Hi,

I am British. I am seriously thinking of doing a CELTA and moving to Spain to teach English.

Is this a good option. Is it easy to find work with a CELTA? Is it easy to live there on the wages I would earn?

Any advice you can give me would be very much appreciated.

Many Thanks

Janina

It really depends on what you mean “a good option”. Teaching in Spain can be fun and a nice way to escape for a year, but the idea of teaching here long term gets somewhat complicated.
First off, the pay is quite poor in terms of the English teaching world. If it is money you are after, this is definitely not the place. Unless you are willing to teach more than 30 hour and forget planning, sure you can earn a decent living, but at reasonable levels of contact hours, it is tough to get by really. Then there is the biggest problem of working here, the fact that you only earn money for 9 months of the year. Your contract (if you are offered one) will run from October to sometime in June. That leaves some very lean months with no income ahead. You cannot claim unemployment unless you have worked a total of 12 months since the last time you claimed here, meaning that you can only claim it once every two years, and it is 70% of what your employer claimed you made (often MUCH less that actual).
Have a look at my website for more info
http://troyshouse.blogspot.com

Wow…europetefl is desperate to sell, aren’t they? Trust me or not, simply have a look at tefl.com and look at the job offers in Spain. Doesn’t it strike you as odd that Spain has the most offers by far? Do you think that this means that Spain is more interested in English teaching than other countries? I didn’t think so. What kind of selling point is, “you can join at any time?” Doesn’t this scream to you that people are fleeing due to poor conditions and they desperately need warm bodies?

Misleading you say? Where are these schools that teach year round “except maybe August”. Do you think that they will give holiday pay then? Nope, didn’t think so. No work over the summer? Well according to these people you should leave your home and join the babysitting groups that pass as teachers in the summer camps for a month. Great if you are a backpacker passing through, but what if you actually are trying to make your life here in Spain with a family? Sorry europetefl, but you are propagating the gap-year teacher here in Spain. Don’t you think that the Spanish learner deserves qualified, experienced teachers?

A fine living they say??? Sure, the demand is strong, but that does not translate in any way towards proper standards for teachers. I was paid more in Laos, the poorest country in South East Asia than I am paid here.

What I will say is careful of misleading info. If you are indeed willing to go out of the city centre, perhaps they will offer you 20-30? the hour (in the major centres) but do they include the hour that it takes you to get there and the hour it takes you to get back?

Look before you leap, the landing may be much softer elsewhere.

After working in Madrid as a teacher for several years, I can say, I make much more money than my most of my Spanish friends with their full-time corporate jobs. Barmadu’s warnings are accurate to a degree—IF you work for academies. I have worked for several (and everyone I know has worked for several) and in general, the pay is poor, the hours are erratic and there is no security at all. That is why I started working for myself 3 years ago. I now get paid from 25-40 per hour, have a roster of loyal clients and do very well. It is true that July to Sept are often dead months teacher-wise, which is why I save a portion of each month’s salary to cover those months. Also, the last two years I designed intensive English courses that kept me very busy in the summer.

The bottomline is that yes, it is a difficult road if you stick to academies. But, if you are hardworking and business-savvy, you can make a great living here on your own. However, there is one thing I have to say—-you must love teaching. If you are only doing it because you can’t get a “real job,” then it is going to be tougher for you to make a good living at it.

Finally, I would be remiss if I didn’t say that there are some good academies with respectful teacher practices and decent pay, contracts, etc. I’ve just never worked for any of them. And, if you are not sure of your teaching abilities or new to Spain, starting with an academy is a good way to get your feet wet while getting paid at the same time.

Anyway, good luck to you!

Hi

I generally agree with most of the above comments.

Teaching English in Spain can be quite an unstable existance.

The summer months are usually lean. In summer, a lot of teachers go to England or Ireland to teach or teach Spanish teenagers and children in summer camps.

But it is fun and enjoyable.

The one point I’d disagree with is getting up to 40 Euro an hour for teaching.

I’m based in Madrid, and it is very very difficult to get even close to 30 an hour if you’re working for an agency or academy.

Even working for yourself, you can consider yourself lucky if you can charge somewhere around the mid-thirties per hour.

And classes outside the city usually pay either 2 or 3 euros extra per hour or a daily travel allowance of around 10 Euros.

An English teacher in Spain will do very, very well to have a net (after tax and social security) income of 25,000 Euro per year. You can live on that in Spain, especially if you’re single, but considering that we all have degrees, it’s nothing to get excited on that.

Hope this helps

Owen  

http://www.englishteachermadrid.com