Ask Radu Olanson, founder and CEO of Oxford Seminars, what the most common thing he hears from graduates is, and he doesn’t hesitate: “I should have done this years ago.” Not “was this a good idea”. Not “did it work out”. Just regret that it took them so long to start. That single line says more about why people should teach English abroad than any market report can. So instead of leading with statistics, this piece leads with the people — named, wherever their story was told with a name attached, because these are their stories, not ours.
“I would have never gotten here” — from sleeping on a couch to a top school in Shanghai
One Oxford Seminars graduate wrote to the company after years abroad, describing where he’d started: sleeping on a friend’s couch, sending out thirty resumes a week while working three jobs just to get by. A friend told him about Oxford Seminars. He took the course, then flew to his first job at a small elementary school in rural South Korea. Eight years, three schools, and a master’s degree in English education later, he’s teaching at Shanghai High School International Division — one of the top ten international schools in mainland China — and has paid off every cent of student debt along the way. In between, he sang karaoke in a Filipino shanty town, rode horses across the Mongolian steppe, studied martial arts for a month in a Korean Buddhist temple, and stood in the shadow of Mount Everest.
“I would have never gotten here [if it weren’t] for Oxford Seminars.” — Oxford Seminars graduate, now teaching in Shanghai
Lloyd: from marketing executive to head teacher in Bangkok
Lloyd took his Oxford Seminars course in 2015 as a former marketing executive looking for adventure and something more personally meaningful than his old career. He got both. Oxford Seminars’ job placement advisors landed him his first post in Thailand, teaching English to grade 11 and 12 students at a high school north of Bangkok. A year later he moved to a prestigious all-girls school in downtown Bangkok, teaching grade 7. Last year he was promoted to head teacher of the Lower Secondary Division, with nine other teachers — across English, math, science, and computer technology — now reporting to him.
“I have fallen in love with my new life. I’ll be eternally grateful to Oxford Seminars.” — Lloyd, head teacher, Bangkok
Stephanie: the course that became a career
Not every graduate sets out to build a long-term teaching career — but for Stephanie, that’s exactly what happened. She took her Oxford Seminars course in 2008 planning to teach English abroad for a while. Instead, as she put it, it became the starting point of her entire career: she went on to earn a full degree in education and has worked in the field ever since. Radu Olanson still credits Oxford Seminars with giving her that first push — not the whole career, just the confidence and foundation to start it, which turned out to be enough.
“It ended up being the starting point of my entire career.” — Stephanie, Oxford Seminars graduate, 2008
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Thomas, 92, and still teaching
If there’s one story that captures how far “never too late” can actually stretch, it’s Thomas’s. He took his Oxford Seminars TESOL course in 2019, in his mid-eighties, and has spent the years since doing missionary work alongside English teaching in Mongolia and South Korea. Along the way he completed four separate specialization modules — Teaching English to Young Learners, Business English, Teaching English Online, and finally IELTS/TOEFL preparation, widely considered the hardest of the four and not recommended for first-time teachers. He recently turned 92 and has now moved to Japan to keep teaching. Nobody at Oxford Seminars is entirely sure how — Japan doesn’t typically issue work visas past 65 — but the working theory is that he’s teaching at a monastery, alongside monks, as a volunteer.
Radu still gets visibly emotional telling the story. It’s not a typical outcome — but it’s a real one, and it exists because a TEFL certificate doesn’t come with an expiry date on ambition.
Ellen and Michaela: one course, two generations, one job at Apple
Ellen took her Oxford Seminars course back in 2012 and later called the company to say it was the best money she’d ever spent. She and her husband, an anthropologist, spent the next fourteen-plus years traveling the world together — she teaching, him working archaeological dig sites — in what he now jokingly calls his fourteen-year paid vacation. Ellen has since recommended the course to students at university career presentations alongside options like the Peace Corps. Her daughter, Michaela, followed her mother’s path, took the same course, and went on to teach English in Japan for four years. That international experience turned out to be the deciding factor when Michaela later beat out multiple other candidates for a job at Apple.
“Michaela recently beat out multiple other candidates for a prestigious job at Apple — primarily because she had that international work experience.” — Radu Olanson, recounting Michaela’s story
“It’s probably easier to get a job teaching abroad than in your own field”
Rowan Lomas has run job placement at Oxford Seminars for sixteen years, and the shift he’s watched isn’t subtle. The company’s average graduate used to be in their twenties, fresh out of university. Now the average age has climbed into the forties, with a growing wave of mid-career changers and retirees drawn south for warmer winters as much as new work. At one recent info session, a graduate mentioned she’d been laid off from her job while on vacation — and instead of despairing, found herself excited about the alternative sitting right in front of her.
“It’s probably a lot easier to get a job teaching English abroad than it is to get a job in your own field, in your home country, these days.” — Rowan Lomas, Job Placement Manager, Oxford Seminars
“One of the best decisions I’ve made in my life” — Oxford TEFL
Oxford TEFL has trained thousands of teachers through its Barcelona-based CELTA and Trinity CertTESOL courses since the late 1990s. Its graduates tend to describe the course itself as the turning point rather than what came after — the specific weeks of feedback sessions and teaching real students for the first time, discovering partway through that they’d stumbled into something they were genuinely good at.
“…probably one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life!” — Oxford TEFL graduate
When life doesn’t go to plan, TEFL still holds — Premier TEFL
Premier TEFL tells the story of a graduate named Abe, who got his 120-hour certification with China in mind — a plan that changed the moment he became a father. Rather than shelving the qualification, he pivoted to teaching online from home, building a schedule around a newborn instead of a visa application. It’s a useful corrective to the idea that a TEFL story only counts if it involves a plane ticket: the certificate held its value even when the plan behind it didn’t.
The ones who never stopped — The TEFL Academy
The TEFL Academy’s alumni network includes teachers like Kirsten, who got certified almost by accident back in 2003 and has been teaching ever since, across more than thirty countries, with Thailand still holding the top spot after two decades. Another graduate, known in the Academy’s own feature as “Aussie Amanda,” took her Level 5 diploma and built an entirely independent career teaching online across multiple platforms, now running her own self-paced courses for learners worldwide — proof that the same certificate can lead to one life-changing year abroad, or a career measured in decades, depending on what someone builds on top of it.
From a Pinterest board to Chiang Mai — The TEFL Institute of Ireland
The TEFL Institute of Ireland’s case studies read less like testimonials and more like short memoirs. One recent graduate, a DCU alum who spent years compiling Pinterest boards of places she wanted to live, describes the moment the plan became real: age twenty-five, newly certified, on a one-way flight to Thailand with no return date attached. She writes candidly about the fear of living on a salary roughly half what she’d earn at home — and then about the reality of affording a rented apartment, a motorbike, eating out most days, and still saving for travel during school breaks.
“Teaching in Cambodia was the best move I’ve made.” — TEFL Institute of Ireland graduate
What all of these stories have in common
None of the people in this piece set out to become a testimonial. Lloyd wanted adventure and meaning after burning out in marketing. Stephanie wanted a change and found a career. Thomas, at 84, just wanted to keep being useful. Ellen wanted an adventure with her husband and ended up handing her daughter a head start at Apple. What connects them isn’t the country they went to or the provider they trained with — it’s that every one of them, at some point, was exactly where you might be right now: on the fence, wondering if it was too late, too impractical, or too big a leap. None of them regret taking it. Several of them regret waiting as long as they did.
If you’re on the fence, that’s the only statistic that actually matters.
References
[1] Interview with Radu Olanson (Founder/CEO) and Rowan Lomas (Job Placement Manager), Oxford Seminars — conducted for this publication, July 2026. https://www.oxfordseminars.com/
[2] Oxford Seminars, “Testimonials from Oxford Seminars Grads.” https://www.oxfordseminars.com/why-choose-oxford/testimonials/
[3] Oxford TEFL, reviews and graduate comments — TEFL Course Review. https://www.teflcoursereview.com/school/oxford-tefl/comment-page-1/
[4] Premier TEFL, “Living the Dream as a Teacher Online” — Abe’s story. https://premiertefl.com/blog/teaching-english-online-tefl/
[5] GoAbroad, “From TEFL Certification to Contract: 12 Graduates on Their First Job” — The TEFL Academy alumni profiles, including Kirsten and “Aussie Amanda.” https://www.goabroad.com/articles/tefl-courses/tefl-academy-success-stories-from-certification-to-contract-1
[6] The TEFL Institute of Ireland, “Irish Teaching English in Thailand Experience” — graduate case study. https://tefl.ie/case-studies/irish-teaching-english-thailand-experience/
[7] The TEFL Institute of Ireland, “TEFL Graduate Stories” — case study index. https://tefl.ie/tefl-case-studies/
Names of Oxford Seminars graduates are used as given during the interview; some surnames were withheld at the company’s request.
Some contributors to this article have a commercial relationship with EFL Magazine. The article is independently produced and remains under the editorial control of EFL Magazine.
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