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Spain - October 2009?

 
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Malou



Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 11:50 am    Post subject: Spain - October 2009? Reply with quote

Hello everybody,

I'm sure this has been asked a thousand times before, but any advice/words of wisdom would be much appreciated!

Myself and a friend are currently on the search for a job to teach in Spain (preferably valencia but we're not too fussy) and we're wondering what the job market is like out there at this time of year?

How difficult is it to find a job? are there any jobs?? where's the best place to go (discounting Madrid)??

We both have a languages degree and a CELTA and now we're lost! any help??

thanks!
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Moore



Joined: 25 Aug 2004
Posts: 730
Location: Madrid

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 2:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

And why would you want to discount Madrid? Smile

...the season is starting late all over Spain, so October in itself isn't such a bad time to come. Forget the provinces though, basically Madrid and Barcelona are the way forward in a crisis as there was little work to start with even in the boom times in the smaller cities.




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IanN



Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 78
Location: Valencia

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 5:39 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here in Valencia the season hasn't really started yet as 9th and 12th are holidays here and they create a long weekend this year so most classes will start next week.

When it does start next week I'm expecting it to be difficult for a lot of teachers to get a full schedule. There are people with many years experience and time in Valencia that are struggling to get a full schedule.

To give an example of how difficult it is I heard today that Wall Street has gone under and closed its doors today. I can't confirm personally if this is true or not but it came from a good source.
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jonniboy



Joined: 18 Jun 2006
Posts: 751
Location: Panama City, Panama

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 9:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Moore wrote:
And why would you want to discount Madrid? Smile


Easy! For many people the whole point of going to Spain is to enjoy hanging out with Spaniards at sunny beaches. Cosmopolitan Madrid is literally as far as you can get from that. After all it was chosen as the capital in the first place due to it being in the geographic centre of Iberia. Living in a place full of foreigners which is four hours and 40+ euros return bus journey from a beach to many people defeats the point of going to Spain. Well it did for me and I like Madrid as a city.

IanN wrote:
Here in Valencia the season hasn't really started yet as 9th and 12th are holidays here and they create a long weekend this year so most classes will start next week.


I lived in Valencia in previous years (2003-2005) when Nou d'Octubre created a puente and it didn't affect the starting time of courses which generally kicked off sometime between 22nd and 30th September. As I've said before this is more down to the fact that when push comes to shove in relative terms Spaniards aren't that bothered about learning English. Native speakers I know here are full up (30 clock hours plus) and this in a place where a median salary is 500 euro a month and the economy is worse than that of Spain. I wish it were different, if it were I'd be back to Spain in a shot.
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IanN



Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 78
Location: Valencia

PostPosted: Thu Oct 08, 2009 10:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Quote:
As I've said before this is more down to the fact that when push comes to shove in relative terms Spaniards aren't that bothered about learning English.


I would dearly like to disagree with this statement but unfortunately in Valencia it is totally true.

The truth here is that the main ambition of the majority of students is to take oposiciones to get a public sector job. This means a knowledge of a local dialect is held in much greater esteem than an international language.
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o_maeliosa



Joined: 25 Jun 2008
Posts: 7

PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 8:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here in Valencia it is going slow and I think the public holiday here this weekend has slowed down an already slow year. I have finally got myself 13 hours work but up until the other day I was starting to panic. I am not saying it will be impossible but I think right now it is very difficult and when you get a job I don�t think there will many hours .

My advice would be come with some money saved and if you get a job quickly fair play and if not well you have a cushion until something comes up and you get more hours.

I'm going a little off-topic as for Spaniards not wanting to learn I�m not so sure that�s the case. Furthermore Spain isn�t the only place that the people don�t want to learn other languages I would hardly say the UK or Ireland are renowned for speaking other languages and I think you average Spaniard has more knowledge of a foreign language than your average person in the UK.

Ian I find it a bit dismissive to call Valencian/Catalan a dialect it is a language unless you are referring to it being a dialect of Catalan albeit some say different.
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IanN



Joined: 31 Jul 2004
Posts: 78
Location: Valencia

PostPosted: Fri Oct 09, 2009 9:59 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

My apologies. The use of the word dialect was ambiguous.

I realise that there are many different opinions but personally I consider Catalan to be a language and Valencian to be a dialect of Catalan and not a language in its own right.

Let's hope this doesn't turn into a discussion as it is completely off topic.


I take your point about those from the UK and Ireland not having language abilities. I suppose this laziness comes from the 'everybody speaks English' attitude. Whether people agree with that or not we are fortunate to be native speakers of the main international language.
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jonniboy



Joined: 18 Jun 2006
Posts: 751
Location: Panama City, Panama

PostPosted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 8:10 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

o_maeliosa wrote:
I'm going a little off-topic as for Spaniards not wanting to learn I�m not so sure that�s the case. Furthermore Spain isn�t the only place that the people don�t want to learn other languages I would hardly say the UK or Ireland are renowned for speaking other languages and I think you average Spaniard has more knowledge of a foreign language than your average person in the UK.


The key word here is "relatively." You're completely right about the poor language skills in the UK and Ireland but all that means is that they, along with Spain, rank near the bottom in the EU. Also, UK/Ireland at least have the advantage of speaking English. The Economist (http://www.economist.com/blogs/charlemagne/2009/09/the_disaster_of_monolingual_br.cfm) made this point last month: that as knowledge of English increases across the EU, the necessity to learn foreign languages there to be economically competitive lessens. Didn't agree with all it's conclusions but it's food for thought.

As I posted before "According to the European commission, Spain ranks 22nd out of the 27 EU countries in terms of the percentage of people who are monolingual. http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_243_en.pdf

In the same publication, Spain ranked 24th out of 27 in terms of those who could speak English well enough to have a conversation. In terms of German, the second largest EU language, Spain was 27th or bottom. The % of those planning to improve their language skills in Spain was just 17% with only Portugal, Greece, Italy and Ireland having lower figures.

There's also figures from Spain's own National Statistics Institute?

http://www.euroresidentes.com/Blogs/2008/04/knowledge-of-english-among-spaniards.html

"According to figures published by the National Institute of Statistics (INE) only 5% of adults aged between 25 and 74 years old have an advanced level of English, that is, a little more than a million people; 16% have an average knowledge of English and 8% admit to only having a basic knowledge of the language."

Anecdotal evidence backs this up, teachers struggling to get enough hours to survive, my own experience living there, my students - many of whom have only had the possibility to learn English in post-Soviet times - being shocked at poor English skills there. I don't post this stuff to annoy people or to be controversial but it's a simple fact that all evidence points to Spaniards being less interested in foreign language learning. This is highly relevant to people, including the opening poster, thinking of going to Spain as it means that when the going gets rough (and it's going to be so in Spain for the next couple of years) there'll be slim pickings for English teachers.
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Malou



Joined: 06 Oct 2009
Posts: 5

PostPosted: Sat Oct 10, 2009 3:35 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thank you everyone for all the tips and advice... sadly thinking I may need to give up on the Valencian dream and focus on somewhere else in Spain...keep me updated if you hear of anything going in the area though

Thank yooou Smile
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