Questions from a reader- Mexico to Spain?
Quite interesting even for people who haven’t taught in these countries. If you can help, even better!
“Hi, my name is Jason. I´m writing you to ask you about teaching English in Spain. I read the article that you wrote for the Transitions Abroad website and found it extremely interesting and helpful. The only problem is that the article is a few years old and I was just wondering if you had any tips regarding the current situation for teachers in Spain and how it might have changed since you wrote that article.
I´m in Mexico right now, teaching English in Guadalajara. I´ve been here since August and am set to fly back for Christmas break at the end of December. Beyond that, however, it´s all still up in the air. The default position would be to return and teach here until the end of the school year in June. My ultimate goal, however, has always been to return to Spain (I was in Santander two years ago on a study abroad program and just loved the culture and everything.) In fact, that´s what I wanted to do in the first place, but the difficulties with getting a visa and the prospect of draining my savings (esp. considering the Euro-dollar exchange rate) while waiting for a job to come through made Spain unfeasible, so I came to Mexico instead.
But I just recently was offered a job working at a hostel in Granada, which has piqued my interest again. It´d be non-renumerated, but I would get room and board. I figure that with food and a place to stay, my two biggest expenses would be covered, making this a good, relatively cheap way to stay in the country while I looked for a job, probably giving private lessons to local university students at first, and eventually working my way into a position at some school or institute.
What I wanted to ask you, then, is the feasibility of this plan. First off, is there a big enough market for English teachers that I would be to a) make money giving private lessons to university students, and b) find a job at some school without having a visa? And if so, would the pay be high enough and the cost of living low enough that I`d be able to support myself ( i.e. no digging into savings?) Again, I`d really like to go back to Spain, but I`m worried about giving up a relatively sure thing here in Mexico for something over there that I`m not sure will even pan out. I think being in Granada would help me find private students to teach (the University of Granada being such a big and prestigious university and also attracting so many ERASMUS students) and I´ve heard Andalucia is significantly cheaper than, say, Madrid or Barcelona, but I know it´s also not a huge town and I don´t know how many big language schools and institutes they have there that might offer more steady employment. Also, I´m worried by the time I arrive in January, the school year will already be in full swing and all the positions might have already been snapped up. Are these valid concerns?
One last note: how is the typical teaching environment in Spain? One thing I don`t really like much about my situation here in Mexico is the unprofessional environment in the schools—students coming in late all the time, having people in higher-level classes that really don`t know enough to be there but whose previous teachers didn`t care enough to fail them, teachers getting little to no support from superiors, etc. Is this just a Mexico thing, or is that how it goes in English classes worldwide? Because if things were more professional in Spain, that`d be a huge draw for me.
Wow, this e-mail turned out to be a lot longer than I anticipated. Sorry for all the questions, but you seem like you know what you`re talking about when it comes to teaching English abroad, and good resources in this field are hard to find. In any case, thank you for your time and I look forward to your response.
Sincerely,
Jason “
September 29th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
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September 30th, 2007 at 1:40 am
Hi Jason
Sorry it’s taken so long to get a response, but here goes:
I think the biggest problem with your plan is that you are preferably looking for a professional school that will pay you a decent wage but which employs teachers illegally. I imagine you can see the conundrum… As there are never any lack of qualified and experienced teachers from the UK who want to work in Spain, or teachers from the US and Canada that also have EU passports, the schools that tend to take people without a visa are the ones who for one reason or another cannot attract those teachers.
Your other plan is to give private lessons in Granada. I have no idea about the local market, but it seems to me the number of Erasmus students is probably a bad sign rather than a good one. Some of these will the English speakers also looking for some tutor work. Also, unlike other countries where students interact mainly in English and so need English lessons when they are in Denmark, for example, on Erasmus, most people in Spain want to learn Spanish.
Sorry to put a damper on both your ideas, but my lack of recent knowledge means I could be wrong. If you want to take a chance anyway, take plenty of money and have a plan B (and maybe plan C), e.g. study Spanish while you are looking and start a back up application to an non-EU country (North Africa is next door) where you won’t have visa problems
Hope that helps. Hopefully other readers will chip in
October 5th, 2007 at 1:05 am
Hello again Jason
A couple of other points:
Not sure about the cost of living as that has gone up a lot since the Euro came in, but I imagine it’s not much cheaper than the States in Spain nowadays, and certainly closer to the cost of the USA than the cost of Mexico. 1000 Euros doesn’t sound a lot
As far as the motivation of the students go, most Spanish univeristy students only study English to pass exams. Even some of my Proficiency students took the exam as a way of washing their hands of the whole language! Spanish and other Latin languages are sufficiently widely spoken that they really don’t feel the need to learn English for international communication that some other nationalities do.
In summary- if you are looking at going to Spain as a working holiday where you might go home with less money than you left with but you had a great experience, then I say do it (but make sure you have that money before you go)- I did the same in Rome and I don’t regret it. If you have chosen Spain because you think it will improve your standard of living and help you live more lke a High School teacher back home, chose Asia or the Middle East instead.
September 28th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
A very late response here, but I couldn’t agree with you more and hopefully serve future readers. DO NOT come to Spain thinking that you will be able to save any money. It may have been possible years ago, but now things are very different.
Seriously, I am earning about the same as I did 7 years ago teaching here in Spain. That might not be so bad if you didn’t take into account that prices have risen at least 200% since then. That number may seem an exaggeration, but back then you could find a caña (beer) or coffee in a bar for less than 100 Pesetas. That would be the equivalent of 0.66 €, try and find the equivalent now.