Blake Smit (Smith maybe?) is a nice pseudonym but nobody with that name has ever been employed by SIDAS. I can't remember the last time I heard an American use the word beseech either.

I suspect this post that lacks an email address is by a rival company or by a former teacher that quit several years ago after stealing the contact details for customers and trying to set up their own school using the same business plan. Anonymously posting under a false name without contact details seems a little pointless, we never slander anyone else on online and I don't see why this individual continuous to do so in a manner which is unhelpful for those working here as well as underhand and childish.

Equally possibly (and considering that there were no North Americans at SIDAS in autumn of 2013) this could have been posted by the Australian I met in a pub who failed to mention that he hadn't graduated from high school and thus was ineligible for a visa.

If anyone wants to speak to me a current teacher or any of our North American teachers past or present for whom we have successfully got EU visas then feel free to email me.

I should point out that SIDAS has failed to get teachers visas before, due to them having insufficient qualifications, problems with FBI background checks or them having already spent too much time in the EU before applying for work with us. North Americans get 90 days in the EU and the visa application in Slovakia takes approximately 60 days, people without the correction paperwork on arrival could find they have difficulties if they do not follow the instructions precisely.

Birth certificate, high school leaving certificate, college documents and criminal record checks from all countries where you have resided for more than 6 months in the last few years are all required. Some countries, including South Korea cannot issue a criminal record check from an embassy or remotely and its is obviously impractical to travel to South Korea to get a criminal record check from a police station in person. If there is a lesson to be learnt here it is that TEFL teachers should try and do these things before leaving countries.

I'll gladly say that we send people to a different place every week, its the best thing about this job! SIDAS has teachers permanently based in cities but these are only hired internally so these jobs are not advertised. Our main business is sending people to small towns and mountain villages to teach intensive courses. These are particularly popular with newly qualified and young TEFL teachers as they offer the opportunity to improve quickly as a teacher but also to go travelling and see lots of different parts of a country in a few months. I think three to four months is the optimum to spend on the road doing this without getting bored or tired of living out of a suitcase and it is for this reason that we offer three month contracts.

NOTE: I am neither a manger nor supervisor nor director of the company just a long term employee who teaches, does some saleswork and occasionally skype interviews new teachers. I do not work for SIDAS full time and have worked for them on and off for about four years. I've worked in lots of other TEFL jobs and come back to this one repeatedly. I posted this after one of my old school friends I recommend SIDAS to sent me the link!

All emails welcomed!