Is your native language English?
It doesn't matter if you never finished college, or even high school.
It doesn't matter if you don't have a teaching degree.
It doesn't matter if you are barely literate.
It doesn't matter if you're not really a native speaker.
Because your students will never know the difference.
Lots of language academies prefer that you don't have any training - that way they can assure that your only method is their method.
And by the way, they'll pull the wool over your eyes and trick you into accepting 15 euros an hour, which will keep you on a steady diet of white rice and tap water for months until you get tired of the tapeworms.
The financial crisis going on here makes people spend less on:
- Clothes
- Hobbies
- Eating out
- Travel
But all the while they spend more on:
- professional courses
- learning languages
- gambling
- drinking
- prostitution
So if you're a card dealer, bartender or prostitute (and you speak Spanish), or if you give business seminars or teach languages, then come to Spain, because the market is wide open!
The best part is the way language classes are understood in Spain. The older generation - people with enough money to pay for private classes - believe that you learn a language by sitting in a room with a native speaker and conversing while the native speaker corrects you. No homework - it's too much effort. No studying - you don't have the time. And two hours a week should be enough to see your level skyrocket in no time. You should be bilingual before the school year is over - speaking in that perfect London accent. All you have to do as a teacher is make sure the conversation is interesting, assure your student that he is improving, and you'll continue to get paid. Year after year.
Even the people on Jersery Shore could pull this off.
After all, all a language teacher has to do is talk, right?
It's a matter of maximizing your payoff and minimizing your effort.
That's why the more time an English teacher spends here, the more they specialize in:
- General English classes and general business English (reuse your lesson plans, or just pluck an article out of your favorite online newspaper to chat about in class).
- Adults (they can have a conversation. Kids generally need some help on grammar and vocab and that's a lot of work)
- Their neighborhood (why go other places when the demand is everywhere, including on your front doorstep?)
- not working on Fridays (it's just a drag)
- Getting paid under the table
- Constantly changing students (they eventually run out of money, energy and dedication)
OK, I'm all out of sarcasm for today.
Thanks Ryan for writing in English giving us the chance to ask you what we don't understand!
ResponderEliminarLet's get into it.
Estoy completamente de acuerdo contigo, sin embargo no puedes culparnos (no digo que lo hagas) porque pensemos que un poco de speaking es lo que finalmente dará un empujón a nuestro inglés.
Nos pasamos años y años estudiando una gramática (correcta, pero mal enfocada a mi modo de ver), unos verbos irregulares aislados de todo contexto, todo ello acompañado con una pronunciación mediocre. Cuando vemos que con esto no somos capaces de comunicarnos...vamos a por un poco de speaking a ver si se acaba de cerrar el circulo y se activan las neuronas del inglés. Que ilusos...
Somos libres de gastar nuestro dinero como queramos, pero eso si, si el acuerdo es que se nos corrijan los errores, pediría al menos el esfuerzo para que así se haga, porque he asistido a mas de una clase de speaking donde a partir del segundo día el profesor ya no se ha molestado en corregir nada, siendo totalmente contraproducente para todos los que asistiamos a la clase.
Yo en mi próxima vida me pido ser un americano viviendo en Madrid (o Valencia) y casado con una española. ;-)
Un abrazo!!
Entiendo tu frustración con los profesores de inglés. Y la persona a la que menos culapría en esta situación es el alumno. Es interesante: hay una teoría educativa que dice que corregir a los alumnos es contraproducente and algunos niveles porque ataca su auto seguridad y la corrección lo único que hace es estancar su fluidez (estos niveles serían A2 y B1). Pero dudo que los profesores a los que yo me refiero conozcan estas teorías, y tampoco sé si lo que propone es verdad. Sí he visto resultados dejando a alumnos con nivel intermedio bajo que hablaran sin corrección, y sí he visto resultados corrigiendo a alumnos con nivel intermedio alto. Lo que intento decir es que no se puede generalizar métodos para todos los niveles. Vamos, just talking shop!
ResponderEliminar