Hi,
I am trying to get a job in Spain preferably teaching business English. I am having trouble finding directories of companies or schools that offer this service. I have a Tesol and L.C.C.I.E.B Further Certificate for Business English and am looking for my first posistion.
Your assistance and advice would be greatly appreciated.
Advice on teaching business English in Spain
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Business English in Spain
Hey there!
A few notes on teaching Business English in Spain. I've given ESL classes both in a private setting and through academies since 1989. I have done so in Madrid, Barcelona, Ávila and presently in Huesca. The Business English I have taught has been in a company setting; that is, I have gone to the place of work and given classes to the employees after having negociated an educational package with the personel manager. In only a handful of cases have I taught actual "Business English", since the grand majority of students in these cases haven't had a developed a high enough level of English to deal with the vocabulary and subtleties of Business English. Most of my students in such business settings needed the English to deal with European colleagues who were also speaking ESL in their meetings, for example, Germans, Swiss, Dutch people. The level of ESL spoken by such is almost always much higher than that spoken by Spanish people. The educational systems are different and my experience has been that in Spain, in the public schools, English is taught by non-native college graduates who concentrate more on grammar tests than on communication (many of my students can manipulate quite complex structures on paper, but insist on pronouncing the silent "e" at the end of words, for example).
ESL teaching in Spain is either a case of private classes that one gets by putting up posters or an ad in the paper, or a case of an ESL academy that offers small groups to kids (sometimes an educational babysitting service). Enterprises like "Wall Street Institute" have tried to fill in the gap, but have not been very successful and are going out of business. If you consider coming to Spain, you ought to check on immigration questions first, work and resident permits take a long time to have in hand and academies are no longer willing to risk employing teachers without their paperwork in order. Working on your own is also risky, new associations of academies act as watchdogs against what they consider "unfair competition" from private teachers who usually don't pay taxes or social security and thus can charge less money for the same services, or even better services such as going to the student instead of the student coming to the teacher.
All that said, I do want to point out that I have not been out of work the entire time I have lived in Spain except when living in smaller communities. Even here in Huesca, a city with only about 45,000 souls, I have had more than enough work. However, it is natural that in larger cities there are more opportunities. In Huesca there is little industry and thus fewer chances to find business clients who want to learn business English. I am presently giving a course in "Attention to the Client" for unemployed people, but again, that is through the governmental unemployment office and I have this job thanks to negotiations done by the academy where I work, giving review classes and communication classes to kids from 6 to 16 years of age. This is definately not Japan where everyone thinks about work from an early age to the tomb.
Perhaps others who are in Spain can offer other points of view on this subject, I am naturally speaking of my own experience.
peace,
revel.
A few notes on teaching Business English in Spain. I've given ESL classes both in a private setting and through academies since 1989. I have done so in Madrid, Barcelona, Ávila and presently in Huesca. The Business English I have taught has been in a company setting; that is, I have gone to the place of work and given classes to the employees after having negociated an educational package with the personel manager. In only a handful of cases have I taught actual "Business English", since the grand majority of students in these cases haven't had a developed a high enough level of English to deal with the vocabulary and subtleties of Business English. Most of my students in such business settings needed the English to deal with European colleagues who were also speaking ESL in their meetings, for example, Germans, Swiss, Dutch people. The level of ESL spoken by such is almost always much higher than that spoken by Spanish people. The educational systems are different and my experience has been that in Spain, in the public schools, English is taught by non-native college graduates who concentrate more on grammar tests than on communication (many of my students can manipulate quite complex structures on paper, but insist on pronouncing the silent "e" at the end of words, for example).
ESL teaching in Spain is either a case of private classes that one gets by putting up posters or an ad in the paper, or a case of an ESL academy that offers small groups to kids (sometimes an educational babysitting service). Enterprises like "Wall Street Institute" have tried to fill in the gap, but have not been very successful and are going out of business. If you consider coming to Spain, you ought to check on immigration questions first, work and resident permits take a long time to have in hand and academies are no longer willing to risk employing teachers without their paperwork in order. Working on your own is also risky, new associations of academies act as watchdogs against what they consider "unfair competition" from private teachers who usually don't pay taxes or social security and thus can charge less money for the same services, or even better services such as going to the student instead of the student coming to the teacher.
All that said, I do want to point out that I have not been out of work the entire time I have lived in Spain except when living in smaller communities. Even here in Huesca, a city with only about 45,000 souls, I have had more than enough work. However, it is natural that in larger cities there are more opportunities. In Huesca there is little industry and thus fewer chances to find business clients who want to learn business English. I am presently giving a course in "Attention to the Client" for unemployed people, but again, that is through the governmental unemployment office and I have this job thanks to negotiations done by the academy where I work, giving review classes and communication classes to kids from 6 to 16 years of age. This is definately not Japan where everyone thinks about work from an early age to the tomb.
Perhaps others who are in Spain can offer other points of view on this subject, I am naturally speaking of my own experience.
peace,
revel.