Job Discussion Forums

[nadi1016]

Hello all,

I was wondering if anyone had any advice for me? I am graduating in May with a BA in Poli Sci and my next step is to go to the Canterbury school to become certified ( I think). My questions are:

1) After certification, will I be able to earn enough money to live there, and, to save money for the trip home after the assignment? This would include trip home, an apartment, a little bit of cash saved for a safety net, etc.

2) Should I begin the class in May, after I graduate, or should I wait until Summer is over when there may be more work available? I hear it is hard to find work in Summer?

3) Do you think Spain is a good country to begin your career in ESL?

Any thoughts? I will continue scouring the discussion forum for suggestions, in the meantime, I appreciate all advice!!

Lucy

[spiral78]

Lucy, are you eligible to work legally in Spain? Where is your home country? If you're from North America or Australia, you're facing a whole different set of circumstances than if you are from the U.K. We can give better advice if we know what your circumstances are.

Also, you might scan through earlier posts on this forum - general questions have been answered regularly in the past too... Then, someone can probably help you with more specific information!

[Spainish]

Hey Lucy,

As mentioned, you can find an answer to pretty much every question you've asked using the search options, but knowing how it feels to be new to the forums I'll go ahead and give you a little advice instead of making you hunt for it.

Firstly, coming in May and expecting to earn a living wage throughout the summer is a pipe dream that typically gets flushed. Unless you are planning on going to a summer camp outside of Madrid you will definitely find it hard to get enough hours to survive (you might want to do some more research on summer camps as well as I don't know if they are "all summer long"). Of course if you just want to get certified, travel around a bit and then get into the swing of teaching once September/October come around, you should be fine.

"After certification, will I be able to earn enough money to live there, and, to save money for the trip home after the assignment? This would include trip home, an apartment, a little bit of cash saved for a safety net, etc."

Highly unlikely. No matter your nationality or choice of certification, unless you have been teaching here for a while and have established contacts, private clients, etc. and so forth, there will be little left over for savings (its not impossible, but Madrid is getting more expensive by the day and wages can't seem to keep pace). That's not to say you wont be able to afford living here and it's likely you will be able to do so comfortably as well, but a flight back plus safety net etc. would be very difficult. In fact if you don't arrive with a decent safety net in the first place, you might find it hard to get by in the first few months at all.

Anyway, I just reread my reply and I hope I'm not scaring you (or anyone else for that matter ). Spain is great and it is entirely possible to live and work here comfortably but it is not ideal if you are hoping to make enough to save on the side for "big" trips or tickets home etc. I've heard parts of Asia are good for that but I'm afraid I can't help much there.

Feel free to PM me if you have anymore specific questions or you can read some of my past posts as much of this has come up before.

Un Saludo

[Moore]

Wait until summer is over and then start work: save up a bit of cash at home and use that to set up when you come here: if you do a TEFL here in August then you'll be set up for September when the work starts to trickle back.

Spain is a good country in a way as if you can make it here then you can make it anywhere as a TEFL teacher: trouble is, a lot of people get put off the whole thing here due to the cr*ppy wages and cowboy schools: if I were starting out I'd head to the Thailand/Korea sort of area.

A big factor, as Spiral78 pointed out is whether you're legal or not: you can earn more money if you're legal by going autonomo (freelance) and you can nip across to the UK to do a month of summer camp if you have to to get over the summer work slump. Spainish is right to warn you that you'll need a bit of a financial cushion before you get here wherever you are from.

[nadi1016]

Thank you Spiral78, Moore and Spainish for your replies

I am a U.S. citizen so I take that would mean working illegally. I'm okay with that.

I have taken your advice and read through many of the forums. There is alot of information out there, my goodness! Yet, all of your replies have definately answered some key concerns that I have. It is much appreciated. I think what it seems to come down to is just researching thoroughly and making a decision to do it or not.

Thanks again, everyone. It is overwhelming to plug through the information at first, and to have people reply, even when there is already alot out there, is simply wonderful.

Cheers - Lucy