Job Discussion Forums

[korgon]

Hello, this is my first post on this forum after trolling around for ages before i actually came to madrid. Ild like to thank u guys for some very useful info, Moore etc, btw Moore ill be at the quiz night tonight, i think ur 1 of the hosts! I was the guy who came last in the quiz 2 weeks ago :p

Anyway, ive been here since september and as ive learnt more about the way it works here i get a increasinly strong feeling that its more than possible to just build up an array of private lessons instead. My theory is that at 20euro's an hour you culd plan to have 20 hours a week of privates and expect a cancellation rate of 25% (this is quite high but its best to be petemistic in these calculations i think) so thatld be 15 hours a week at 20 euro an hour, so over 1200 a month.

My acadmany pay me fine i guess, 14-17 euros a hour but ild prefer my own flexibility with hours and to have more power over when i work and where i work. Ofc i dont mind doin the standard mornings afternoos and nights but being sent off to alcobendes at 8pm in he night and coming back to the centre of madrid at 10:30 can be frustrating.

Has any got much experience of this or tried it before, ild definately thinking of doing it for my second year here.

In other notes i have the TEFL cert and am an English National.

cheers guys

[Moore]

There's no reason why you shouldn't do it, several of my mates do just that. The main drawback is that you have no cancellation limit, so if they cancel one hour before you get nothing. Also, privates do tend to involve travelling more to the clients, so that's something unpaid to factor in. The other thing is they can be a bit difficult to block together seamlessly. For example, if I work for an academy, and by basically refusing to do any other work than in the zone I live in (near the business district) I managed to build up a load of blocked hours, of which about 20% cancel, most of those too late, so that's something you might think about doing (all depends where you live of course). But you're perfectly right, you can get a lot more money for privates, and then when they recommend you to their mates you will get even more and can easily charge 25 an hour, so there's definitely some mileage in your strategy. Also you end up making some really good contacts and you're halfway to setting up your own company too.

(b.t.w., am not the host, that's Pete and Don, I just nip down to leave them the bonus booze prizes, hopefully see you down there tonight)

[Caledonian Craig]

[jonniboy]

Can't speak about Madrid but people I knew in Valencia had managed to do just that and in 2005 were doing about 16 hours a week @16 euros an hour and were usually clearing about 1000 a month (Valencia is much cheaper)

The drawbacks are that it can involve much more travelling as Moore said plus the cancellations involve more than the money aspect. e.g. It's very frustrating and often demoralising when people don't come and often drop out without so much as an e-mail or text message not to mention the mysterious English-i-t-i-s virus which often strikes an hour before a lesson begins.

I considered going totally private here and built myself up to 19 hours of privates and 9 academy hours, but just got hacked off with all the messing around by privates. So this year I cut back on the privates and now have 17 academy plus 13 private as I really want to have a guaranteed minimum. It's worked out better.

You mention control of your own schedule. It depends how you define that. Most people still want the same times anyway eg after work and early mornings and to cover the inevitable cancellations you often have to hand out more hours than you actually need, meaning that often you've the same number of hours if not more.

[DanielM]

What's the rate of response once you put in an ad for private lessons? And what websites do you think yield the best responses? And also, how often does it take, after you get to Madrid, to start building up a lot of hours (15+ a week), that is, if you were to start advertising right away?

[Jetgirly]

Rather than put ads online, I would post paper ads in high-traffic areas like around K-12 schools and universities. Stick them in your apartment building and at businesses close to your home where the owners know you. However, for those with "flexible morals" the best way to get privates is definitely to mooch them from your school! I personally never did this because I was just too busy, but I'd say about 50% of the students I taught through the school approached me after their class to inquire about continuing privately.

[DanielM]

[Moore]

The websites which are good for advertising for classes (apart from the inevitable blatant plug for my own LingoBongo of course!) are LoQuo, and Segundamano: you will get an excellent response if you advertise on all three.

In terms of advertising in the area you want to teach, i.e. probably around where you live, be very careful about where you stick notices- the local government in Madrid has started a big crackdown on putting notices on walls, street lights, and that sort of thing, and is tracking down the advertisers and suing them. Of course there are loads of noticeboards around, and you can always stand outside a local school and give out flyers as the parents and kids come out, along with putting them under windscreen wipers of cars parked in promising looking streets.

For how long it takes to get a round of privates going, if you advertise hard, and put in a lot of effort, it shouldn't take you more than a couple of months to get a living wage sorted out, but I would strongly recommend doing at least some hours in an academy, at least to start with: private classes can be pretty volatile, and also if you work in a school you can photocopy the teaching materials they have there to use on your private students (you can also get materials by joining up the British Council library, though you do have to pay for that).

Basically, teaching only privates is probably something which really pays off in the slightly longer term, when your reputation has (hopefully) spread by word of mouth and you can ask for 20-25 an hour from everyone, and have weeded out the serial cancellers and the more lunatic kids, and have your travelling down to a sane level, so it's possibly not all that great an option if you're only here for nine to twelve months to go down the privates-only route.

[Jetgirly]

What I'm saying is that when you first move to a city and nobody knows you, you won't be able to live off private students. You won't have enough. You're not going to magically get sixteen hours of private lessons weekly in your first month. A word-of-mouth recommendation from a friend who's been in your class, or the experience of having you teach them in a school, is worth ten thousand posters put up in Internet cafes and on university bulletin boards.

When I taught in a school, about half my students approached me at the end of their course and asked me to continue their lessons privately. This worked out to about one new private student who DEFINITELY wanted classes every week or two (many of whom wanted group lessons). When I put up paper ads and online ads, my response rate was about two INQUIRIES per week and one new client every two weeks. Keeping in mind that private students are known for cancelling lessons or just not showing up, I think you're always better off having students who already know you and know that you're a professional. If they already know you, they will also already know that you're worth your asking price (whereas I've found private students who contact you via ad are usually looking for a bargain, as they see private instructors as being less professional than those who work in schools).

[DanielM]

Well I do understand about working at an academy, but the main reason why I wasn't planning on doing that is because I do not have a certificate. I have some TESL experience and general teaching experience here in the States, but no proof to show them. The other reason is that I'm a North American. I am in the process of gaining my Portuguese passport, through my mom, and have been for the last year or so and I'm hoping I get it before May 1! I'm praying!!!

Anyways, if I were to leave to Spain today, I'd be a North American with no certificate and no papers. I know it's still possible to work under those conditions but I don't know how I'd feel about that.

With or without legal papers, how difficult is it to get a job without a certificate? Would you even have a CV? What would you tell them when they ask for experience?

[spiral78]

You're going to need a certificate to be at all competitive in Spain.

Spain's a desirable destination and 90% + of newbie teachers have a cert from an on-site course offering a teaching practicuum.

You'll have a hard time convincing decent employers that they should hire you when there are tons of certified teachers around, many with EU passports as well.

It'll be the same for private students. Jetgirly's given you a fair picture of what teaching private students is like. You really can't count on making a living on privates alone in year one.

Yes, August is dead all over Europe. Everyone's on holiday.

The ideal scenario is to get a certification in Spain (preferably in August when there's no work anyway!). Then, with decent qualifications and hopefully an EU passport, you'll be competitive for entry-level positions.

[Jetgirly]

What makes you think a private student would take lessons from you when the next poster on the bulletin board advertises a teacher WITH a certificate? I feel like you might not have a lot of business sense here...

[DanielM]

[jonniboy]