Meet Lewis – A St Giles Teacher!

Who are the teachers at St Giles? Where have they come from? What qualifications and experience do they have?

These are very good questions which a new student might ask. If you are interested in booking a course at a St Giles school, you want to know that you will be in safe hands! We asked one of our teachers at St Giles Brighton about his training and experience – and found he had a great deal of both!

Lewis Webster says: “I’ve been teaching English as a foreign language for about 10 years, although I have only been at St Giles Brighton for about 3 ½ years. I did my CELTA course (the first qualification for a TEFL teacher) in Mexico, on the Caribbean coast. After a hard day of studying, I was able to relax on the beach and swim in the sea! I then worked in Mexico City for 2 ½ years. I was teaching English in a business setting, working with a number of banks and using my bicycle to go from one to another throughout the city. It was a great place to live – the street food was wonderful, and I lived just round the corner from a fantastic taco place, which served delicious deep fried meat and deep fried cheese!

I moved to Eastbourne where I taught in a summer school and then moved to Cadiz in southern Spain for a year. This was a big culture shock for me – it was too European for me after Mexico! It was a beautiful little town though. I lived on the 14^th floor of an apartment block which overlooked 2 miles of sandy beaches. I rode a motorbike to work every day here.

Then I moved back to Crystal Palace in London and I taught at a central London school. I lived here for a couple of years – this time I went back to my bicycle for transport around the city, which was really hard work because there was a big hill on my daily commute!

After a short period back in my home town of Hastings (a little way along the coast from St Giles Eastbourne), I decided to study on a three month intensive Delta course (the next step in professional development for a TEFL teacher) in Seville. I then got a job at St Giles Brighton – just in time for their last British Council inspection. In fact my first lesson at the school was observed by the inspector! I have bought a flat in Brighton and am settling down after all my travels – which is a little scary…”

When he’s not working in the Platinum centre, Lewis teaches in the main school, either on the General English courses or with closed groups. His free time is taken up with swimming (in the sea during the summer) and scuba diving. He enjoys Brighton’s vibrant social scene, does tai chi and goes climbing; his form of transport at the moment is a bicycle once again and he often rides 35 miles over the local South Downs hills to visit his family!