Harry Bohun

Hi there.

I'm 30 years old. Single. No ties to the Uk.

Have a BA and a PGCE. Taught a few college courses (ICT skills, furniture restoration, design, business/marketing etc) but have been self employed for a few years now in another field (IT). Past experience teaching adults were courses where I was expected to formulate and deliver my own syllabus for benefit of foundation year students and overseas degree level interns. I understand most ESOL schools will provide a complete syllabus and mark schemes etc?

I don't have an ESOL qualification and so don't expect to earn mega bucks.

I am heading to Spain on the 14th Feb and plan to work primarily as a free lance journalist and diarist (work in hand) but I would also like to obtain some full time employment to save for a house etc.

I am only looking for 7-800 euros a month for 6-12 months initially with an option to renew a rolling or seasonal contract.

Can anyone advise me where to go to find vacancies? I checked the usual suspect websites but there are few jobs advertised right now alas.

- Harry

Gems

If you have a PGCE would you not be better off applying to International Schools. You usually get full time job and accommodation is free or subsidized. Contract can usually be renewed.
This way you will be able to save more if your supplied with housing.

Can you get a bit of supply work before you go to bump up your CV?

Look at www.tesjobs.co.uk for International School jobs. However bulk of schools dont advertise until about Feb/March for new school year in September.

Gems

Harry Bohun

Is there a directory/listing of these International Schools? Sorry I haven't done any teaching for half a decade. I am totally out of the loop. I only worked for a year or so when I did teach as it was pretty depressing/dead end at the time - colleges just wanting as many foreign students as possible to pass foundation courses and progress onto full degree schemes regardless of aptitude or even attendance in some cases. You know the score!

Re: supply work in the UK. Good idea, I'll look in to it! Altho I only have six weeks ..

Funnily enough I checked the tesjobs site before posting here. Spain only had 4 jobs and none were realistic prospects for me - senior position and junior kids iirc.

steviedeluxe

Best place for teaching English vacancies to adult learners is Madrid. Here's a useful link that gives many other useful links eg eslcafe and madrid teacher:
http://www.madridinsider.com/?q=node/129

People say that Barcelona also has teaching English possibilities; the problem there is there are too many Brits, Irish etc enticed by the coast, so the competition for jobs is so much greater.

You may find things difficult if you have no direct experience of teaching English to foreign learners - you may want to edit your cv to reflect teaching you've done (whether privately or in academies/schools). They're looking for experience, but they may quibble if it was 8 years ago - up to you whether you distort the dates or not. It may be advisable to take a quick Tefl or Celta course of 4 weeks - and perhaps conveniently enter 2008 or 2009 instead of 2010 as the date on your cv! Again, your choice.

My contacts in Madrid who generally do business English teaching as autonomos (freelance) generally earn between 25 and 40 Euros a hour. Private classes are also available once you build up your reputation and you should be able to charge 25Euros a class (that's what I did when I taught in Madrid) . However this isn't necessarily brilliant money as you have to allow for travel time, class prep and lots of Spanish holidays and "bridges" when you won't earn. Even so, you should be able to earn enough for a decent level of living. You have to speak Spanish to be able to do this though. About 3 years ago the standard wage in a language school was between 15 and 18 Euros a hour - often for block hours under a contract, but these were harder to obtain.

Good luck with what you're doing. With the right preparation and research you should go far.

Harry Bohun

I can't thank you enough for taking the time to make this post.

I learned more in twenty minutes following those links than I have in a week googling around esol ..

I don't speak Spanish yet, but I am confident I can have an acceptable level within 6-8 months. So if I don't make the teaching circuit this year, next year is fine.

I had a reply on the welcome forum suggesting that a lot of the language schools won't recognize a PGCE, and that I would likely need some extensive experience teaching foreign students alongside some relevant esol certificate etc.

I'm actually keen on working a way's inland, away from the major cities. Do you know if there is a job market there or not?

I want to live in Extramadure ideally.

Veleta

Have you already looked at tefl.com?

There are a handful of language academies in smaller towns. Probably none in the villages at all. Extremadura??? You'll be making life difficult for yourself!! As mentioned before Madrid would be your best bet for work where people have a necessity for learning English. If you live in the back of beyond away from all the city types there is significantly less demand for English teachers.