i think
they do have up to high school age students but most of my regulars are from elementary
level and can you decide how many hours you want to teach or do they say like you have to teach
then that many hours um yeah so palfish is super flexible this is one of the things i liked most
about them is they do not have any minimum requirements some
online teaching companies want to see you know x amount hours minimum a week um versus
palfish i believe it's just i do believe they have some technicality
of like maybe seven hours in a month but i just i've gone a month before without teaching and it was fine um yeah yeah but they
have a booking system where you can just do it on your phone you just pick which days and which time
slots you'd like to teach in you open them up and students can book them if they'd like
and you get a notification when it's booked and you just show up and lessons are 25 minutes and they run
you can book in 30 minute increments so it's pretty structured and pretty easy to set your own schedule
and then you know close it if something comes up yeah cool but they give you all the
teaching materials right you don't have to actually like make any lesson plans or stuff
yep they provide all the lesson materials i mean it's honestly you just show up you do have to wear a blue
t-shirt and have you know a background like a clean t-shirt yeah with cow fish you have to wear a
clear t-shirt is it like didn't send you a t-shirt or is this your t-shirt and it has to be
blue yeah you just buy a blue t-shirt um that's awesome i think prp is an orange
t-shirt so like everybody has i don't know okay
okay cool all right then tell us a little bit more about your travel blogging
yeah so um when i first moved to korea um i've always had a bit of a passion
for writing in for photography and i thought oh i should try this travel vlogging
thing that's you know blowing up right now so i i started
sharing or i created a website and started writing travel guides about my experience teaching
in korea um specifically daegu which is it's a big city um
maybe not by korean standards i think it's like 2.5 million people though and there's expats scene there and i
found a lot of success writing about daegu because there are so many
expats there but there was hardly any information on the internet about daegu in english
so i had a lot of fun just like sharing guides about how to teach an epic about
what to see and do in daegu what to see and do in korea and um it just grew
to now i share about all of my travel adventures as well as tips for general teaching english online
or teaching english abroad that's awesome yeah no i love that
travel blogs or blogs in general are just a great resource it's because it's like really from a
real person who really had that experience so yeah i think travel blogs are a great resource for anyone who wants to
you know travel or go abroad right yeah more authentic yeah feels more
authentic you know right
great okay and then you also got into freelance writing yeah so um travel blogging
was just a hobby at first and it slowly grew into something a little bit more where i could earn a little bit of an income not
a lot but a little um and then i after i came home from my big travel excursion
in asia i started freelance writing for a few people like i started off
writing for a friend and then applying for one-off job ads and i started earning an income
freelance writing which wouldn't have been possible without my travel blog because that
essentially was my portfolio to show other people you know my writing abilities and my skills and um
my ability to rank on search engines you know that's important marketing aspect
cool and now you are in germany yeah now i'm in grad school
in germany uh going to school for english literature and media
hopefully regrets with the writing uh once i graduate and honestly i do think my tefl gave me
that boost on my resume that maybe i would have been missing beforehand
when i my bachelor's is not in literature so i think having that tefl degree in
english and that linguistics you know i do learn a little bit about the fundamentals of the english language
gave me the boost my application needed all right cool actually let me pop that
up there's a question about palfish oh yeah see so do you offer help for
people wanting to join palfish as a referral coach do you know anything about the referral codes
brit yeah so actually i do um have i i have helped other people so i
i have a few guides and if you list me as your referral coach or your referral teacher
i get notified that you signed up and then i message you and just say hey
welcome to palfish if you have any questions let me know and i do help people along
with their interview process for any questions they may have so if you'd like i can try to help you
send me a dm and i can let you know and yeah yeah how can they reach you what's the
best way to reach you um uh maybe finding me on instagram
i think my username has my instagram handle otherwise uh you can email me my email
is brittany at life of brit.com
yeah but a dm on any of my socials is also fine cool
all right and she says megan says thanks i look forward to hearing from you
awesome okay all right then do you have any plan for after grad school yet are you
going to get back into teaching or just open in the air for now it's very open in the air
especially with the way the world is right now and i have no idea um but i am very open
to teaching again um i did have a mini dream to go to the golf arab
states maybe divide each for a little bit but we'll see where the
salaries are yeah very good salary and that's just another part of the world i haven't seen yet
right yeah awesome that sounds like a good plan
cool and yeah so you also have a 20 off code for itt tefl courses
yeah so if anyone is in need of a tefl course you can save twenty percent
um using my coupon code and um yeah i'm gonna share it in the comments
so wait i'm gonna post it in the comments the link the full link so then
okay it should show up now so then if you're interested you can just click the link
and then apply and you get 20 off any tefl course any of them cool
all right all right yeah so does anyone have any
questions for me here's your instagram handle again oh yeah this is my instagram
right here yeah and my website
awesome oh and where was that picture taken that looks amazing oh this is also in india um wow
in the northern part in the himalayan mountains oh nice did you travel to india alone
no i travel i do predominantly travel solo but the
trip to india i was with three other friends so he felt a little bit more
comfortable going to india with a group i'm sure it's one of those locations
maybe you have to be a little bit more careful especially as a woman yeah i mean i think in the north
it was less chaotic but places like delhi and mumbai is very chaotic and yeah much more
comfortable yeah with a group okay cool we have another one from megan she said
she screenshotted your ig handle she'll be in touch oh good morning i look forward to hearing from you
awesome cool and then yeah i just also want to mention
if anyone has any other questions like about tefl about itttt and our tefl course options in general
we have a very big faq section and i'm gonna also share the link real quick so there's a lot of
you find a lot of answers there as well and i think on brits blog also a lot of answers to
teaching questions and stuff like that and we also have a itt blog
let me share that link as well got that done all the links shared good
all right awesome okay well this is really great and i think very helpful for people who want to
follow your footsteps this was i think really impressive and so thanks so much for your time well thank
you for listening to my story i um i'm always happy to share
because i just know i came from a place before all my travel adventures where i just felt travel was too expensive and
impossible for me to ever be able to afford especially with student loans and i was making an entry
level salary so um just hearing that other people make it happen with not a whole bunch of
means is yeah a little inspirational i think so yeah definitely super inspirational totally
that's you know you take a tefl course and that's where it can lead you so that's really awesome yeah okay
okay so um this video will be available on our facebook page and youtube channel
even after the live ends so you can always re-watch it if you didn't catch it from the beginning
um don't forget to check out that 20 discount code and um yeah don't forget to follow
britney and check out her blog and yeah like and follow itttt
and then i'll see you all hopefully next week in another live session and
maybe we'll see brent again too all right awesome thank you thanks for
watching bye bye
