Member Profile - TEFL Scotland

Member Spotlight

TEFL Scotland

High Street, Dingwall

joe@teflscotland.co.uk

www.teflscotland.co.uk

Scratch the surface at TEFL Scotland and you will find that TEFL Scotland is infact just one of a network of TEFL organisations run from Dingwall at their new home in the High Street, Dingwall. Joe Hallwood was previously an English teacher and he worked in Greece in his 20’s. He helped start up what is now a competitor’s business and gained a Chartered Institute of Marketing qualification specialising in online marketing.

Having spent many months beavering away writing course content in their garden shed TEFL Scotland was born in October 2008, 6 months later TEFL England came along, September 2010 saw the arrival of TEFL Wales and TEFL Ireland has launched this year.

The suite of TEFL sites are aimed at anyone wanting to teach English abroad with lots of enquiries coming from teachers unable to secure a full time teaching post, students looking to fund their travel and older students looking to take gap years as well as retirees. A jobs board available only to students helps demonstrate the type of work available and is a good sales tool together with the fact that the courses are all ILA approved so can often not cost the learner anything directly.

There are just over 5 courses a week running throughout the UK and TEFL Scotland uses a network of tutors and a regular group of venues including Gatwick, Manchester, Birmingham, Southampton, Plymouth, Northampton, Nottingham, Cardiff and Aberystwyth.

TEFL Scotland also has some tutors based in Greece and Spain and they also employ a member of staff based in  Durham and one in Greece. This makes a total staff of 12 – good job they have now moved as it would have been a bit of a squeeze in the shed.

TEFL Scotland has worked with two Fusion members to develop new services – Plexus worked with them to develop the jobs site and Murray IT worked with them to develop a new course aimed for students showing them how to teach online.

Having grown a business in the recession of the last two years must surely put TEFL Scotland in great stead for the future – they have clearly learned the business lessons needed to ensure a business is sustainable and can maximise technology to help deliver new and exciting services to a wide range of customers.