Gap Year Volunteering

Teaching

Why teaching?

Sometimes seen as the default gap year choice, teaching is anything but: many people considering a career as an educator teach on their gap year to get valuable experience. However, even if you’re still trying to decide between merchant banking and running away with the circus, teaching gives you skills and experience you can use in almost any career imaginable!

Schools and lessons

The school you’ll be teaching in will most likely be poorly resourced and classes might be run more like the ones your parents describe from their schooldays than the ones you had, with learning by rote the norm. Despite this, many people who choose to teach on their gap year report enthusiasm in their pupils beyond anything they expected, or would find back home!

You can use this enthusiasm to make lessons as fun as possible, with games and exercises, singing songs and getting kids to draw on the board. Bringing props from the UK is another great way to get the kids involved – coins, maps, posters and photographs are always favourites, but use your imagination!

Your lessons are obviously where you’ll be able to have the most impact, so plan them well, and don’t worry too much about the kids learning exact pronunciations or remembering long lists. Instead, aim to get them interested in the language – it’ll be their enduring memories of the fun they had that will make them work hard once you’ve left and give them the best chance of fluency – their ticket to a better job and a better future.

Other subjects

You might also be able to teach another subject: sports, for example, as well as English, so check with your gap company. This can be a sly way to keep up English learning – singing pop songs, for example, in a music lesson or discussing English footballers while playing. Be sneaky – you’ll be amazed how fast the kids will improve!