Let’s meet the teachers – Kerstin

My name is Kerstin. I was born, raised, and educated in California’s San Francisco Bay Area. I first started working at EF as a summer teacher in 2001 when one of its centers was located on the Mills College campus in Oakland, California. The experience inspired me to pursue an MA TESOL degree, which I earned in 2005.

In 2007, I started working for EF’s Englishtown, while I was wrapping up my first two years of in-person teaching in Oman. Between 2007 and 2012, I worked with EF’s online students for about three years. In 2014, I decided to make a longer commitment to EF and have been here ever since.

What I like most about teaching at EF is its welcoming environment for the international community it serves. EF’s online classrooms have been the only place in which I have been able to work with any given group of students comprised of a range of differences, including age, educational level, professional background, geographical location, native language(s), and learning goals.

My main tips for successful teaching are staying reflective as an educator and making time to study a foreign language. We have areas for improvement just like our students, so their constructive criticism can be just as useful for our growth as we want our feedback to be for them. In addition to the benefits of foreign language we all already know, the learning journey creates an authentic way to further relate to our students.

A few of my hobbies include studying Spanish and French, crafting, baking, and indoor vegetable gardening.