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.