Lots of new people in town, so a good time for a meet up for anyone interested.
We're thinking to go to the Franz Mayer Museum, near metros Hidalgo and Bellas Artes...easy to find.
http://www.franzmayer.org.mx
They have a cafe for the meetup and of course exhibits to wander around and see.
Saturday, August 18th, let's say 1PM and onward.
Here's the google map location.
http://goo.gl/maps/SKH4G
Hope to see you there!
Hi, I am currently finishing up my last year in college then upon graduation was thinking of heading down to Mexico to try my hand at teaching ESL. I will have my Bachelor's Degree in hand and plan on doing an online TEFL course in the coming months. I had a few questions I was hoping you could all help me with (I know the boards have a lot of info on them but I wanted to condense all the info right here)
1.) Is my best option to find a school and sign a contract before I come to Mexico OR just find a school there when I arrive? I am guessing there are a bunch of options, especially in DF. Also, should I stay away from the language schools? They seem like they'd be the easiest place to get a 1st job at.
2.) Is it easy to find work as an ESL teacher if your Spanish skills aren't the greatest? I can speak some Spanish but it is still very much a work in progress. Will this hinder me in my search or will I have no problem finding work?
3.) How much $$$ in US dollars should I plan on coming to Mexico with in order to cover start-up costs and to hold me over until I get on my feet?
4.) Will the school that hires you sponsor you and help you turn the Tourist Visa into a Work Visa in Mexico? Also do you have to apostille your documents before arrival? I have heard conflicting reports on this.
AND FINALLY 5.) Should I stick with my plan to come to Mexico? I am 23, (a soon-to-be) college graduate, and I am very well travelled (I have been all over Latin America and Europe as my passion is travel and I devote much of my extra money towards it)...I know this is a big step, moving to a new country, but the thought of staying in the US and becoming a corporate stick in the mud doesn't interest me much....life is about new adventures. So will I have success if I keep the right attitude?
Thanks everyone!!
1.) You will want to wait until you get here to find a school. Try Harmon Hall, Berlitz and Hamer Sharp. I know Harmon Hall will help you do the work to transfer your tourist visa into a work visa
No, do not stay away from the language schools. You can gain some valuable experience through them and learn some techniques that you can take with you if you ever decide to go to another school. They are good for experience and you may move up over time.
2.) I think it's easy to find work if your Spanish isn't perfect.I have had no problems. There are some schools that will not want you speaking in Spanish because they want the students to focus on the target language. You should have no problem finding work because of this.
3.) 3,000 to 4,000 dollars is what I would say to try and bring. Others may have different amounts,but I think what I mentioned is pretty average.
4.) Some schools may help you with the transference of your tourist visa into a work visa.I remember Harmon Hall does or at least they used to. I believe Berlitz does as well but I'm not sure about Hamer Sharp. I had my degree, EFL online certificate and my marriage license from the States apostilled before coming. Get the degree and EFL certificate apostilled beofre coming just to be safe. Some places may ask for that while others may not.
5.) Yes, stick with your plan to come to Mexico. You're young (23 you said) so the experience couldn't hurt. It may help your resume if you plan on going to graduate school for a Masters in International Business for example. The right attitude will carry you far in life. Stay positive. Being negative destroys your Ki.
If you have all your needed paperwork there is no way it will take a few months. I just walked two teachers through the process, one had everything and got her FM3 in 11 days, the other was missing something and it took 3 weeks. The law is, currently, that you have to have an answer within 30 days. From what I have seen, for people that are waiting months, it that the schools are turning the job over to a lawyer who takes his own sweet time about going to immigration. To answer your other quesion, most schools will allow you to start teaching while your paperwork is being processed, yes. You might also pick up a few private classes on the side to tido you over.
I have a few questions about Ecuador.
When is the best time to look for work, especially for university jobs?
I have heard about an " investor's visa" that one can get by depositing dollars in an Ecuadorian account. Does anyone on the board have one? If not, is anyone sure that this option actually exists?
I am planning a job hunting trip to Ecuador in June. Any help would be appreciated.
Wha'z up?
I can give you some names of places you can check out once you get there. I taught and lived in Quito for 5 years before coming back to the States for 2 and a half years so I still know the place quite well. In fact, my Ecuadorian wife and I are anxiously awaiting for our trip back in May. You can always find work in the many English language institutes. Key Languages, English First (known simply as EF). Inlengua, South American Spanish Institute (name might have been slightly changed on this one, but it's right on Amazonas Avenue in Quito). If you have a college degree and are EFL/ESL certified you can try the universities such as Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Quito or La Universidad de San Francisco in Cumbaya. They may hire you on only with a college degree and no ESL/EFL certificate. The best paying jobs are in some of the private primary and secondary schools, but I think you need to have credentials in education and it's a lot of work and you have to be a special breed of cat to handle the discipline problems. Timing isn't so important because in many cases people come and go except for the university positions where they obviously have semesters. Of course it depends on what city you want to hang out in as well. You could also post notices on the many message boards in the gringo joints around Quito anyway advertising that you'll do private lessons.
Chow for Now,
Hope This Helps Enjoy Ecuador, I Know I Did Both Good And Bad From Motown Gary B.
PS: If you want further info e-mail me. Word of warning. Since the country dollarized their economy, prices have gone up drastically and wages have gone up very little in comparison to inflation. I have a friend that's still teaching there and he gives me all the latest scoops.
Ive been living and teaching in Ecuador for about six years now. An investors visa requires that you deposit 25k into a bank CD, or you can also buy property of at least that amount.
I have to disagree about discipline problems. I have worked in a couple of high schools, both for wealthy students and fundacion schools and have found the discipline to be much better htan when I taught in the states. In Quito and north areas, school is the same as in the states, but in Guayaquil and other southern cities, it is the opposite as we are in the opposite hemisphere. School here starts in March or April.
Ive heard people enjoy Canadian House, but they reportedly arent good about getting you a visa, and you cannot work legally in Ecuador on a tourist visa. If you work illegally on a tourist visa, the likelihood is that you will be taken advantage of, and may not be paid. And you will have no recourse. Canadian house reportedly pays about $4 an hour which is not much.
In another thread there was some discussion as what consitutes a "better" job in English teaching in Mexico.
Obviously, what is best for one person is not best for another, but I thought this is a worthwhile topic and would be helpful for new teachers.
I work at a university. I have a full-time permanent position.
For me the pros are:
a comfortable salary
full benefits package
some nice perks like paid sabbaticals and options to take extended leave--I just got back from 6 months off to extend my maternity leave. a reasonable work load and a pleasent working environment
for the most part respectful students who recognize English as important for their futures
The cons are:
inflexibility in hours, as a mother, I'd like to be able to consider part-time work. (the hours most teachers work at colegios are very attractive to me)
vacations fixed into academic calander, the same times as sooo many other people.
a cap on my earnings, while I get nice cost of living increases and small antiquity bonuses, I can't work harder to make more like I could if I were doing private or free lance lessons.
my students are too busy to really commit the time needed to advance in their language learning
my class sizes are often near 30
Thanks for having started this helpful thread! I'm in Oaxaca. Came here to teach English but now I'm trying to decide whether to stay or move on.
What would you consider "a comfortable salary" in Mexico? I keep hearing different things and am having trouble wrapping my head around it. Does the benefits package include any kind of pension plan?
One other question to which I'm having trouble getting an answer (possibly because the answer varies from place to place): I'm an experienced teacher with a masters degree in education, but I don't have a TESOL background. Would I need a TESOL certification course to get a university position here? If not, would such a certification course improve my odds of getting a better job, or would my other education and experience trump the TESOL?
Thanks again!
Common to Mexico City is teaching English directly in companies, either yourself or through a language institute with a business focus. I've done a lot of this over the years.
Pros
Good hourly pay
Flexible hours, usually no Saturday work
Good stepping stone into other areas, such as translations, or into other fields
Small class sizes
Motivated students, for the most part
Independence
Cons
Usually no benefits
Difficult to maintain a full work load
Travel time a pain if not managed properly
Holidays and cancellations can cause havoc with a schedule if not managed
To anyone who travels beyond the United States, it's not news that, for better or worse, English has become the world's language.
No longer will people abroad automatically let you try out your French or Spanish or Japanese at the start of an everyday transaction in a restaurant, or shop, where your American-tinged tongue is more likely to draw an immediate English response, no questions asked. Sure, there remain places where this rarely happens. They are not the world's cities. And they are likely to be remote.
Well, good for us, you might say, we can be understood, a primary benefit of being human.
Well, bad for the world, you might say; it is becoming less diverse as English becomes the universal lingua franca.
Language not only defines a national culture, it also gives its speakers the tools to turn thoughts into something concrete - and among the beauties of different languages is that they offer different ways of doing so.
Robert McCrum, associate editor of Britain's Observer, is not out to wow us with old news about the ever-progressing global advance of English. Instead, his book is a thoroughly researched, cleverly told big-picture tale of how our language got to be that way - and just what that way means: ungovernable, he says, taken for granted, ever-changing.
Hello,
I am planning on moving down to Costa Rica next summer to teach and, because I am a licensed high school Business/Computer teacher who'll have 2 years experience, I'd really like to teach in an international school. I have heard the pay in CR is low compared to other LA countries, but that life is better in other ways, is this true?
Are there a lot of international schools in CR? Do many of them offer visa assistance?
Any additional tips you'd like to pass along?
Thank in advance!
I have been there on vacation and would like to teach also. Basically, I would suggest you save up 12k to supplement and then enjoy!
International schools:
- Country Day School
- Washington School
- Falcon School (?)
There's a couple of others that I can't remember the name of right now, and probably more that I don't know about; small schools around the San Jose area. There are also several, including a Montessori school, in other parts of the country (Jacó, for example).
FYI: My fiance and I both landed jobs teaching at Falcon International School in Herradura. Let me know if you would like any info.
Oaxaca seems like an ideal place to live and work but it´s actually a very expensive city and wages are very low.
It sounds like other reasons than choice of work brought you to Oaxaca: I'm concerned about your having put yourself in one of the more difficult markets in Mexico as a first experience after your TEFL course when a big disappointment in work could sour you to the whole enterprise
These forums are full of warnings about the difficulties of finding any kind of work on reasonable terms in Oaxaca: now is the time to reconsider before you've signed a lease and get too deeply committed to what may prove to be a bad situation work-wise should you be relying on working to support yourself in Mexico
It's clear from the hundreds of posts on this forum that there are many perfectly good places to live and work in Mexico and make a start in TEFL: Oaxaca- for a combination of reasons- does not seem to be one of them
Articulated in a nice way. I was lucky to have a great TESOL program behind me and I made friends with a couple of wonderful people but the possibility of ending up with less than you came in with and some bitter experiences is a real possibility in Oaxaca. At this point in time for Oaxaca - not for the new or those with thin bank accounts.
Thank you all for the reply. I appreciate all the time that you have taken to help me. I did indeed find a decent job in Oaxaca. I am now working for Harmon Hall Oaxaca. If anyone has any real bad experiences there it would be good to know. I sign my 40+ hour contract in three weeks.
Also if there are any bad experience or suggestions with immigration here I will be all ears. Thanks again to all of you, especially about the school near Reforma. I nearly applied there.
