When I worked in Costa Rica, my school required teachers to be CELTA or equivalent qualified. They didn’t care where the person was from, whether they were local, a native speaker or a non-native speaker, as long as you had the qualification and experience, then you could work there. To my knowledge, it was the […]

As it’s the start of a new school year, I thought it was time to try out a new ‘getting to know you’ first lesson activity. I came across the website 2 Kinds Of People which simply and beautifully portrays how easily the people can be separated into different groups. I thought it was a fun way […]

I’m an avid podcast listener and comedy fan, so the Comedian’s Comedian Podcast is one of my favourites. I find it fascinating to listen to comedians talk about their craft, and in one episode, the comedian Nick Doody was talking about his love for stand up and how it allowed him to talk about anything he […]

This is the first post I’ve written since I left San Jose, Costa Rica in July and moved to Brasília, Brazil. Inevitably I’ve been reflecting on my time in Costa Rica and I look back at it with nothing but warm memories. On a personal level, it was a great country to live in, and […]

This post is part of a blog challenge created by Joanna Malefaki in which we write a letter to our younger teaching selves. To read more posts in the challenge, click here. Hi James, So you’re just about to give your first lesson, armed with nothing more than a few pages of interview questions and […]

The best thing about living in Costa Rica is the nature. A narrow country with an Atlantic and a Caribbean coast, and a spine of volcanoes down the middle, it is host to an amazing array of natural habitats containing more biodiversity than North America and Europe combined. And my favourite aspect of that environment […]