Bridge TEFL 
Expert Series Webinars 
BridgeUniverse Blog 
TEFL Jobs 
Language Training 
About Bridge 
Leveraging his background in teaching Business English and experience in event organizing, Ian Mearns has recently joined Bridge as its newest International Admissions Advisor to provide support to global English teachers who are pursuing their TEFL/TESOL education for their career goals. He shares how his administrative role will help facilitate teachers’ learning experiences and how working with them will contribute to his professional growth.
New to TEFL? Get started with Bridge TEFL certification courses, including the 120-hour Master TEFL Certificate that qualifies you for English teaching jobs worldwide.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself, Ian?
I’m from Edinburgh, Scotland and I currently live in Santiago, Chile. I’ve been here for almost five years. I started working at Bridge in December 2019. When I first arrived, I was teaching English in person before I shifted to working online at the start of the pandemic. So, I’ve been teaching Business English with Bridge for more than four years now, mostly online. I’ve also taken several Bridge TEFL/TESOL Certifications, such as Micro-credentials in Teaching English Pronunciation, Teaching English Online to Groups, and Teaching IELTS Exam Prep.
How did you get into the English teaching field?
I’ve had experience working with languages before because of my previous job. I worked in a charity and we organized events for the community in Glasgow and we worked a lot with asylum seekers, refugees, and people from other countries who moved to the UK. As part of that, I also ran a language cafe where people would come and exchange their languages and we’d do activities related to languages.
Then, I decided to make English teaching a career first because I like working with people, and teaching English is an opportunity to meet lots of people. Secondly, I liked languages when I was younger, but I never had the opportunity to really study beyond school. Although I studied Italian and French at school, I had never really done any language study after that. So, teaching English was an opportunity to engage with the English language, move to another country, and even start learning another language like Spanish.
Read about five ways to set yourself apart as an English teacher to land the job you want.
What will you be doing as International Admissions Advisor?
Though there are a few different things involved in the job, the central focus is helping trainees currently taking Bridge TEFL/TESOL courses. While they get support from their tutors or instructors, I also help them during the process of their course.
We provide direct support by helping them if they have tech problems or questions about the course content that’s not academic related, or if they need any kind of other general course support. The indirect support comes in the form of working behind the scenes as they go through their course. This includes administrative tasks like updating their accounts, helping out with certificate processing, and issuing their digital badges. We have Bridge partners as well, so I help answer their questions or help students who are Bridge teachers as well.
How did your background prepare you for the role of International Admissions Advisor?
Firstly, I can sympathize with the challenges trainees face while completing rigorous coursework. Bridge trainees taking our courses are going to be thinking about either teaching languages or landing English teaching jobs, and a lot of them will either be working online or thinking about moving abroad to teach English as well. I’ve got experience with those scenarios. I’ve moved abroad and I teach online as well, so it helps give me that kind of connection. I’ll be able to share real-life experiences with them as well.
In the past, my jobs have been related to working with people in some way, whether it was running events in my previous job in the charity or working with students in administration as well. So, I’ve got experience with the admin side of things and running events in the past too.
Explore five strategies to get the most out of professional development.
How does your new role support international teachers and TEFL professionals?
I think when people are taking TEFL/TESOL courses, they’re often experiencing big changes in their lives, especially if it’s their first time taking a TEFL course or if they don’t have previous teaching experience. So, hopefully, this role helps make their experience and the learning process easier, especially when they’re dealing with other challenges like applying for a visa to teach English abroad, identifying the best type of courses, or struggling with course concepts.
Meanwhile, for the other type of trainees we have, who are current teachers who may want to change the focus of their teaching or upgrade their skills through professional development, we can give them advice on how to best reach their goals.
What are you enjoying the most as the International Admissions Advisor?
I’m really enjoying seeing the different range of services and resources Bridge offers and being able to help students progress in their chosen career paths. I also enjoy interacting with trainees, learning about the different types of challenges they are facing, and then helping them. For example, if you’re a trainee approaching the end of your course and need to know the procedure for getting your TEFL/TESOL certificate apostilled, I can help you get that done, even if it’s outside of the academic side of things.
Read about ways to leverage your experiences to take your TEFL career to new heights.
How will this role help you grow professionally?
As I’ve got five years of experience working as an English teacher and my focus is teaching business English, I think it’s going to be able to give me the ability to see what other people are doing with teaching as well. From the teaching side of things, being a teacher, I can learn about what other people are doing and the different types of teaching they’re doing.
As somebody who works in the English teaching industry, I can also have a wider view of different aspects of the industry, whether it’s the teacher training or the language side. It’s interesting because I’ve been through that as a trainee five years ago, but being able to see it from the other side is interesting and it gives me a lot of new knowledge and skills as well.
