Job Discussion Forums

[amelie]

My husband and I are moving to Puebla this summer as he will be taking a year of university there. I am a certified teacher with classroom experience and a BEd. Does anyone know of any good places to apply for an esl position either with children or adults that I would qualify for? I have tried the UDLA, but they require a masters degree. Is anyone aware of any American schools, etc... that I could send my resume to? Is it silly of me to think that I can acquire a position before we leave Canada? I have sent my resume to a couple of places, but they seem in no hurry. Doesn't a visa take awhile to get?

Also I'm wondering about the cost of living in Puebla. How much can one expect to pay for a one or two bedroom furnished apartment (not luxurious, but not terrible either)? We hope to live near the UDLA as that is where my husband will be going to school. Is Cholula quite close to Puebla? If so, we could live in either location.

Also any tips or info about this area of Mexico would be appreciated!

[MELEE]

If your going to go there anyway, it is probably best to wait until you are there to look for a job. That way you will be able to see the places and decide which will be the best situation for you. There are a lot of private schools in Puebla which would want to want to use a native English speaker as a selling point. Puebla is known as being the most "fresa" of Mexico's Cities. Fresa in Mexican Spanish basically means stuck up, so the kids in thoses schools might be a bit intolerable. There are also lots of Language Institutes in both Puebla and Cholula.

I'm not surpised that directors don't seem in any hurry to hire you--I have no idea if I will be needing teachers in January let along next summer!!!! Working visas take 2 to 4 weeks to get, but you can do that in Mexico. In the mean time you should go about getting a legalized copy of you degree.

In terms of living arangements, I wouldn't count on finding a furnished apartment, but it may be possible. It also may be cheaper to get an unfurnished place and buy a few simply made pieces of furniture from a carpenter. In my city (four hours south east of Puebla) you can set yourself up with a small table, two chairs, a bed frame, a economy matress, a small fridge, and a stove and gas connections for less than 5000 pesos. A furnished apartment might cost you a thousand more a month than an unfurnished one, or over 10 months 10,000 more than you would have paid for a furnished place.

Your husband should ask UDLA if they have a housing assitance office, they have a lot of foreign students and visiting professors there all the time and may have leads on furnished places. There is frequent public transport between Puebla and Cholula--lots of people live in one and work in the other, but the Puebla-Cholula metropolitian area is very large. So, since you will be working, you'll need a place on a main bus route or you could find yourself with a commute of more than an hour and three or more bus changes.

Good Luck,

[amelie]

Thanks Melee! I'll keep trying to contact language schools, but I'm not going to worry about it so much if they don't get back to me right away. In your perspective, when do you ususlly know that you need to hire teachers for the summer/fall term? This might help me to send things out at an opportune time.


Melanie (Amelie)

[MELEE]

Our Fall term starts in October, a bit later than most places in Mexico. I usually know if I will need teachers by June. (We don't hire for our summer term due to reduced student numbers at that time) BUT there are cases of people who leave with just two weeks notice, or less. AND every year, we hire people, then they back out of the job before time comes for them to arrive, so if we hire three new teachers, I can generally say, one was hired months before the start date, one about 6 weeks before, and one two weeks before....

[amelie]

So if I physically arrived in Mexico in mid July or early August on a tourist visa, would this leave me enough time to aquire a FM3 before I start working? (Assuming I can find a job) Do you think immigration will think it is fishy that my husband has a student visa and I am only getting a tourist one? Should we split up at the airport??

[Ben Round de Bloc]

Amelie,

Give up the paranoia. Coming into the country on a tourist visa, finding a job teaching EFL, and then trading in your tourist visa for a work visa = one of the most standard ways it's done.

[moldyrutabaga]

Greetings to a fellow Edmontonian!

As the last poster has said, Mexican immigration has much bigger fish to fry than worrying about someone's work visa. Judging by my year in Poza Rica and for the other teachers I worked with, getting into Mexico is a non-issue and will simply involve someone stamping a paper without looking at it much. You have at least three months to obtain an FM3. I never even bothered getting one.

Cholula is the St. Albert of Puebla-- it's not far at all from Puebla, and it has a little more nightlife. Puebla itself is pretty and has lots of French-influenced architecture, but it can be pretty sleepy on a Saturday night. Go to Veracruz for fun! It also has somewhat of a confusing street grid system which references everything to the cathedral in the centre of town. But on the plus side, the city doesn't feel anywhere near so dangerous and dirty as Mexico City does.

I stayed in a seedy hotel in Puebla for 60 pesos, about ten dollars CDN. It is a more expensive city than many other areas of Mexico, but this may only be in tourist areas. ESL teachers are usually paid decently well compared to most middle-class Mexicans, and you can live comfortably enough by local standards.

Ken:>
some pictures: http://keneckert.byus.net/pictures/mexico/mexico1.html

[Ben Round de Bloc]