Job Discussion Forums

[travellingscot]

I have read much of what has been written here about Valencia but my situation is slightly different in that I am not a single person or backpacker. I will be travelling with my wife and 2 yr old, so need to live and work somewhere convenient for all of us. We lived in an inland Spanish town of 18,000 a couple of years ago, and our apartment was less than 5 minutes walk from the language school where I worked. I could go for an hour or so first thing to prepare lessons then stroll back and go out shopping or whatever. If I didn't finish classes until after 9 pm then I could still be home at a reasonable hour. We had a nice "Glorieta" park [With cafes !]on our doorstep where locals would promenade in the evening, and children were safe in the play area. Nice and friendly, good for contacts and possible word of mouth private lessons.
This year we have decided to rent for a few months first before buying somewhere if things work out ok, which means we are looking at a long term situation. There are several smallish inland towns with language schools but my wife has decided that she would prefer to be next to the sea, as she has spent almost all her life a few minutes from the beach here in Bulgaria. There are a few suitable towns along the coast but either they are very expensive to buy or work is not certain.
All of which leads to the reason for my post. I have read that those of you with experience consider Valencia to be a bit more of a community than Madrid or Barcelona, and that at the moment the demand for native speakers is greater than the supply. Would it be possible to find an area to live which is :-
1) suitable for bringing up a child, with nearby park
2)near enough to walk to the sea
3)safe regarding drugs,muggings etc
4) not too far from supermarkets/ produce market
5) near enough to walk to work
6)affordable on a teaching salary---no laughing please!
.........or am I asking too much of any city ??
As a guide,, where we were before in Spain, my salary was 1000 euro in my hand and rent of 350 euro. We survived quite well on that and started to save a little but unforseen expenses meant we would not have enough to stay for the summer without work. This was one reason we thought about buying, so our overheads would be less.
Comments from anyone welcome, especially if you have knowledge of Valencia or any of the towns in Valencia community with a sizeable population.

[jonniboy]

In replying, I'll stress the fact that I left Vlc in Summer 2005, so others will have more up to date info. In terms of safety, most of Valencia is safe, the areas around the beaches used to be the worst ironically. I understand the Americas Cup cleaned up the area but at the cost of significantly pushing up property prices in the Malvarosa, Cabanyal and Les Arenas areas. Natzaret remains a place to avoid. Ruzafa had a bad reputation but seems to have cleaned up a bit in recent years. The cheapest property prices are now likely to be found in the areas further from the coast... Beniferri or Orriols for example. You could look for a place near a metro and get to the beach from there.

There's a language centre in C. General Urrutia (Big Ben I think) and a big park there with a metro under construction due to open in 2010. The satellite towns are generally nothing special, Pucol would probably be the best and from memory there are a couple of language centres there and a beach nearby.

In general getting a job and buying a flat are doable but combining them both in terms of distance will be more tricky. Maybe you could rent for a while and find a job first in an area that you like and then buy somewhere in the vicinity?

[o_maeliosa]

I'm not really an expert as I have just moved to Valencia myself. But generally speaking I have been having trouble finding work here as a teacher. It maybe a little bit early in the season as most schools have only just re-opened for matriculation, so maybe come late September when the schools have a better idea of how many pupils they will have then more work offers may come about.

Right now all I have found are schools offering a few hours here and there opposed to anything with a base of at least 15 hours contracted and the likelihood of extra hours. But here's hoping.

Maybe Bradford is the best poster to ask.

[travellingscot]

Interesting situation--I have spent many hours recently online looking for towns which might fit the bill and have been telephoning also. In several towns the language schools have already started, whilst in others I have been told that they are waiting to see how many students they have before hiring additional teachers.
The offers of only a few hours here and there are one of the reasons we decided on a smaller town both now and a couple of years ago, as we guessed the smaller towns would have a smaller pool of teachers and so would offer a contract for 20+ hours if they actually needed anyone. We started in Alicante last time but found just that situation and were told by several unconnected, experienced teachers there that full time contracts were like hens teeth, so concentrated on small towns.
I was led to believe that Valencia had a shortage of native speakers, so thought it would be easier to focus on one area rather than chase around the Spanish countryside. Perhaps the repeated posting of that information has led more people to consider Valencia and so create the situation described......or is it a sign of the economic crisis ??

[jonniboy]

In Valencia city the usual situation is that most schools don't start filling their classes until after 20 September. It's quite normal to be offered new groups by academies the first week in October.

Vlc has certainly grown in popularity since I lived there and there are noticeably more English teachers there now than in 2003-5. According to the census the number of foreign born people in Vlc has jumped from 3% in 2002 to 13% today, so that should give you an idea of what's happened.

[Bradfrd12]

It will be difficult to find 20 hours of work right now in most academies. I think the full time positions have been filled by returning teachers mostly. Anyway, I am sure there may still be a few out there. The majority of places now are looking to fill in the loose hours they have floating around, as was mentioned.

As was also mentioned, a lot of schools, myself included, can't give a definite answer about number of hours until the very end of Sept. I have to wait until most of my sts. are signed up and then set up the schedules. But, I know from experience that classes do roll in constantly throughout October. So someone starting with me at maybe 10 hours will probably get up to 15 or maybe even 20 depending on the teachers flexibility at working certain hours. Remember that most teachers, not all, that are teaching 20+ hours are doing split shifts in order to fit so many hours in. A lot of people don't want to do that and I don't blame them. I don't want to either.

As for finding a place to live in Valencia with all of the points you listed, no. There isn't any place that utopian in Valencia. If you want to walk to the beach then you live in a slightly more run down neighborhood. If you live in a great neighborhood with parks and no safety concerns then you are far from the beach (20 mins on the train, depending). As for walking to work, there are academies all around Valencia and you just need to wither find a job then get a house or get a house and find a job nearby. I would probably go with the first option. Although I don't mind riding my bike 10 minutes to work. And Valencia is said to be Spain's largest village so it is easy to get around and everything is relatively close. The bus system is excellent (during the day) and if you have a bike even better.

good luck and drop me a line if you need more specific help, or fancy a beer and a chat.

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