Job Discussion Forums

mitzyg · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Tampa, Florida, USA

Where are the hotspots of EFL teaching in Mexico right now? Are there any cities where EFL teaching is just starting to really take off? Are there any cities where there are always more jobs than teachers? What's it like in your city?

Guy Courchesne · Joined: 10 Mar 2003 Posts: 9650 Location: Mexico City

TheLongWayHome · Joined: 07 Jun 2006 Posts: 1016 Location: San Luis Piojosi

I'd have to say SLP. New schools are opening up, the more established ones are expanding. There is always work here, perhaps because teachers don't tend to stay that long (probably due to the people). There's a bit of a revolving door. However, the industrial zone is expanding as SLP whores itself left, right and centre. I think it's slowly turning into Queretaro as there are more and more people coming here from DF.

MELEE · Posted: Thu Aug 30, 2007 5:11 pm Post subject:

I'm a little hesitant to respond, because I'm not sure about the motivations for this post. (Are you a teacher looking to move to Mexico, so you want to know where to move to? Or are you a recruiter, trying to milk the forum to increase your business?)

I recently said in another subforum that you should look for jobs in an area that you are interested in. That's so true in Mexico, a country with a heck of a lot of variety within it's boarders. So if you are looking for a job, I say the hotspot for you is where you will be happy living. That might not be where I've been happily living.

Having said that, I feel a little like towing the company line today, and that doesn't happen every day...
Not a city, but the STATE of Oaxaca is up and coming in the TEFL field. The State University System of Oaxaca (SUNEO) has been growing with no indications of slowing down yet. English is a required subject at these universities and they hire only qualified native English speaking teachers. Ten years ago there were less than 20 English teachers in the system, now there are more than 60. These are full time positions with good salary and benefits packages, of course there are some draw backs. One being that the positions are located in small cities and towns in often out of the way corners of the state. It is also a some one political system and has the obvious headaches that come with that. If you are interested here is a link with some more information about SUNEO, and some beautiful photos.

http://www.utm.mx/Imagenes/UTM/suneo_eng.pdf

In general around the country, I think we will see more and more jobs at the university level as more and more schools make English a graduation requirement.

mitzyg · Joined: 16 May 2007 Posts: 3 Location: Tampa, Florida, USA

Melee, thanks for sharing your opinion. I am indeed hoping to teach English in Mexico. I posted the question because I know that there are a lot of teachers and Directors of Study in this forum and I figured you all would have interesting perspectives on the current landscape of TEFL in Mexico. I finish my CELTA course tomorrow and am trying to pick a city to go to (I've only ever been here in Playa), so I thought I'd throw this out there to try and get yet another data point to add to my spreadsheet (unfortunately, I mean this quite literally!).

I think you're right that one should go to a place they like. Myself, I think I'm headed to the centre to one of the colonial cities close to Mexico. But having never been to any of them, I want to have as much information on paper as I can so that I can make a smart first move. As far as the university jobs go, I'm glad to hear you say that. So many posts indicate that you have to have a masters and five years experience to even apply for a university job, but I've had other people tell me to just apply because I never know. So now I think I will apply to universities as well as language schools as perhaps it's not a total longshot.

So thank you all for your help. And maybe I'll see some of you at the next DF meetup.