Job Discussion Forums

[sheikh radlinrol]

A likely scenario in the provincial Spanish city where I live is this. Young man or woman (English speaker) falls in love and marries young Spanish man/woman. He/she comes to live in Spain. Walks into an academy and says he/she is looking for employment. The unscrupulous owner hires this person there and then because :
1) He/She is a native speaker.
2) He/She is here in Spain.
3) He/She is in a relationship with a local person and is likely to stay around.
4) He/She has no qualifications and is, therefore, unlikely to to seek employment at the local University.

How does this affect me? Simple. Crappy teachers giving crappy classes. This leads to disappointed clients and a perception that TEFL is a poor quality service (and it is). This leads to the students' unwillingness to pay much for classes and low salaries for the teachers and autonomos.

[Kootvela]

How does this affect me? My private students line up on the waiting list! I increase my rates and work fewer hours.

Situation true as for October 2008.

[sheikh radlinrol]

[Moore]

I suppose that's basically the major downside of this profession: by far and away the most important qualification is being a native speaker (though I definitely agree that some non-natives can be far better than natives), and if you combine that with someone who, though lacking experience, has a bright friendly personality and is easy on the eye and also has working papers, then they are basically 95% there.

The only possible remedy to this problem is instead of the "race-to-the-bottom" that I see here (price, flexibility, gizmos) schools and private teachers aim for the high end of the market, charging more per hour rather than less for a service which is clearly better than the competition. The Spanish are people who will ask for a recommendation before picking up the Yellow Pages, so if your service is genuinely good then there will always be a waiting list for your services.

I do understand the annoyance though, but at the end of the day what we do is rather precarious in any case: we are only 1000km away from 60 million native speakers with EU working papers: in a recession the situation will probably get worse for us before it gets better, so it's possibly time we get working on ways to differentiate ourselves.


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[gracias]

Interesting thread.

Word of mouth is by far the most important currency in Madrid. I seldom take clients any other way now. The beauty is that new clients know exactly the service I provide, and my costs, before they even email me, which saves a lot of time.

My advice for anyone who wants to earn EU35 or more an hour in Madrid is to specialise in teaching business English within one clearly defined commercial or industrial sector. One client will lead to 15 clients in no time. Because, if you choose right, you will soon gain a reputation as one of the best teachers in Madrid within these peoples' networks.

Madrilenos are far from stupid. Don't make the mistake that you can teach business English here without ever having been involved in business. Every client you meet will have had at least 2 or 3 teachers previously, and will be able to smell you out and realise that you are only worth a max of EU12 an hour.

The only way you are going to make real money in this game (I mean EU1000 or more a week) is if you put at least the amount of hours into your prep as you do into your contact - maybe even 1.5 or 2 times the prep as contact hours - and if you REALLY know what you are talking about. Beginners and low intermediates are not going to pay high rates; only Upper Intermediates or Advanced levels will, and they are paying the high rates for your experience.

After the first year of doing it and working 60 hours a week (prep and contact) for my EU1000, these days I now only have to do probably 32-35 hours a week (combined) for the same money, as you build up a portfolio of prep which you can reuse (especially if you teach within a narrow sector), and, it kind of happens by osmosis after a while. You kind of turn into the equivalent of an EFL Stepford Wife or Husband.

So, in answer to the worries about lots of unqualified, inexperienced native speakers coming here ... yeah, they will, some of them have arrived already - but they're the ones you see on Loquo and the other sites, with their cartels with tear-off numbers on lampposts, getting their EU12 an hour.

All I can say is this ... once Madrilenos get to Upper Intermediate or Advanced level, forget it, they're not going to pay EU12 an hour for crap. Let the noobs come and let them teach beginners. It suits me just fine.