Teaching English in Spain

[Pesky Wesky]

I'm going to post some of my ideas on teaching English on Spain and hopefully the other forum members who are teachers will chip in.
First post

Do you need qualifications?
If you’re not qualified you’ll probably get something somewhere, but it would probably be on an informal basis and very badly paid – not enough to make a living on. It would be in your interest to get the correct qualifaction so that you can get a job in a "good" school, get good experience and can opt for promotion when the time comes. Most academies and schools wouldn’t dream of taking on unqualified staff. Those who do are bound to be a bit dodgy and would steer clear of them.
I would also say that as a matter of professionalism you should know something about what you’re doing and being a native speaker doesn’t mean you know enough about your language to teach it. For example if somebody is dividing up what to take to a party you can say "Put me down for the beer and crisps" So how do you explain "We had to have our cat put down"??

[Pesky Wesky]

What qualifications do I need?
You need a CELTA course minimum. Here is a link to International House who have schools all over the world and training programmes in many of them. You don’t have to do it with them but they have a good name and could probably help place you in a school.
http://www.ihlondon.com/celta-23/
I would google CELTA London or what ever city you want and look for the best price. There are quite a few places in madrid that have courses and probably other Spanish cities too.
There is also a young learners course for those who want to teach children. See this British Council link
Teaching Young Learners - Courses & Qualifications | Teaching English | British Council | BBC

I did my course in the Bell Language school in Norwich a million years ago, although it looks like they don’t do it in Norwich any more

CELTA courses - Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults

[Pesky Wesky]

Are there any jobs?
You will see from other threads that the employment situation is NOT good at the moment. There are loads of qualified teachers here, but there are still jobs. It's well worth sending your CV to schools or taking it in person if you come over. Try getting in touch with Richard Harrison before you come richardinmadrid ATgmailDOTcom. He recruits for schools all over Spain and will be able to give you advice. This website has good quality jobs in Spain and will give you an idea of what's out there Welcome - TEFL.com .
Also try the Times Educational Supplement, the Guardian (on Thursdays I think or online). I am self employed and live in Madrid so I advertise on English Teachers - Madrid
There are also ads from academies and a few for other parts of Spain

[Tallulah]

Great advice PW. Let's hope the powers that be turn this into a sticky so it can remain up there as a useful point of reference to others. Thanks.

[jojo]

The international school that my children go to only employ fully qualified, tip top teaching staff!! And rightly so, us parents are paying a lot of money for our children to be taught by the best! I know that this particular school conducts all its advertising and interviews in the UK, London, apparently, most do! They do sometimes put vacancies on their web site, so its always worth looking on websites to see. And I guess coming over and visiting is always something that could pay off, but only if you´re here at the right moment! Blanket e-mailing them all is also a good idea, nowt to lose. BUT, for international schools you MUST be a proper fully qualified teacher, not TEFL

Jo xx

[Pesky Wesky]

Originally Posted by jojo

The international school that my children go to only employ fully qualified, tip top teaching staff!! And rightly so, us parents are paying a lot of money for our children to be taught by the best! ...BUT, for international schools you MUST be a proper fully qualified teacher, not TEFL

Jo xx

Good point Jo.
(although I would point out that a TEFLer or CELTA er nowadays is also a "proper fully qualified teacher", just in a different way)

[jojo]

Originally Posted by Pesky Wesky

Good point Jo.
(although I would point out that a TEFLer or CELTA er nowadays is also a "proper fully qualified teacher", just in a different way)

I know PW, I guess I´m thinking of people like my nephew who does TEFL in China at the mo and he´s as qualified as I am, well he did a 6 week course?!!!

Our schoolfees are 200€ a week per child. I dont think the parents of the spanish children there would appreciate the skills of my said nephew teaching their babies at those prices!!

Jo xxx

[grahunt]

Originally Posted by jojo

I know PW, I guess I´m thinking of people like my nephew who does TEFL in China at the mo and he´s as qualified as I am, well he did a 6 week course?!!!

Our schoolfees are 200€ a week per child. I dont think the parents of the spanish children there would appreciate the skills of my said nephew teaching their babies at those prices!!

Jo xxx

And they can be got with basic qualifications, eg married to a teacher etc... and speaking English. However they only pay around 800-1100 Euros pcm
As JoJo says international schools only employ fully qualified teachers. Anybody who wants to become a fully qualified teacher and is in Spain can now do so by the way. PM me for details as i don't think i can put a link up

[spainfootball]

Just as in any work and even more so in a desirable city in a desirable country to live in, you need qualifications and experience.

In Barcelona, to get a GOOD job (and by that I mean €2,000 a month) you need both . . . and having your face known as a conference speaker also helps.

Minimum: Diploma

If you've only got the CELTA, get the experience and take the DELTA - the course at IH Barcelona (run by Neily Pops Forrester) is first-rate - shame that Scott Thornbury went on to higher things!

[Caz.I]

Originally Posted by grahunt

And they can be got with basic qualifications, eg married to a teacher etc... and speaking English. However they only pay around 800-1100 Euros pcm
As JoJo says international schools only employ fully qualified teachers. Anybody who wants to become a fully qualified teacher and is in Spain can now do so by the way. PM me for details as i don't think i can put a link up

BTW, Grahunt, I have PM’d you about the Classroom Assistant jobs in Spain. Did you mean the British Council/MEC scheme in bilingual state schools? I thought you had to have Qualified Teacher status beforehand to do that. (QT status in schools that is, not FE.)
Anyone interested can Google British Council Bilingual Project.

QUALIFICATIONS
CELTA stands for Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults and so therefore it is not connected to teaching the curriculum in primary and secondary schools so doesn’t enable you to teach in international schools. Plus, I would imagine that Qualified Teachers would have to be qualified to teach the British curriculum (rather than those of other English speaking countries).

But although it is not enough to teach in schools, language schools and academies usually accept it to teach children and adults, although as Pesky said, you can also do the Young Learners course run by International House. A lot of language schools also want you to have a degree and some experience. Of course, it would also be a bonus to have the DELTA, as Simon said. (Although I had understood that you had to have 5 years’ teaching experience, or 5 years since you passed the CELTA, before you could do it. Or has this changed?) There is also the Trinity ESOL certificate, but I don’t know how well it is accepted here, even though some private Spanish schools do the Trinity English exams.

I have heard that some of the CELTA courses vary in standards too. Most people, I think, do the 4 or 6 week intensive course and I think it depends who runs it. I have even heard of weekend TEFL courses (though not CELTA ones). I did the CELTA at my local further education college over 6 months, and it involved a lot of coursework, classroom observations, teaching practice and had rigorous standards (so much so that at the teaching feedback sessions every week someone usually burst into tears!).

TEACHING WITHOUT TEACHING QUALIFICATIONS
On the other hand, American graduates, can, apparently, teach conversational English in state schools for up to a year even if they don’t have any teaching qualifications. In Andalucia, for example, despite having a high British population, they employ them in the local schools and pay a monthly stipend of about 600 euros. They can do this directly, I think, through the Ministry of Education and Science (MEC in Spanish) or through an organisation called CIEE (?) which I have heard charges a lot of money for the privilege.

Of course, state schools do have extra curricular activities in which they teach English, and you don’t need to be a qualified teacher, and they do advertise such jobs on various websites (Profesores.com) but they say that they prefer applicants to be able to teach other activities like Games, Crafts, IT etc since there are so few hours a week available for just one subject. So this means, in effect, you would have to be truly bilingual. However, in my son’s school, usually, each teacher teaches one specific subject so it may be worth investigating (though I never got anywhere). Also, I have heard that the enchufe (network of who you know) system may be at work there.

TEACHING IN LANGUAGE SCHOOLS
If you teach in language schools or academies, you will probably have to teach between 4pm – 9 or 10pm, so not really good if you have young children. It may be different in bigger schools or if you do in-company classes but usually, adults want classes after work and children after school. IMO, adults are less reliable because they have other commitments, and children are more reliable, because they have no choice in going!

I can imagine it may be possible to be paid well in cities like Madrid and Barcelona but from experience and what I have seen advertised it can be anything from as low as 900 euros – 1500 euros. (averaging around 1000-1200 or hourly rate of 10-15 euros – usually at lower end) so it may be a lot lower than what you are used to.

There are also jobs teaching English online and you can do a course to teach English online through International House too now. Outside of big cities, it is essential to also have a car if you are teaching in-company classes and you can earn more money teaching Business English as far as I know.

In the 6 years I have been here, I have found work through looking on the internet, some through English language newspapers, and some offers just by visiting language schools on spec, although private classes have mostly come through word of mouth. But I have to say, stable, well-paid, secure full-time jobs are rare. If you find any, let me know!

Generally, I think the more qualifications and experience you have (and Spanish language skills), the better.