General Impression
Overall Rating: / 10
I really enjoy teaching English and this is the best place to do it in my opinion. This is my second visit and I got to see the Moldovan snow this time instead of the sunshine.Country
Moldova despite being a small country feels vast due to it's small population. You get to experience the rural areas and at the same time get to see the big city before you fly home. People are warm and friendly.
Project & Staff
I didn't get to meet the local team manager this time because she was in Switzerland on a school project but her sister, husband and other volunteers made me feel welcome.
Tips
If you want to teach English and don't want to to travel to the other side of the world this is the ideal location. It's one plane ride for me and the flight time is under 3 hours.
Fundamentally this is a volunteer experience where you are actually helping rather than being a spare cog in the machine. The students benefit from hearing a native speaker.
TEFL is not essential for this volunteer program but I took a TEFL course prior and felt it ameliorated my teaching ability. Another volunteer here liked teaching at the school and this gave him encouragement to take a TEFL course.
Although it is not essential to know Romanian to teach the students it helps to learn it when you are interacting with other people (shopkeeper for example). I advise volunteers to try to learn Romanian or Russian. I need to take my own advice and improve my Romanian!
Fundamentally this is a volunteer experience where you are actually helping rather than being a spare cog in the machine. The students benefit from hearing a native speaker.
TEFL is not essential for this volunteer program but I took a TEFL course prior and felt it ameliorated my teaching ability. Another volunteer here liked teaching at the school and this gave him encouragement to take a TEFL course.
Although it is not essential to know Romanian to teach the students it helps to learn it when you are interacting with other people (shopkeeper for example). I advise volunteers to try to learn Romanian or Russian. I need to take my own advice and improve my Romanian!