Job Discussion Forums

dudely_man · Joined: 07 May 2014 Posts: 2

Hey all,

I'm pretty late to the party for this year in particular,

but does anyone have recommendations of some nice places in Europe to teach summer schools? I'm thinking somewhere near mountains or nice nature and stuff...

Big fan of southern Spain, and the Alps...

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

Late to the party, newly certified, and with a Canadian passport which means you can't work legally across much of the continent...

It's not quite the plentiful smorgasbord you may be imagining.

Europeans take summer holidays pretty seriously and you are highly unlikely to find much going on anywhere in August. June/July sees private language school contracts ending in many cases, and thus there are numerous established teachers with local contacts and language skills on the job market. They are logically going to get first choice of whatever's going.

You would be lucky to land a few weeks work in a country where you can legally work (Czech Rep/Poland/Slovakia, etc.) but summer gigs are not going to bother to get you legal work permits, so unless you've already got one somehow, I think you'll be facing flying out of the Schengen zone for the summer, to be honest.

As for working illegally, you're on your own. You'll have significant competition from people with legal work status in Spain or alps, I can assure you. Laughing

santi84 · Joined: 14 Mar 2008 Posts: 1317 Location: under da sea

Lots of summer postings out in Jasper and Banff right now if you care about the mountains. You won't be teaching English though Very Happy

spiral78 · Joined: 05 Apr 2004 Posts: 11534 Location: On a Short Leash

Santi's got a useful point, to be honest.

A Canadian's best bet at getting a toehold in Europe is to arrive at the very end of August/first of September with 90 fresh visa-free days in the Schengen zone, and to concentrate an in-person job search in countries where you can work legally (as above, Central/Eastern Europe).

I'm suggesting that you might be best off to go home for the summer, and there will indeed be tons of service jobs going in the mountain regions this year as more tourists choose Canada over the US. Save some money, and re-start your 90 days in the Schengen zone, then return in the time period when jobs are most plentiful.

Russia is a bit different; go to the Russia forum below for more info.