Job Discussion Forums

[chicoJJ]

Hey guys,
Im thinking of moving to Spain to teach in September. Im currently in China and although I dont particularly like it it is financially very comfortable, can eat out breakfast, lunch and dinner and still save. So Im apprehensive about going to Spain if Ill be struggling!
Do you guys know what the job market is like? Is demand for teachers growing or falling since last year for example? Are salaries for teachers going down?
Many thanks!
J[/list]

[mothlight]

I would like to know the same thing. I have been looking for work in Spain online and it seems as though most places want to interview you in person. Would it be a crazy idea to just go there and apply for jobs then apply? How bad is the jobs market? (I have MEd TESOL, a few years experience, intermediate Spanish)...

[robbie_davies]

If you are EU, just pop over and start searching in one of the bigger cities.

Most jobs with schools seem to be teaching young learners and teenagers so it is down to if you can or want to teach these age groups. In the bigger cities you can teach business English but that means a lot of travelling in between classes.

[JRJohn]

I am not in Spain now but I was there in the recent past. I have worked in both China and Spain (including Madrid). I have to say that in China I had a good teaching experience. I saved some money.
It does seem that there are more teaching jobs in Spain than formerly.Madrid can be amazing. There are jobs but you ALMOST ALWAYS have to go in person, and I don't like that so much. I know some people have really flourished in Spain. But I have to warn you that this is a country where you can seriously fail. You can have lots of classes, maybe too many, and then the school might ruthlessly cut them back, leaving you with a pittance to live on. That said you might be able to pick up some hours from other schools if that happens.
Because of this, and other factors, you really should come WITH SAVINGS. Are you saving money in China? If so how much? If you are, then even staying another year in China might help.
I used to live in Madrid. I knew that the time to come is probably late August or early September. There will still be accommodation available for sharing with someone, and you should be able to find pieces of paper on noticeboards, telephone boxes and the like with "se alquila" (to let) written on it. You might find something nice. If you come any later to Spain you might find that whatever accommodation is available has already been snapped up by the time you get to hear about it, and then there will be nothing till Christmas, when some university students leave.
I know of people who taught happily in Madrid. Some of them did so 10 years ago. It's possible to teach in a private "academia" or language school, and teach children or teenagers. It's also possible to teach business people in their offices with quite a bit of commuting involved. A lot of the private schools do this.
I had mixed experiences in Spain. Sometimes I had enough hours. But I remember working in a shady school right on Gran Via Madrid, where the boss suddenly started cutting back my hours at a time when no one was hiring. Other teachers thought I was being very professional and organised. My boss agreed with me and then turned round and said that I was not "capturing enough students" because when asked they said they might like another teacher. Some teachers at that school were never granted full time hours.
This is one reason why I think that anyone who comes to Spain to teach needs to have a pllan b or c. For instance, it would help awfully if you had a real nest egg just in case things go pear-shaped. It would also be nice, if when you leave that job in China, you do so in such a way that you could return to the Chinese school if you needed to.
On the plus side, if things go well, Madrid and other Spanish cities can be amazing. I miss Madrid because of its social life which was fabulous. I met some wonderful and eccentric people, I saw things that seemed to have come right out of a novel, and I felt that I was fated to be in that time and place. There are more beautifull places in Spain, e.g. Barcelona, but I know Madrid. The social life was for me the best part of it. When I was busy I still had some social life.