Five people you should gift a TEFL course to

Are you already stressing over Christmas? Don’t worry. It happens to all of us. Whether it’s finding suitable toys for young ones, making sure your friends aren’t allergic to the lovely skin care products you got them, revising your Christmas card list and checking it twice, there’s so much to think about.

What about someone really special in your life? Someone who’s enterprising, who knows exactly what they want but, for whatever reason, can’t get it for themselves? Or, someone who’s particularly adventurous and doesn’t realise there’s an exciting route to the rest of the world? What about that person in your life who you love having around but is in something of a rut and needs a change?

Call us biased - we don’t mind - but a TEFL course might be the best present you can give this Christmas, especially if you need a present for five specific kinds of people. Let us describe the five people you should gift a TEFL course to this Christmas, and it’ll all make so much sense.

1. Someone who wants to travel the world

With a TEFL certificate , you can unlock the rest of the world by teaching English abroad . Yep, that’s right - you can travel across the globe and get paid while you’re doing it. Whether you want to teach across Europe , explore Africa , traverse the Middle East , sail around Asia or unearth new opportunities in Latin America , TEFL can make it happen.

The person you have in mind might want to see some of the biggest and brightest cities the world has to offer, like Paris , Shanghai , Tokyo . Or, maybe they’re the adventurous type, seeking adventure in less-visited locations like Honduras , Finland or Laos ?

Either way, a TEFL certificate will get them on the road - in a literal sense - to the next exciting location in their life. Getting there, learning the etiquette (very important if they go to Vietnam , Spain or Japan , for example) and finding a job are all part of the adventure.

If you know a talented person with more than a little wanderlust, TEFL could be just what they’ve always needed.

2. Someone who wants to be their own boss

We bet that more than a few of you know someone who is extremely determined, is dead set on becoming their own manager, and who wants to live by their own terms. We’re talking about the kind of friend who makes the plans, the relative who gets everyone together during the holidays, the person who keeps things running smoothly.

TEFL might be the perfect opportunity for them. For self-starters, teaching English online is absolutely perfect. Whether you end up working for a company or on a platform, you can have a great deal of choice about your career - your hours, your rates, who you teach and more.

Or, for the person in your life who wants to travel AND be their own boss, the digital nomad lifestyle could be perfect. More people than ever are getting into this nomadic lifestyle, seeing the world while working in a role they find incredibly rewarding.

Freelance TEFL teaching means complete self-reliance, and for a lot of people, that’s a dream. For the person in your life who wants anything but a rigid 9-to-5 and corporate structure, a TEFL certificate might be the first step to occupational liberation!

3. Someone who wants a change

You might have noticed that someone in your life is in a bit of a rut. Maybe they’ve said it outright, but they’re not sure which direction to go in. Or, they just don’t seem to have much excitement in their life, they feel directionless, and you’re not sure what you can do to help.

Well, when it comes to giving someone’s career trajectory a shot in the arm, a TEFL certificate is hard to beat. One of the biggest groups of converts to the TEFL cause are Career changers , people who move to teaching from another industry.

It might mean your favourite colleague goes off to teach in Brazil , or starts teaching English online and doesn’t do the commute to work with you any more. Your pal, cousin, sibling or whoever it may be might end up moving miles away, which can be tough. Here’s the thing, though: TEFL teaching could be exactly what they need, and you could be the one to make it happen for them.

That’s powerful stuff.

4. Someone who’d make a great teacher

This sounds simple, but what if you know someone who, simply put, would just make a great teacher? Someone who, despite having no teaching experience, has all of the important skills you need to teach?

They might be confused by your insistence that they stand in front of a class. They might say, “But I’ve no experience! It sounds terrifying! You’re wrong!”. That’s when you tell them about all the transferable skills they already have that make them a perfect candidate for TEFL!

Gifting a TEFL course is a show of belief in someone. It’s not just a throwaway gift. It’s an investment in a person’s talents. You’re saying to someone, “I know you could do this and be brilliant at it”. How many Christmas presents do that? As helpful as a set of shower gels and deodorants is, it doesn’t quite send the same message.

Crucially, they might not have done it for themselves. There are loads of reasons why talented people who’d be amazing at teaching don’t get into it. Teaching degrees, depending on where you are, can be prohibitively expensive. Not everyone can dedicate that much time to study while having to work. Or, family commitments might get in the way. There are a host of reasons. 

However, our TEFL courses have flexible study options - you can finish the courses at your own pace with amazing tutor support. It’s not all-or-nothing - that talented someone in your life can work around their existing commitments and, before long, have fantastic, accredited certification.

How many times can we say, “That’s powerful stuff” in one blog post?

5. Someone who wants to make a difference

Finally, we get to the ones who are always doing something for the greater good: your mate who does 10k runs in costume, the person who invites you to demonstrations and protests, your sister who gets you up at 8am on a Saturday so you can donate blood. Those people.

Turns out a lot of these types of people make fantastic teachers. Naturally outgoing, giving people make for great TEFL instructors, and the world needs those. While yes, there are lots of places where you can earn amazing money as a TEFL teacher, and explore futuristic cityscapes, there are also lots of places with poor infrastructure but massive demand for English. 

Why? Well, English is worth knowing. It’s the lingua franca of business , and its importance in international education is enormous. The opportunities it can create are enormous.

That is, of course, if a person chooses to teach abroad. There are great opportunities to be had locally, working with refugees and asylum seekers , and volunteering in the community. A TEFL certificate gives any aspiring teacher real grounding and gravitas, as well as the important theoretical knowledge they need to teach English effectively. Bringing all of that to a socially conscious enterprise is a wonderful thing for someone to do.

…And that’s just five!

We could’ve written about 100 more kinds of people who would benefit from a TEFL certificate. Truthfully, there isn’t anyone who wouldn’t. 

It might just be the perfect gift for someone in your life. It’s a ticket to the rest of the world, a vote of confidence, a chance to change a life for the better, and so much more. With our brilliant, experienced TEFL tutors always here to help through a course and our friendly, knowledgeable staff on hand to help from inquiry through to purchase (and well beyond!), you’ll never need to feel less than confident about what you’re buying, whether it was the right choice, and whether that special person in your life is getting all the support they need.

It might just be the best present you ever give someone. Why not give an amazing present this Christmas; a qualification that can mean self-reliance, location independence, opportunities to make a social impact, a chance to travel the world, and so much more?

Take a look at our range of fully-accredited, highly rated TEFL courses today for you or for the budding teacher in your life!