Your eyes shoot open. It’s the fourth Friday of your TEFL course. You’re tired, but the light peaks through your window, and a strange sense of pride settles in your chest.
It’s graduation day.
In just a few hours, you’ll be a certified English teacher. There’s no time to waste!
You leap from bed and into the bustling streets of Prague. You ace your final teaching evaluation and receive your shiny TEFL certificate. Then it’s time for the most important celebration to commence.
You’ve heard whispers from passing alumni and trainers about TEFL Worldwide’s world-renowned graduation parties… but is it really as legendary as they say You’re dying to find out what life is like on the other side… the TEFL Certified* Side.
*The author notes an important distinction here: the TEFL Worldwide Prague Certified Side.
Having completed my TEFL certificate a few months back, I have attended these parties as both a new graduate and an experienced alum. After years of remaining classified, the TEFLgraduation party’s untold secrets will now be revealed.
Champagne glasses *clink* and you cheer your fellow graduates in the Czech way “Na zdraví!”. Over food and drinks, you reminisce on the difficulties and successes of your intensive course, as well as your prospective futures in teaching. You laugh with your trainers who divulge the profound lore of Prague’s brave English teachers. You all arrive at the bar together as the seasoned alumni file in and you dissolve into an environment of music, laughter, and new friends.The new graduates are all smiles as they chat with their friends and trainers.
- Aryaa- who graduated about 6 hours ago – tells me how TEFL graduation is like a dream come true, “You know that dream you have when you’re a little kid where you get to go and hang out with your teachers? That can happen when you’re an adult!” Aryaa continues, “Trisha is a legend”. (Trisha-one of TEFL Worldwide’s esteemed trainers – declined to comment).
- Emmy, also a new graduate, adds that the party is, “Definitely a really good time,” and when I ask if it’s been easy making new friends explains, “Everyone is coming from different backgrounds. You can kind of find anyperson that would fit your niche of friends.”
- Some alumni watch a group of trainers engage in a heated game of pool.
- Jasmine, a 2022 graduate tells me what these parties mean to her. “When we’re kinda confined to our courses and our daily routine, it’s nice to break away.” She adds that these events are a great way to make connections for work.
- Brandon, a 2024 grad, agrees; “It’s nice to catch up with people that you don’t get to see all the time… and to see how everyone’s doing with their visas and how they’re adjusting to life here. It’s a great place to find support for bureaucratic stuff.”
I’m curious, so I asked them what their respective grad celebrations were like. Jasmine thinks back to being a brand-new teacher in a foreign country and shares, “We realized immediately that we had a great community around us and it wasn’t gonna be as serious as we were concerned it was going to be.” Brandon had a slightly more haunting tale. His eyes widened as he recounted almost losing his newly earned TEFL certificate beneath a metal grate below his seat at the bar.
Pro tip: leave your certificate in the classroom before you hit the town.
April, co-director and trainer for TEFL Worldwide is chatting with some alumni when I ask her thoughts on these parties, “I enjoy seeing old graduates meet new graduates and everyone connecting and building their own community in their new home away from home.” It was such a wholesome response, so I prod her about what these parties usually entail. She responds, “Lots of drinks… probably dancing somewhere… And just memories that no one ever can recall-”
“DEBAUCHERY”, Jordan, TEFL Worldwide trainer and observer chimes in. “[The TEFLcourse] is a very…. intense experience and you’ve all done an incredible job!” Thanks, Jordan!
Nick, trainer and head observer for TEFL Worldwide, briefly pulls away from the increasingly spirited pool game to tell me what the grad parties mean to him, “I think it makes the new graduates realize that there is a community here, there is a way of meeting other people. They’re not on their own.” I ask him if there’s anything else he’d like to add. There is: “I’m a great trainer.”
“But how are you at pool?” I ask him. Nick declined to comment.
Wow, what an amazing night full of fun, new connections, and lots of Czech beer. You finish your last drink and head home. As you drift off to sleep, you make a plan to frame your TEFLcertificate so that it never winds up stuck in a grate at a bar. In truth, no two graduation parties are the same; maybe you’ll dance instead of play pool or drink lovely soda instead of a Pilsner. But the sense of community support present at these events remains. As an alum, I count on these recurring parties as a way to see old faces and connect with new ones.
Join an upcoming TEFL course where in just 4 weeks you can be join a Graduation Party with Steijha and make your own memories!
TEFL Worldwide was awarded as the Top TEFL Certification Course of 2018 and 2019, the Best Teach Provider in 2020,
and was a Finalist for Innovation in Alumni Engagement in 2024!
Courses offered monthly at teflworldwideprague.com
