Job Discussion Forums

[NWBen]

I need to be back in the USA early in June for a non-teaching job and I'd like to get some experience using the skills I've just learned in the the CELTA.

Who's gonna hire a teacher who can only work for two months? That would be crazy!

Option 1 is for me to travel down to Guatemala where I'm pretty sure I can find work w/a non-profit as an unpaid teacher while simultaneously taking Spanish classes (I took 2 months of classes in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala last year and it was a great experience).

Option 2 is I strike out for Distrito Federal and knock on the doors of private schools, hoping some school lost a teacher to illness or horizon fever or something and need a replacement muy pronto.

Option 3 is I go somewhere else here in Mexico at your suggestion.

I have limited teaching experience as well as my 2-day-old CELTA (taught business English in Poland and Germany 14 years ago). Don't need or expect to earn much money in the coming 2 months but would prefer to go someplace w/relatively inexpensive rooms/apartments available.

[Enchilada Potosina]

Well, you don't have to tell them you're only here for 2 months. Teachers are easily replaced and schools know this, plus most are usually desperate to hire so you could be a stop-gap while they find someone more 'long-term'.

[Phil_K]

I've done exactly what EP suggests many times, when I found they don't pay on time! Honestly, given the employment ethics of many language schools, I'd have no guilt in pretending I was going to stay long term.

Of course, two wrongs don't make a right, but as many companies (of all types) employ people on an initial three-month trial, why shouldn't the employee do the same?

[NWBen]

Good advice. Thanks. I'd rather be upfront so as to use the employer as a reference in the future... but that's probably not realistic.

[EFLeducator]

[Enchilada Potosina]

On the subject of references, you may actually want to leave out certain places you've worked for. I discovered this at an interview with a certain well-known private school. The women interviewing me confided that she was not allowed to hire teachers that had worked at another well-known private school which happened to be on my resume because of certain practices said school is famous for...

[NWBen]

Any input on whether schools will mostly be closed this Friday? I'm trying to decide whether to take a bus that would arrive early Friday morning... or if I shouldn't bother and just wait til next Monday?

[FreddyM]