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Does anyone know if..LONDON!!
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vallillo1983



Joined: 07 Apr 2005
Posts: 194

PostPosted: Wed Nov 08, 2006 3:30 pm    Post subject: Does anyone know if..LONDON!! Reply with quote

Does anyone know if its possible to make a living out of teaching EFL in London, I mean, are there jobs available or are they hard to come by? I dont mind working 3 jobs@ 15 hours a week if the work is available! Is there anyone who makes a living out of ELT in London?

Thanks
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chiquitita



Joined: 13 Aug 2003
Posts: 37

PostPosted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 11:20 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Depends what you mean by making a living?!

I didn't find it difficult to get work when I was in London. I turned up at the right time (in August) and I had 15 hours/ week work within a week. The school I worked for was OK...they had lots of resources, good students, good location, good social programme, but I found the people who worked there not the friendliest bunch, esp the managers of the place. Also, they paid less than �11 per hour!!!

I only worked there for a month as I got a better offer (in terms of money) teaching ESOL. I was on about �19 000 / year. There was so much admin and way too much red tape and managers who often threatened to fire the ESOL teachers if the students didn't find jobs. (It was a govt funded agency which had targets to reach). We had the resources for only 2 classes and by the time I left there were more than 30 students in each class and not enough chairs and tables for them all. It was a shame because the students were some of the best I'd ever taught.

So next (after about 3 months) I landed a job at a school which was probably the worst paid in London...and I stayed there until I left London almost 2 years later. Why? Well, the people were great. The students were great. And the owner was determined to make things better for the teachers and the students and he, along with hard work from all of us, really transformed the school and raised the salaries. The working hours were long (though I think that has been changed slightly now, but I'm not 100% sure) and full time teachers ended up on about �17 500/year plus monthly bonuses, 4 weeks paid leave and unlimited (upon apporoval) unpaid leave.

I have gone off topic a bit. I was able to live in London quite easily on the above mentioned salaries but almost always had to share a flat / house. My boyfriend and I got a flat in a nice zone 3 suburb just for the two of us but it was tiny, noisy and sometimes the water didn't work! But that's what you can get if you manage to find a cheap enough apartment in a decent area in London! I would never have been able to live on my own in London on a TEFL wage. Rent and transport are killers. After 2 years I had hardly anything to show for it...about �1000 and about 6 or 7 trips to other countries...but I have a boyfriend who had a good salary there and paid more of the rent, bills, expenses than I did.

I've rambled a bit...what was your question again?
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TheLongWayHome



Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Posts: 1016
Location: San Luis Piojosi

PostPosted: Thu Nov 09, 2006 10:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

You can make enough to pay rent (1 room), eat (just about) Tesco sandwiches and pay for your travel to work (no more than 1 zone though). Cleaners make more in London than most EFL teachers. Only do it to gain experience/meet foreigners/sleep with foreigners.
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scot47



Joined: 10 Jan 2003
Posts: 15343

PostPosted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 5:58 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

And rememeber that London is now a Third World City where people sleep on the streets.
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lolwhites



Joined: 29 Jun 2005
Posts: 158
Location: France

PostPosted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 4:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Unless you know a good squat, have a friend or relative in London who can put you up for free, or have a partner with a well paid job, my advice would be stay out of the capital. There's no way you'll earn enough to cover rent, transport, food and bills unless you work ridiculous hours.
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Jyulee



Joined: 01 May 2005
Posts: 81

PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 2:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I second that, although apparently there is ESOL work that pays upwards of �20 an hour...
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Deicide



Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani

PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Uhmm...London is so expensive; why would anyone want to live there? Shocked
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Jyulee



Joined: 01 May 2005
Posts: 81

PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:24 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

We mustn't forget that London, for the average (young) foreigner, is an amazing place, with money or without. Plenty of people from all over the world spend a year in London working crappy jobs and living 4 people to a room - and they love it.

Plenty more people with a load of money enjoy London because they can afford it.

Neither of the above really applies to English teachers does it?
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Deicide



Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani

PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:32 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jyulee wrote:
We mustn't forget that London, for the average (young) foreigner, is an amazing place, with money or without. Plenty of people from all over the world spend a year in London working crappy jobs and living 4 people to a room - and they love it.

Plenty more people with a load of money enjoy London because they can afford it.

Neither of the above really applies to English teachers does it?


For ESLers you are right on the money; as a native New Yorker I compare London to New York and though there are some differences at the end of the day I come to the same conclusion: Big, unaffordable chunks of concrete, overrated to the extreme and shrouded in unjustified mystery. The big three (London, New York and Paris) are all different but the negatives are all the same...been there, done that...you want a large, happening capital city, try Berlin Wink
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Jyulee



Joined: 01 May 2005
Posts: 81

PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The Big Three might seem bland to those of us who are familiar with them. But if you're 19 years old and all you've ever seen is the Mexican countryside (or Australian outback), any one of these places will seem out of this world.

I have heard Berlin is lovely, I'd like to go there one day.

After a two year stretch back in London, I went to Madrid, and had the time of my life. OK, it's not on the same level as London in terms of scale and glamour, but it had a lot of what London doesn't. Namely, accessability, affordability and ease of getting around. The weather was nicer too!
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Deicide



Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani

PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 3:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jyulee wrote:
The Big Three might seem bland to those of us who are familiar with them. But if you're 19 years old and all you've ever seen is the Mexican countryside (or Australian outback), any one of these places will seem out of this world.

I have heard Berlin is lovely, I'd like to go there one day.

After a two year stretch back in London, I went to Madrid, and had the time of my life. OK, it's not on the same level as London in terms of scale and glamour, but it had a lot of what London doesn't. Namely, accessability, affordability and ease of getting around. The weather was nicer too!


Point in case; Berlin (minus the weather), super cheap(food, flat, etc.) tons to do, clubs and music genres galore, cheap transportation. That is what I was talking about. I have visited London often, enough, grew up in New York and lived in both Paris and Berlin. Of all of them Berlin is top on my list...I don't get die hard New Yorkers, Parisians and Londoners. I remember the NYer variant; ' there's no place like NYC on earth', 'NYC has offers more than any other city (blah, blah, blah)'...never got it. I just let them be broke and deluded in NYC (same for the Parisians and Londoners)...
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Jyulee



Joined: 01 May 2005
Posts: 81

PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:13 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I hear you, I'm no die-hard London fan myself. But so many millions of people can't be wrong, evidently there is something about LondonParisNewYork that appeals to a lot.
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Deicide



Joined: 29 Jul 2006
Posts: 1005
Location: Caput Imperii Americani

PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jyulee wrote:
I hear you, I'm no die-hard London fan myself. But so many millions of people can't be wrong, evidently there is something about LondonParisNewYork that appeals to a lot.


That is an argument ad populum (so many millions can't bre wrong); it's not tenable in any rational sense. They are huge capital cities; huge capital cities have millions of people; that's seems more likely...
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Jyulee



Joined: 01 May 2005
Posts: 81

PostPosted: Tue Nov 14, 2006 4:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm not arguing that since so many millions of people live in these places, they must be nice.

I've been to Calcutta, I doubt the millions there are there because they like it per se, and the same could be argued for the big 3.

The millions I refer to are the millions that go to these cities and enjoy them. In London, there must be half the population of Australia alone - they are not there because they hate it. There are millions of temporary residents in London, New York and Paris who are there because they wat to be there, and because they are having a good time.

What percentage these people make out of the total number of residents of these cities I can't say, but it's a lot of people. While it's fair enough for us to argue "London's not that good", we have to accept that this is a subjective concept. Fine, they are not so good for us, but for millions of others, they really quite like them!
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TheLongWayHome



Joined: 07 Jun 2006
Posts: 1016
Location: San Luis Piojosi

PostPosted: Wed Nov 15, 2006 1:55 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jyulee wrote:
I second that, although apparently there is ESOL work that pays upwards of �20 an hour...

There's cleaning work that pays the same. Whatever you can make in EFL on London you can make more cleaning something.
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