Job Discussion Forums

[ejh263]

Hi there,

Just a couple of q's... comments from anyone who is in / or has been in a similar situation would be really appreciated.

I am a CELTA / YL qualified teacher with 7 years of experience, and am now studying for my Diploma/MA in TESOL - due to complete at the end of 2009.

I am planning to move from the UK to Spain in Sept 2009, with my husband and our 2 children - one will be almost 3, the other just 5 months. I have already had an interview with a School in a large town near Seville, the owner is a previous colleague of my former boss when I was ESOL 'Lecturer' at a UK University!
After waiting a while he has now got back to me with the following concerns.......

Our main concern would be for you and your family's well-being. Although we believe we pay well here at ........... given that we are based in a town and not a city where rents and costs of living are generally a lot higher (this year we are paying ......... euros NET p/c/m), we believe that a family could struggle just on these wages alone. Rent in ......... is on average approximately 500 euros for a flat and anywhere between 550 upwards for a house (not including electricity, gas and water bills). What's more, on top of that one needs to add food bills (which in my case amounts to about 400 euros per month - that's for two of us). If you looked into nurseries, then that would add up too as in Spain it is very difficult to get places in public nurseries. There are quite a few private nurseries around due to this.

Now, am I to believe that my family and I would not be able to live on my teaching salary alone from this? We are planning to rent our house in the UK, which after mortgage etc should leave us with around �350 a month. My husband does not speak Spanish and we were not planning for him to work, but to look after the children.

This post was just a regular teaching job, I'm also wondering if I should be applying for higher roles such as ADOS or DOS with my experience, although my Spanish is only conversational. Can anyone give me any idea as to whether I would stand a chance of getting a DOS role, and what the wages/hours are like for these positions.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Many thanks. E.

[sheikh radlinrol]

I imagine that bringing up a family in Spain on a TEFL salary would be, to say the least, difficult. The pay is generally poor. At least your potential employer has had the decency to warn you.
Another very important point is this. Renting out your house may sound fine but tenants leave from time to time and you'll have blank months while finding a new one. Even worse, some tenants will be happy to continue living in your property without paying rent until you evict them (a costly business). Believe me! It happens.
Sorry to sound pessimistic, but......
Regards
SR (feel free to PM if you have other questions).

[Moore]

Sadly it would be very hard to support a family on a TEFL wage in Spain. Most people, even the higher earners find it hard to support themselves, let alone anyone else.

Don't forget that teaching dries up over summer for two months too, which is where most people get caught out, even if they've been doing ok for the rest of the year. The least you'd have to go for would be DOS, that way you get a regular salary paid all over summer.

Sorry to be another discouraging voice, but I reckon SheikhRadlinrol has got it exactly right.




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[SirKirby]

I'd also have to agree -- but would add that a vast percentage of the population of Spain (I regret not having the actual figure to hand) has to make do with 1000 euros a month or less, so it's not really that English teachers are that badly off in comparison with the rest of the population.

Adding private classes to your regular language school salary is your best bet to make ends meet, but to support a partner plus small children on a single salary is going to be very tough.

[ejh263]

Thanks very much for your replies....it is as I suspected!

However, I didn't make one thing clear in my previous post.... We are in fact only planning to go for 9 months as a bit of a 'taster' of living in Spain. We will return to the UK in the Summer where both my husband and I can work, and if after this time we decide we want to make a permanent move to Spain then we will have to have a think about how or if we can make that financially viable, as I know there is no way of making a permanent move and just surviving off one salary forever. So with that in mind....could we do it for 9 months atleast?! I know it would be tight but is it impossible? What I don't want to do is uproot us all and after 3 months come back, letting the School down too. Maybe, as long as we know it will be very tight we can just about make it for this short period....but that's down to us ey?!

Can anyone tell me what is an average wage (take home) for a standard teacher, and a more Senior Teacher in Southeren Spain?

Thank you.

[spiral78]

I think your original potential employer probably answered the question for you. Presumably he/she was aware that you were thinking of a 9-month contract, and is trying to tell you that it's problematic to support 4 people on a teaching salary even for one contract period.

Honestly, standard English teacher wages barely support the teacher him/herself throughout the Euro zone, unless it's a university or international school position. Even at the Dutch uni where I teach, my colleague with a wife and small children isn't able to support his family entirely on his salary - his wife works part time as well and they get by.

I truly think you would be forced to support your family partly through savings and/or credit for nine months. Meaning you would go into the red, financially.

[Marcoregano]

The above advice is sound, but if you're really keen I'd advise you to go ahead, so long as you take all the pros and cons into account - and assuming it's something you both really want to do. Otherwise you'll never know. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, and all that.

Bear in mind that you will probably run up some debt or at least burn some savings, but you will at least get the monkey off your back. Perhaps the key question is this: How heavy is the monkey???

[SirKirby]

Nobody answered the question "Can anyone tell me what is an average wage (take home) for a standard teacher, and a more Senior Teacher in Southeren Spain?"

I can't either, but here in Barcelona people are struggling to find language school jobs that give them much more than about 1100 euros a month take-home pay. Positions of responsibility don't generally come with big salaries

Private classes can add to that, say 100 euros a week if you're lucky, with 4-5 hours at 20-25 euros per hour.

Barcelona is probably better paid than smaller cities (Seville?) and definitely better paid than much smaller towns (where you could expect to earn correspondingly less for private classes) -- though the cost of living (especially accommodation) is higher here.

Can anyone tell us about the South of Spain?

[ejh263]

Thank you!

[scot47]

It is not possible for a family to live off the salary of a TEFLer in Spain. In fact you could say that about most places on Planet Terra !

[SirKirby]

Actually, a surprisingly large number of English teachers do manage it...

[sheikh radlinrol]

[Marcoregano]

But Sheikh, teachers sometimes have babies - it happens! And when it happens you have little choice but to find a way of supporting them. Surely not all teachers who have kids also end up leaving teaching...

[SirKirby]

Er... So how exactly do you explain that there actually are any language schools in Spain at all employing anyone over the age of, say, 25?

Personally, I don't have a mortgage, nor do I own a car, and nor do I wish to have either of those things.

As an English teacher, I earn well above the minimum wage, and a great deal more than many Spanish people.

I do have 2 children of school age, I own 2 computers (neither of them the latest model), take an annual holiday (not an expensive one) and make an annual trip "home" and, while I certainly can't consider myself rich, I'm vastly richer than something like 85% of the population of the world.

And, like many of the English teachers I know, I do "survive"...

You want to get rich? Don't come into the profession in the first place....

[sheikh radlinrol]