(upbeat electronic music)
- Good morning.
Hello.
Buongiorno, welcome to Italy.
My name is Renee
and I'm taking over the International TEFL Academy
Instagram story today.
I'm here in Verona.
This is where I live and I work for the last two years.
Unfortunately, it's a little bit rainy today.
You might see some people in the background
with their umbrellas.
I'm not working today,
but I will still show you a little bit of my classrooms.
I can answer any questions that you have
about living and working in Italy.
And I will show you a bit of this beautiful city,
which a lot of people call
the most romantic city in the world.
Okay, so whether I'm working or not working
I love to start my morning with a coffee,
a nice cappuccino or a macchiato
and a brioche.
I think they do the best brioches in the world
in Italy.
Okay, so while I enjoy my coffee here this morning
at my favorite place,
I'm going to answer some of your questions.
So if you do have a question for me
I will pop an 'ask me anything' box
in the next story.
All right, so now I'm just having a little walk home,
a little walk through the center.
This is one of the main streets in Verona.
We've got a beautiful big alley here.
The rain has stopped a little bit.
Hopefully I can show you guys a little bit more of the city.
And in the next slide,
I'm going to tell you a little bit
about the different types of work
that I do in Verona.
Okay, so let me tell you a little bit
about the work that I do.
I work in two different schools.
One is a primary school.
I teach first grade, second grade,
third grade and fourth grade.
And I teach science and geography
and English with a program called CLIL.
I'm going to put a picture of the classroom
that I work in the next slide,
because unfortunately, like I said
I'm not working today.
All right, here we are in the center of Verona.
Unfortunately it started raining again.
So I have my brolly up.
This is the arena.
It's kind of like the Colosseum,
but it's a little bit older.
It's a little bit smaller.
And this is the main square of the city.
It's so strange to see it
with really little people, but it's really beautiful.
Okay, so here I am back at home.
I've come in from the rain,
in from the cold.
And I just wanted to tell you a little bit more
about the primary school.
Like I said, I teach science and geography.
So my job is to collaborate
with the Italian teachers of these subjects
to create my own lesson plan
going along with the material
or the topic that the Italian teachers are doing.
It's a private school,
so I teach just girls.
The idea is that they learn these topics
in Italian and I teach the same thing in English.
I'm there all day on Monday and Tuesdays.
Also for lunch.
I'm really lucky that the school provides me
also with this lunch for no extra cost.
I do a lot of planning outside of work,
but I do really enjoy it.
I'm going to do a budget breakdown
a little bit later,
which will tell you my salary
between the two schools
and how much I save.
For the rest of my working week
I work in another private language school.
It's called Boston Extend.
In this school I teach online on Thursdays.
So I wanted to show you my setup at home.
Because on Fridays and Saturdays,
I'm in the school doing lessons face-to-face.
I will also attach a picture
of what my classroom looks like on the weekends.
So this is where you will find me on a Thursday afternoon
between 3:00 PM and 9:00 PM.
I have my laptop set up.
I have my schedule for all of my hours at this school.
I have my headphones here.
I love using my headphones,
it blocks out all the noise from outside
and I don't have to talk as loud.
So I don't have to strain my voice too much.
Okay, so I've had some lunch
and before I go out of the house again.
I'm going to get some fruit and some vegetables.
I thought I would give you guys
a quick squiz at my apartment.
I actually live with my boyfriend.
So the rent that you see,
that I put in my expenses breakdown is half.
I pay half and he pays half as well.
Okay, finally sitting down to answer your questions.
Where am I from?
So, I am from Australia,
but I am a dual citizen of Italy.
Thanks to my mom.
And it does make it a little bit easier to teach in Italy.
So I don't have a Bachelor's degree.
I didn't go to university.
My job was very different in Australia.
While it's not necessarily required,
I think it does make getting jobs a lot easier.
I'm really lucky, the schools that I met
didn't require me to have a Bachelor's.
So I am lucky enough to be here without a visa.
A lot of people do come on a 90 day tourist visa
and some people extend that with a work visa.
You do have to have a job first to extend your stay.
So as soon as I finished my TEFL certification
I applied for a lot of the schools that are listed
in the international TEFL Academy job search guide.
I also applied for a lot of schools
that I saw in Verona.
I think it was 14 all together.
I could absolutely afford to live on my own
on my salary.
The apartment would probably be a little bit smaller,
maybe a studio apartment.
And although we're living central,
I could also live a little bit further from the center.
Yes, the demand for English teachers
in Verona, in Italy in general,
is always in demand.
It's not stopping anytime soon.
People are learning English every day.
The demand is particularly high
for native English speakers.
I have definitely acclimatized this year.
Last year was a real shock to the system,
but now I'm a lot more prepared this year.
and I miss you.
After almost two years in Italy
my Italian has definitely improved.
My colleagues in the primary school
are mostly Italian.
And the colleagues in the private school
are mostly English.
COVID has definitely been an experience
being here in Italy.
It's just something that we've lived with now for a year.
As long as you're wearing your mask all the time
and you're sanitizing your hands,
you're all good.
Check my previous posts for the expenses.
I didn't find it overly difficult.
I did apply for every school that I could find.
It was about 14 in total
and out of those I got about 50% responses.
You know me way too well.
And you know that I have a sweet tooth,
but I have switched up the cake.
Now I like to have a brioche in the morning,
a bit of cake or some biscuits,
and I'm eating all the gelato.
I do think it was a little bit easier for me
having the citizenship
simply for the fact that I can stay here
for as long as I like.
And it was probably a lot less paper work.
(upbeat electronic music)