Job Discussion Forums

[Qaaolchoura]

So, I've realized that there seems to be a small demand for Spanish in Gaziantep, but not nearly enough of a demand for them to start importing native teachers. And of course there don't seem to be any Turkish speakers of Spanish already here. I've met a few who say they want to study Spanish, but don't know a place that offers it.

This has got me wondering whether this might not be a demand that I could fill. My Spanish is decent, but not great, I'd say I'm probably "conversant," (though maybe I should take whatever the Spanish equivalent of the TOEFL is sometime to check). Overall, I'd estimate that I'm probably at about the level the average Turkish language school teacher is in English, and that like a lot of Turkish English teachers my grammar far exceeds my vocab and fluency.

I've traveled to a couple Spanish speaking countries and can generally communicate with native Spanish speakers, not just to get around but to chat about life, travel, and politics. I can read Spanish newspapers easily, textbooks somewhat less easily, and novels only with great difficulty and the help of a dictionary. I was turned down for a job in the United States where speaking Spanish was a requirement, on the grounds that my Spanish wasn't good enough. (Of course in the US I was certainly communicating against a large pool of Spanish-English bilinguals, and anybody I'd be teaching in Turkey would be a true beginner.)

So the question is: has anybody ever offered private lessons for a language other than English? If you have, what would you say your level was, how did you convince your students of your level, and how much did you charge relative to what you'd charge for English private lessons?

Thanks,
~Q

[cartago]

I did this at a course I worked for but it wasn't very serious. We had a group of child students and I taught them Spanish once a week, normally I taught them English. The director just wanted to try something different I think and the students were a bit interested in it. I would say my level was about like yours.

If you can find people interested then go for it. The only problem I see is that the students might just be mildly interested in learning it. I've noticed when people in Turkey show interest in learning a foreign language other than English or German unless it's a more urgent need they just want to learn it because they're interested in Spain or think it might be nice. Probably the same everywhere. So maybe they kind of want to learn Spanish but not really.