Staff Profile – Robert Palmer

Robert was born and grew up in the southeast of England in the county of Essex.  Like many ESL teachers, the route Robert took in becoming an ESL teacher was not straight forward.  After leaving college he spent his twenties working in the investment banking industry in the City of London.  As he gained experience and personal maturity, it became increasingly clear that the work he was doing was unfulfilling for him as an individual.  He therefore took the radical step of resigning his position and proceeded to travel to many parts of the world, building first-hand knowledge of the difficult conditions under which many people live, but also of how the work of individuals using tools such as education, could indeed make a positive difference to human welfare.

In 2012 Robert embarked on a new academic course at Murdoch University in Perth, Western Australia.  In 2015 he successfully completed a Bachelor of Arts degree majoring in both Community Development and International Aid with a minor in Australian Indigenous Studies.  While he was studying towards his degree, he completed a semester-long program run by the Australian Consortium for In-Country Indonesian Studies (ACICIS), which is a course held at Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, Java.  The program involved completing a development placement in a rural setting, known as Kuliah-Kerja-Nyata or KKN.  This program was Robert’s first experience of living in Indonesia and it would later be enough to draw him back this sprawling archipelago.

Sure enough, Robert found himself back in Indonesia but this time in Bali where he undertook and successfully completed the Cambridge CELTA certificate in 2017.  Since then Robert has been living and working in Bali as a fulltime ESL teacher.   Outside of work Robert enjoys walking his dogs at the beach, reading, watching movies and documentaries, travelling, swimming, playing tennis and hanging out with friends.