Watch Your BacK

Teaching ESL can be a wonderful experience. It's a chance to immerse yourself into a new culture. Live somewhere unique. Learn a new language. Meet great people. And explore places that most only see online and on television. However, you have to be careful when picking a school to work at.

More countries are starting to have higher requirements in the university and work force. Having a basic understanding of English is one of them. As a result, more and more language schools are popping up. Some a bit shady. Some totally shady.

A school I worked for in Spain seemed very prestigious and serious. The interviewer was the owner of the school and the school had a 90% pass rate for Trinity and Cambridge exams. He offered to help with our relocation to Spain from the States. His salary offer was higher than most places in Spain. And he seemed like a genuinely friendly and caring man. Things were completely backward when we arrived.

He's idea of help was to send us off to random government places to get what we needed to legally work and live there. Even though he know we had a beginner's level of Spanish, he would send us off to communicate with people who had no level of English and didn't have patience with our terrible Spanish. Some days I would be close to tears because a government official would brush me off for being foreign and unable to communicate my needs successfully. It was a nightmare running around with a 2-year-old and getting no real help. And most of the time our new boss would give us the wrong information and/or send us to the wrong place. It took 6 months to straighten everything out. And he had no sympathy for us. He's only concern was us showing up to work on time.

A few owners are similar cutthroats. At the end of the day, they are business men in a now very competitive field. Along with a growing population of young ESL teachers, these type of shady people can find easy hirers. If you can't do your job, they will replace you. And they don't have to help you outside of the business of teaching.

Some don't even to that. They will give you a class schedule and a classroom. A few places don't have textbook or even appropriate teaching resources. My last place didn't have a copy machine or even a reliable computer and printer. When equipment broke, it was replaced with a previously older version that was also broken but just not as badly as the other one. One time the projector decided it no longer wanted to show a clear screen. It was spotty and blurry. So the next day it was replaced with an older one from the attic. This "new" projector flickered. I thought my young students might go into epileptic shock!

I know technology is not fool-proof. You should always be flexible in your planning for such situations. But I have never experienced such a ratchet, half ass thing as replacing broken with broke. Like my old boss, some language schools are solely concern with getting in bodies and what you do with them is up to you.

I have been lucky enough to work for great schools. Schools who directors work to make your transition into a new place easy. Teachers who support inexperienced ones. Staff rooms stocked with copy machines, computers and printers that work!

I say again: WATCH YOUR BACK!

A few reliable ESL job sites are:

Dave's ESL Cafe           TEFL.com        ESL.com

 Spainwise.net (Good schools will be at the job fair organized by Spainwise.net. Be careful of schools that are recruiting on this site. A few are using their old reputations to gain trust. These particular schools may have lowered their standards over the years.)
Before and after your interview:

Get some background on the prospective school.(You can go on TEFL blogs and sites to ask about a certain schools reparation. Some good ones are Dave's ESL cafe and ESL Teachers Board. Also, if you are lucky enough to be in that city, you can ask around the neighborhood and go in to check out the school.)

During the interview, ask a few questions, like:
-Why have former employees left in the past?
-What challenges might a new teacher face at their school?
-What assistance would they provide?
-How have they provided assistance to others in the past?
-How many contacted hours will be reported to the government? (Some places pay under the table, others pay some of your salary under the table and declare the rest, and some pay you legally. This can effect you social security benefits and unemployment benefits.)
- What professional development is available? (If you are serious about teaching, you want to learn how to improve your craft and a genuine school will help provide that because they want good teachers at their school. They actually care about TEFL.)