CELTA Stories – Enya Cooper

Enya’s Story

Hiya, my name is Enya Cooper. I completed my CELTA here at Swansea University in 2013 through the embedded course. Basically, a group of ten students, all doing a TEFL based degree, were given the opportunity to take part in a CELTA course alongside our studies. Although juggling university deadlines with the demands of the course was brutal, we had some amazing tutors, Neal Evans, Fiona Hardy and Neil Harris, to pull us through. After a month of blood, sweat and tears, we all passed the course and none of us failed our degrees!

The help and support didn’t stop there. We were coming to the end of our second year and all looking for a job to develop our newly acquired skills. The ELTS department at Swansea University had three job openings to work on the General Summer Course with Jen Welti. I had an interview with Jen and Jo Parfitt, the Head of the Department, and I thought I was super confident and had nailed it.

Jen told me, last year, that I was as white as a sheet throughout the whole interview, not the impression I thought I had made! Being able to teach at a university on a summer programme is crazy and something I would never have been able to do without my CELTA. Each year I come back to different students and different challenges, but always to a lovely boss, Jen Welti, and hilarious teachers.

As graduation loomed in July 2015, I started applying for teaching jobs abroad (as is the dream for most CELTA trainees). I was lucky enough to get a job at International House Toruń, Poland, where I’ve been working and living for the past year. I loved it so much that I will return for a second year this September. Although I had my degree, a lot of schools required a CELTA, with most of them accepting newly qualified teachers. Hopefully, in the next few years, I’ll be able to travel and teach in more exotic pastures, or at least somewhere where the winter isn’t -25!