Teaching English in Spain

• Getting qualified
• Getting a job
• What sort of job you are likely to get
• What kind of language school do you want to work for?
• Working legally
• Private classes
• Supplementing your income: translation
• Learning Spanish
• Bibliography

Getting qualified

The days are pretty much gone when speaking English was enough to get you TEFL jobs. Now you need to be suitably qualified.

A certificate following a two-day course at Paddy's English Centre, Dublin, is no longer going to get you very far either, and the Cambridge ESOL CELTA qualification, also (incorrectly) known at "the TEFL" ­ this course ­ is the initial TEFL course to take.

Note also that your chances of getting a first TEFL job are significantly improved if you have some form of teaching experience ­ even if it was only voluntary work teaching immigrants in Bradford one summer, or teaching French to your tearaway cousin Kyle.

Getting a job

Although you can check out the appointments in The Guardian on Tuesdays, or see what's on offer at telf.com, the fact remains that most people get a job by coming out to Spain and being here on the spot.

With so many people looking for jobs here, that's really the only way to get work ­ get yourself out here, get proper qualifications, have some cash in reserve to tide you over, decently typed, error-free, decently photocopied copies of your CV (see also our advice on writing a good CV), some presentable clothes and a list of language schools, which you should then start making the rounds of.

For most schools, the academic year begins in October, so the ideal time to be here is early September; few schools will offer you anything concrete very far in advance, as they wait to see what their enrolments are like.

January can also be a good time, Easter rather less so, as those are times when new school terms begin. There is also work to be found in the summer, either on summer courses in schools or (particularly in Catalonia and the Madrid region) on summer camps.

Once you're here in Spain, it's worth registering with the careers sites Infojobs and Servijob, which both have an e-mail alert service, and regularly advertise TEFL jobs. You can program your alerts to cover particular regions of Spain (Barcelona, Madrid...), or the whole of the country if you are not fussy where you go.

Note that being willing to work in smaller, less fashionable places - Oviedo or Santander, say, rather than Madrid or Barcelona - will increase your chances of finding work. There are fewer jobs there, but fewer people wanting to take them up.

Note that setting up your alerts will require you to have some knowledge of Spanish, and can take up to 30 minutes to complete. (Need help? That's what we're here for in the Internet Room!)

Another excellent site for finding TEFL jobs is IH World, which has a recruitment section and list of current vacancies at the 130 International House schools round the world. Having done your CELTA course at an IH centre is definitely a plus when it comes to getting a job with them, with IH Barcelona enjoying a particularly good reputation at other IH centres.

What sort of job you are likely to get

Most people's first TEFL job involves something of a nightmare timetable, which can include classes first thing in the morning, at lunchtime and in the evening (i.e. until 9 or 10 at night), with kids' classes chucked in the middle of the (Spanish) afternoon. If you get all of that, count yourself lucky you got so much work! It's quite normal to find yourself working in two or more different places, too.

Kids' classes (very young learners, who could be as young as 5, to teenagers) are pretty much routine, the biggest demand being for them. There is a separate Young Learners TEFL qualification ­ worth considering if you really think you might have a vocation for teaching.

See also our section on teaching young learners.

If you are a UK-qualified primary school teacher, there are English schools (as opposed to language schools or academies) that will see such a qualification as a big bonus.

English teachers around the world are generally poorly paid - if you are out to get rich, TEFL is probably not a profession you want to get into. Barcelona rates tend to be higher than in other parts of Spain, but the cost of living is also higher than in small towns. Average rates per hour are not much above €12, with anything above €18 being good.

What kind of language school do you want to work for?

Somewhere reputable. Three big English language schools (franchises, in fact) in Spain have recently gone under, leaving literally hundreds of staff unemployed, most of whom hadn't been paid for months prior to that, either.

If you can get yourself a job at one of the larger schools, so much the better; they are much more likely to be more above board, not to mention having better resources and ongoing teacher development programmes.

Barcelona's largest English language schools are now, in alphabetical order, the American British College, the British Institute, CIC, ESADE (first timers are no-hopers there), the Instituto de Estudios Norteamericanos (Americans only) and International House.

Whoever you work for, you want a contract, you want your social security paid, and you want to get paid at the end of the first (and second, and third...) month. If you don't get those things (especially the latter), start doing the rounds again!

Working legally

If you are from a European Union country, you can now live and work in Spain without a work permit, although you still need a residence permit. The latter is the equivalent of the DNI, or Documento Nacional de Identidad, which all Spaniards have (and carry with them everywhere they go; if you pay by credit card, you will be asked for it).

If you are a non-EU citizen, it's going to be very tough to work legally. Partly this is because of the long-drawn out procedure this involves and partly it's because EU citizens are so easy to employ that no Director of Studies is likely to waste their time on Americans (no offence intended!). It's just so much easier to employ an EU citizen, whose English might be dodgy and whose qualifications might be non-existent, than a US citizen who might in fact be an absolutely first-rate teacher.

See also our FAQs page for further information.

Private classes

Most people find that they need to make some extra cash, and giving private English classes is the most obvious way. How do you get them? Well, you can advertise yourself ­ English bookstores and the various universities have notice boards, and countless individuals advertise their myriad services on Barcelona's lamp­posts (look, and you'll see what I mean!).

But really, the best way to get private lessons is through having contacts. Oh, and if they offer you a private class, take it ­ it will lead to others, you can be sure.

How much should you charge? People charge as little as €6 an hour, as much as €36. A fairly standard sort of rate (to judge from what teachers in the staff room here at IH say) is €18-20 per hour.

My advice would be to play it a little by ear. How much can this guy pay? He's a student, moonlighting to pay for his studies. About six. He's a lawyer, doctor or dentist? Go for it!

Supplementing your income: translation

Translation is the obvious alternative to teaching private English lessons. Again being qualified, and/or having experience, will give you a head-start and, frankly, if you haven't got a certain aptitude for translation, forget it (the same could be said of TEFL itself!).

The careers portals mentioned above also carry translation jobs.

Learning Spanish

It obviously helps if you speak some Spanish before you come, though it's not essential to do so (and probably won't much matter as far as getting a job is concerned ).

Making Spanish friends and, for preference, having Spanish flatmates, is really the only way to pick it up on the street, as they say. I deliberately spent a significant part of my first year in Spain in the cinema, which worked wonders for my Spanish.

More on learning Spanish.

Bibliography

There are two particularly good books on working in TEFL. One is Jenny Johnson's Teaching English in Spain (In Print Publishing), which contains sections on English teaching jobs and how to find them, Living in Spain, Teaching English to Spaniards, a chapter on specific problems Spaniards have with things like English pronunciation and grammar. Highly recommended.

The second is Susan Griffith's Teaching English Abroad (Vacation Work) which, while obviously much less Spain-specific, also contains excellent advice on find a job in TEFL.