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bee

Hi everyone,

I am thinking of coming over to Costa Rica pretty soon to find a teaching job and I have some questions. I have been doing a lot of research about these, but if anyone has more up-to-date information or advice, I would be hugely grateful.

1) I am thinking of starting off with an intensive Spanish course. Mainly to give me some time to get my bearings before I start the job search. Does anyone have any experience with one of these courses? Was it worth it?

2) I've read that you need a return ticket to get the tourist visa. Coming from the UK a return ticket is much more expensive than the one way ticket. Plus I am planning to stay travelling/teaching in Central/South America for a long time (for a few years at least) so I would never use the return part. Has anyone been in the same position? What did you do?

3) I've also read that most schools pay by the hour and it takes a while to build up a full teaching schedule. I'm fairly confident about finding work (I have a TESOL Cert. and 3 years exp.) but even so - about how long did it take for you get to the point where you were self sufficient with your teaching salary? I'm not looking to make loads of money but I don't want to use up all of my savings either.

4) This one's really got me stumped! - How did you decide what to pack? If I was just travelling, I would take the bare minimum of stuff. But because I'll be teaching, I want to take my books, materials and laptop which are pretty heavy and I would be worried about security. Any advice about this?

5) Any other hints or tips about travelling or teaching in Costa Rica?

Sorry my questions are so long, I should probably have put each question as a different topic but I thought that would be a bit over the top. Seriously though, although I�ve travelled a fair amount, this is my first trip to Latin America, so if anyone can tell me about their experiences it would be really helpful to me. Thanks a lot!

Bee

p_town_green · Joined: 24 May 2005 Posts: 5 Location: Portland, Oregon

I recently returned from a year of English teaching in Costa Rica and will try to answer some of your questions cause it looks like no one else is and I remember having a lot of the same questions myself before I went....

bee · Posted: Fri Jun 03, 2005 8:17 pm Post subject:

Thanks a lot. That was really helpful Very Happy

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KTCAMP · Posted: Mon Jun 20, 2005 4:49 pm Post subject: Spanish classes

Bee, I've been teaching here in Costa Rica for almost a year now, and the one thing I really regret is that I didn't take an intensive Spanish class when I first arrived. So I think it's great that you're going to do that. I have taken lots of Spanish classes at various places in the past year and while I don't have any fantastic recommendations, I can tell you where not to go. Number 1, don't go to Academia Europea on Paseo Colon. It's one of the cheapest and I understand why. They don't pay their teachers very well at all and so employ pretty terrible teachers. And they don't make much of an effort to place people into the correct level.

YOu have to be careful about choosing a place because there's a lot of schools that are geared to the tourist who plans to leave in a month, so if their service is bad, it doesn't matter. They still have your money.

I've had the best recommendations come from the intensive classes at the University of Costa Rica. Because I teach so many hours, I don't have time to take the intensive course now, but I would if I had time. The only other problem is that it's pretty expensive, like $10 per hour. But looking back I wish I would have done it. It's like anything, you get what you pay for.

Also the teachers at Universidad Latina, where I teach, receive a discount on the Spanish classes here. The classes are small, which is nice.

If you have more questions, feel free to email me. I can make recommendations on where to look for jobs too. See my recent post on teaching at private universities.

Katie
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