Job Discussion Forums

[helenwooly]

Hi

I'm planning to go to Spain next year to teach English and was thinking of going out in January to do CELTA at IH Barcelona. However, having read various posts I'm thinking by the time the course ends-8th Feb-this won't be a good time to find work. I was thinking of deciding how I feel about Barcelona while I do the course and then perhaps moving down to Valencia to work. Would there be more/less jobs there?

I'm now wondering whether I should be coming out to do the course in November, coming home for Christmas and then going back out in January to find work. It'd be better financially for me to do the course in January but if I can't get work after, then obviously not!

Does anyone have any advice?

[Moore]

Don't forget there are a lot of people going after a lot fewer jobs in Barcelona, so don't discount Madrid: it doesn't have a beach, but it is central for the rest of Spain and Portugal: just an idea for a backup plan

[mdk]

You might consider walking the Camino de Santiago for a few months. It's a good way to kill time in Spain cheaply and has the added advantage of helping you learn about the country, networking with Spaniards, and who knows what you might find on the road? Nobody walks the Camino and is not changed some how.

Winter is a bad time for the northern routes. So I would suggest you consider the Camino de Plata which runs up from Seville to Santiago. You'd have to eat your wheaties first.

About the only chance you have for a job in Barcelona (in my humble opinion) is if your standing next to a school director when he/she finds out one of his teachers has gotten drunk and fell off one of the towers of Sagrada Familia on a bet and he suddenly can't staff a class that evening. It could happen, but....

[jovencito]

Forget Barca. Small number of jobs, large number of applicants. Also they are weird about this Catalan thing. I speak Spanish and I don't want to learn a useless language like Catalan.

Doing your course in Barca is OK but you'll have to go to Madrid to get work. You stand a chance in other smaller towns but Madrid's the place for work and some serious play as well.

Based on what I've heard from ex-IH students, they won't do much to help you find work, you'll have to do that on your own.

Jan and Feb are good times to get work in Madrid. BCN ??? don't know.

[sheikh radlinrol]

[Jetgirly]

I did the Nov/Dec course at IH Barcelona. I'm sure we had a competitive advantage over the January class when it came to finding jobs, but I was still shocked by the job market. Most of my classmates ended up taking jobs either outside the city (an hour or so away by train... not metro) and commuting, or working for some ridiculous wage like EUR 7 per hour, eight hours per week. I was offered a full-time job in Italy, took it, and probably earned double what my classmates in Spain were making (though I did work hard for it!). The program at IH was fairly well run, although one of my trainers was clearly off his rockers. I haven't seen his name come up recently so I don't think he's still around there. When I returned to Canada, a few of the schools I applied at for summer work were familiar with IH BCN, and it was considered a plus on my resume.

(Oh, and just to clarify, I hold German citizenship so my lack of success finding a good teaching job in BCN was not due to working visa issues.)

[jovencito]

Hi sheikh radlinrol - My basis for "useless" is purely practical. Outside the Spanish region of Catalunya noone speaks Catalan.

As for the independent nation of Catalunya. They already are. They treat Spain as a foreign country, teach children geography in their schools where their nation's borders stops where they touch Spain, teach Spanish as the third language (Catalan, English, Spanish), they refuse to teach children in their state schools using Spanish as the main language which goes against what the Spanish constitution says, they insist that all workers speak Catalan, most TV is in Catalan, all roadsigns and other signs are in Catalan and you can get fined if you don't advertise your business/service etc. in Catalan. It's a bit too brainwashy and totalitarian for me.

[forest1979]

Back to the OP's question...there are times of the year when obtaining a job is much easier than at other times in Spain. February is not an ideal time, but work can still be found but you'll need to search hard and might even need to fall back on some good luck. However, this available work may be part-time work or outside of a larger-sized city. If you're flexible you can survive until one of the previously mentioned optimum recruitment times. I won't be easy, send out cvs galore and make sure you have a cell phone.

Remember too, if you can survive until June/July you can pick up summer school work. It will pay the bills and add vital experience that is all the more significant for obtaining full-time work.

[Jetgirly]

[jovencito]

It certainly will be intersting to see if it's true or not as I reported from a few TV programmes I've seen in Spain.

One programme was about a Spanish civil servant who was relocated to Barcelona. He wanted to put his 6 year old Spanish speaking child into a state school but could not find one in Barcelona that taught the Spanish curriculum in Spanish. He was told by the local education board to go find a private school. In the same programme the commentator mentioned some statistics about Spanish speaking children that had to go to school in Barcelona due to their parents getting relocated. Apparantly 60 to 70 percent fail because they have to learn Catalan, classes are taught in Catalan and they are examined in Catalan.

Another programme was about a business man that relocated to Barcelona. He set up a shop and was reported to the police and fined because he did not advertise in Catalan!

Recently, large areas of Barcelona were without electricity for about 3 days due to the local electricity supplier and the local government's failure to do infrastructure maintenance. As they are more-or-less autonomous from the rest of Spain they are supposed to do these things themselves. Generators were put in the streets that solved the electrical problem but they are so loud that people can't sleep.

All quite interesting stuff.

[thrifty]

[jovencito]

According to the Catalan speakers in Spanish Catalunya, Andorra is part of Catalunya and according to them the greater Catalan empire includes parts of France and Italy as well. Interesting stuff!

[sheikh radlinrol]

[jonniboy]

I speak passable Catalan and it�s certainly not useless. It�s a big help in understanding/learning other Romance languages in fact. I don�t think that there�s any problem at all with them promoting Catalan as it was neglected for years by the Spanish government and even suppressed by them for a long time. But some aspects of it are admittedly OTT. For example some people in Valencia told me that their degrees weren�t recognised in Barsa because they were in Valencian language not Catalan � they�re both the same! It's equivalent to refusing someone a place on a post-grad course because they studied in American English and not British English.

To the opening poster : forget job hunting for English jobs in Valencia in February as there�s precious little around. Barsa would be marginally better then but you'd still need a considerable amount of luck. September and January are the two windows of opportunity.

[sheikh radlinrol]