Instructor Profile: Camelia Marks

Name: Camelia Marks
Position: Instructor
TESL Teaching Experience: Barcelona, Spain; Ota City, Japan; Upala, Costa Rica; Toronto, Ontario

My first ESL teaching experience was a wonderful year in Japan, which was a gentle introduction to the profession, as the people I met and dealt with were very gracious, and the culture, on a whole, was extremely welcoming. Leaving at the end of the year was heartbreaking, and I cried the entire way from Narita to Seoul.

After a year of fun, decadence and fabulous sushi, I decided to check out Europe, and I spent an academic year just outside of Barcelona, [Catalonia] Spain. Not realizing that Catalonia is quite a different culture than that of the rest of Spain, I did experience a bout of culture shock, which soon subsided as I discovered Catalonia’s delicious culinary gifts. I worked for a small, private company, where I was definitely schooled in grammar, and came home with a vast repertoire of grammatical knowledge.

Although living abroad was a great experience, working in Canada has been the most fun, dynamic and rewarding. This is because I have had the good fortune to work with schools that have had a strong focus on team work, teacher autonomy and providing students with the best possible quality of learning.

Teaching ESL is an incredibly rewarding profession and I highly recommend pursuing it to anyone who enjoys both being with others and helping them to grow.

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