I must forewarn you. I work in a small English language school in the UK.

Arrive at school turn on and tidy up. Change a light bulb here and move the odd table there. Right, work out over for the day. Now on to emails. Several good enquiries. Excellent, reply straight away – send brochures by post. Phone call, Chat to the teachers, motivate motivate motivate! Discuss our new English course and next term’s British Council re-inspection. British Council Accreditation is the key!

 Another call, one of our teachers is sick. Okay, no problem. I am on top of things. I love English grammar but relative clauses, urghhh! Plan a lesson its General English so lets make it hard work but fun. I must remind myself I am a great teacher and this is why I am in the ELT industry.

 Okay who’s in my class? It’s a General English for adults course. As usual it’s a great nationality mix, but along with this comes a great level mix. This should not matter: challenge the strongest while working the weakest. I can do this. Some want General English, others would like to take the IELTS and another wants to take the  Cambridge FCE exam in a few months. On top of this, some are doing full-time intensive English courses while others are here doing part-time English classes. This is a bit messy. I bet the Bell Language school never has these issues!

 Okay back to basics. What they all need is to enjoy the English language and to feel they have learned something valuable and relevant. Random is relevant. I will keep them on their toes. I have an advantage, I am new to them.

Break time, I must buy some milk – I send the weakest student. Perhaps he won’t come back! No only joking this is his chance to get out there amongst the natives and speak English.

Lunch time comes and I have survived, phew. Teaching English is a doddle! But, did they learn any English? Well, it’s lunch time and they’re all chatting to each other, using English and most importantly all smiling.

Okay, you want to learn English to get to university or to improve your career prospects, that’s the easy part. Let’s say you want to improve your General English skills followed by an IELTS exam course finishing with the IELTS exam with the hope of opening doors to university education around the world. This sorted, where do you start in trying to find a course that suits budget, personality and learning objectives?

 Your first choice is whether to study English in your native country or to go abroad. The biggest reasons for wanting to travel to learn English is the search for a higher quality of teaching English and or native English teachers.

These days it goes without saying to choose an English language school that is either (preferably both) English UK or British Council accredited. This should be obvious from the moment you log onto a website or open a brochure.

There is plenty of competition to learning English in England: USA, Australia and Canada, as well as the new wave of not so obvious choices: Malta, Ireland and South Africa. This said, English courses in the UK are perhaps the most popular choice.

 Your next step should be choosing the exact city or region within the UK. Learning English in the south of England is arguably most common: London, Cambridge, Oxford, Brighton and various other south coast resorts are preferred.

 If you choose to study General English in the UK, you may also have the option of choosing an exam course such as IELTS, University of Cambridge (PET, FCE or CAE) or Business English. This can maximize your time in the UK and could give you international English qualifications.

As long as you remember what has been said on English School accreditation, sometimes taking the less obvious choice and going to a smaller EFL school in a new destination can give you more than you could ever hope for in terms of interest and attention to detail on a personal level. New locations will have fewer students of one nationality and generally have a great nationality mix. You can not put a price on this.