{"id":5661,"date":"2019-11-22T09:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-11-22T09:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/?p=5661"},"modified":"2025-12-19T08:22:27","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T15:22:27","slug":"bridge-grad-english-teacher-elt-website-creator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bridge.edu\/tefl\/blog\/bridge-grad-english-teacher-elt-website-creator\/","title":{"rendered":"Bridge Grad Erik\u2019s Journey from English Teacher to ELT Website Creator"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Though he originally studied engineering, Erik, from Marietta, Georgia, switched gears to take the Cambridge CELTA course at Bridge in Denver<\/a> and become an English teacher abroad. He first taught in Turkey and then in Hungary and along the way, he recognized a need for better teaching materials for his students, particularly related to grammar. And so, Insights to English<\/a>, Erik\u2019s video-based website with free instructional resources for TEFL teachers, was born. <\/em>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

As someone with an engineering background, what made you decide to teach English abroad? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

For one thing, while I was working as an engineer full-time, I also tutored on the side, and more and more I decided I liked the tutoring more than the engineering.\u00a0 For another thing, I had previously lived in Bosnia for a year and had since been wanting to go back to that part of the world. I eventually combined those two desires and set out to teach English abroad!<\/p>\n

While the two careers may seem very different, they actually have a common root for me. Improvement has always been essential to who I am. I became an engineer so that I could improve systems around me. As a teacher, I help students learn how to improve themselves. Either way, I feel like I\u2019m making the world a better place.<\/p>\n

What factors went into your decision to take the classroom-based Cambridge CELTA course?\u00a0<\/strong><\/h2>\n

While I appreciate the convenience of online TEFL courses<\/a>, I felt like I would have more confidence in myself by taking a classroom-based course. And of course, with the CELTA certificate from Cambridge, teaching opportunities are virtually endless.<\/p>\n

What was your opinion of the training and how has it served you?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

During my CELTA training at Bridge in Denver<\/a>, I loved getting to interact with the trainers and with other participants, having the chance to practice teaching in front of students, and receiving feedback from the trainers. By the time I began my first class as a teacher in Turkey, I eased into it so well because I had already had that hands-on experience from the CELTA course.<\/p>\n

\"TEFL<\/em><\/p>\n

Erik with his CELTA class at Bridge in Denver<\/em><\/p>\n

You added the <\/strong>Teaching Young Learners Specialized Certificate<\/strong><\/a> to your CELTA training. Why did you choose that course, and did it help your future teaching positions? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

I mentioned before that improvement is important to me, and that includes improving myself. If there are some things that I could be doing better, especially for the sake of my students, I\u2019m eager to learn what they are.<\/p>\n

The CELTA is geared toward teaching adults, but the vast majority of my students have been kids or teenagers. I know that we learn differently at those ages, not to mention we have different interests, different ways we like to interact with one another, and so on. The Young Learners course helped me develop new ways to connect with my students, including incorporating technology into our activities.<\/p>\n

Where did you teach English after completing your TEFL courses? <\/strong><\/h2>\n

I taught classes and tutored individuals at a language school in Konya, Turkey for about a year. Next, I moved to Hungary to teach in primary and middle schools. I went to a small town initially, then was in Budapest for two years.<\/p>\n

Wherever I taught and whatever materials were provided for me, I often needed to teach beyond what was in the coursebooks in order for my students to get a firm grasp on whichever grammar topic I was teaching.<\/p>\n

How did your teaching experience highlight the need for Insights to English?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

I also noticed that grammar teaching methods are standardized across most EFL publishers, so if I needed to use a different approach for some of the students who had learning styles that didn’t gel with those standards, I had to come up with my own methods.<\/p>\n

Since I happen to have an engineering background, I’m good at finding patterns and boiling down grammar points, and I discovered various methods of simplifying grammar concepts that helped my students understand and remember them better than before!<\/p>\n

\"Insights<\/p>\n

I began to record those methods, then reuse (and refine) them with later classes. After over three years of teaching, I realized that I had a decent collection of methods and decided I wanted to share them with other teachers.\u00a0And so I founded Insights to English<\/a>.<\/p>\n

What are some of those teaching methods you\u2019re referring to that are now the backbone of your website?<\/strong><\/h2>\n

One approach is to break a sentence structure down into three or four steps, which makes forming those structures much less daunting. This is an example video showing this method for passive tense:<\/p>\n