Almost three years ago I decided to follow my dreams and move to Spain to teach English. After having studied here twice (in Sevilla and in Salamanca), I fell in love with the country and felt like I needed go back. Since I had planned on being a teacher in the U.S., going to Spain to teach English seemed like the best of both worlds for me—I would get to live in Spain but still be doing the job that I wanted to do. Madrid wasn’t my first choice of cities, but I decided to come here mainly because I had heard that there were more job opportunities than in other parts of Spain. I have to admit that I don’t think Madrid is a place that people automatically love: it has neither the inherent beauty of cities like Sevilla nor the old-world charm of places like Salamanca. At first it seemed too big, too noisy, and too chaotic, but it’s the kind of place that grows on you with time. You certainly won’t be bored living here since there are plenty of museums, concerts, exhibitions, sports events, and all kinds of entertainment no matter what your interests are. And if you get tired of the big city, because of Madrid’s central location, you can always go away for a weekend or a day trip. I’m sure that in no time at all you’ll start to feel like a real Madrileño.

Before coming to look for work in Madrid there are a few things you should do. First, you should consider getting some kind of certification, whether it’s TEFL, CELTA, or Trinity, especially if you’ve never taught before, since during the course you’ll get an idea of what it’s like to teach. You should also try to get some teaching experience before arriving, even if it’s just tutoring or volunteering because many employers here ask for certification, experience, or both. Another thing you’ll need is money—make sure you have enough in your savings to survive for a few months. Even if you start teaching immediately you may have to wait a few weeks or months to build up an adequate number of teaching hours. Living in Spain isn’t as cheap as it once was, especially if your savings are in dollars, so you’ll need enough money to get started.

Once you’ve arrived, the job search begins. The good news is that in Madrid there are literally hundreds of English academies and agencies, which makes it easier for a qualified teacher to find work here than in some other cities in Spain. You’ll make things a lot easier on yourself if you come to Madrid at the right time of year—this means September, October, or January. In September and October the majority of the schools are looking for new teachers, so you shouldn’t have much trouble finding work. Other times of the year are a little more difficult to find work; although it’s not impossible. The only time I’d really recommend that you didn’t start looking for work is in the summer, since many schools close up shop, and the ones that are open don’t need nearly as many teachers. Check out the Sunday editions of newspapers like El País or El Mundo to find job ads, you can also look on the internet at places like infojobs.net If all else fails, you can simply go through the phone book and start contacting and sending your CV out to as many schools as possible. I’m sure you’ll get a response this way.

When looking for a job it’s important to keep in mind that there are basically three types of teaching jobs here (four for legal workers who can work as “autónomos” or freelance). Your options are to either work for academies, agencies, or to teach private classes. Working for a language academy means that you will be teaching in the school itself, and your students may be children, teenagers, or adults. If you have experience teaching or working with children, this will be an asset when looking for an academy job since many teachers aren’t qualified or willing to teach children. Academies in Madrid open in the mornings around 9 or 10 o’clock and close around 8 or 9 p.m.—some are also open Saturday mornings (10-2). As a first year teacher you usually won’t be offered “block” hours (several or all your classes in a row), so your schedule will probably include a mixture of morning, afternoon and evening classes. If you continue working with the same academy they will normally offer you a better schedule after the first year. Pay for academy classes is usually around 10-12 euros per hour and contracts are generally 20 hours per week (if you have the proper legal status and can be given a contract). Academies should have a good range of materials available for you to use in your classes including books, newspapers, cassettes, videos, and games. Another advantage to working in an academy is that you’ll be able to share ideas / activities with other teachers since academies have a teachers’ room or office where you can go to plan lessons, or relax between classes. Academies sometimes have classes during the summer, but normally you’ll be given a contract that starts in September or October and ends in June.

Your second option is to work for an agency. Agencies work with different businesses in Madrid, so when you teach you’ll go to the companies to have classes. You’ll be moving around the city a lot, and you’ll soon get to know the Metro quite well. Normally agencies pay for your transportation if you have to go outside of the city, but inside the city you’ll be responsible for paying for your Metro pass. Since companies don’t want to interrupt their workdays to have English classes, you will be teaching at times when your students aren’t working—before work (8-10 a.m.), over the lunch break (1-4 p.m.) or after work (6-8 p.m.). It’s very difficult to find classes that are outside of these timeframes unless you have a phone at home and can do telephone classes. Since your teaching hours are limited, you need to think carefully before accepting classes that an agency offers you in order to make the most of your time. It’s best to try to teach two classes back to back in the same company, but if that’s not possible you need to accept the classes that allow you to have to most teaching hours. For example, it might not be a good idea to accept a class that meets from 2-3 p.m. because this would be the only class you could teach during the lunch hours (unless you had a class before or after in the same building). It would be better to accept a class from 1-2 p.m., for example, because that way you have the possibility of teaching another class in a different company from 2:30-3:30 or from 3:00 – 4:00. The pay for in-company class is higher than for academy classes, normally around 15 euros per hour, but in-company classes offer less stability for the teacher. Students will often cancel classes when they’re too busy to have class, which means that you lose money. When interviewing for agency jobs make sure you ask what their policy is on class cancellations. Most agencies will only pay you if a student doesn’t tell that they can’t have class or gives you less than 24 hours notice. So, if you go to class and your students don’t show up and they didn’t tell you anything about canceling class, you’ll be paid. However, if a student says “next Tuesday I can’t have class because I have a meeting to go to,” you normally won’t be paid unless you can find time to make up the class. If you teach in-company classes you need to be prepared to not know exactly how much money you’ll be making each month because you never know how many classes will be cancelled. In-company classes during the summer are almost non-existent due to the fact that most companies have a different work schedule during the summer months and don’t have time for classes. So, you’ll need to either save money during the year to survive over the summer, or look for other work for a few months each year.

Your third option is to teach private classes either out of your home or in the students’ homes. The advantages of teaching private classes are that you make your own schedule and you can negotiate your pay and conditions. However, you’ll need to prepare and develop your own teaching materials for these classes. In order to find private students you can place a free ad in the Segundamano newspaper offering classes; however, there are hundreds of other teachers who advertise there. A good way to find students is to simply print some flyers and hang them up around your neighborhood—the good thing about this is that the people who call you will normally live near you, so you can walk to work. Private classes are a good option if you are looking for work over the summer, or can be used to supplement your income if you’re working for an academy or an agency.

Teaching can be a wonderful experience, but it’s also a lot of hard work, so you need to come to Madrid prepared to teach. Your students will most likely have been studying English for many years, so they know the difference between a teacher who is prepared and one who isn’t. They also aren’t afraid to speak up if they are unhappy with the class or think the quality is lower than it should be. This means that you, as a teacher, need to be able to answer your students’ questions (even the complicated grammar ones), plan lessons, come to class prepared, motivate your students, design interesting and relevant activities, and be enthusiastic about teaching because your students will expect all of this and more. Most importantly, come with a professional attitude about teaching. I know that many of you probably want to come to Spain for a year to learn Spanish, travel and take a break from your real lives, and you decide to teach because it’s basically the only work you can do here—this doesn’t mean that you can’t be a good teacher, you just need to take it seriously. If you don’t take it seriously you’re doing a disservice to both your students and other teachers here who are serious about their jobs. Teaching is more than a way to make some cash on a year-long vacation; it’s a real profession that needs more serious teachers.

Megan Smoker came to Madrid from Lancaster, Pennsylvania nearly three years ago. During this time she has been teaching mainly in-company English classes; however, she will soon be starting a new job teaching for the Universidad Europea de Madrid. She is also happily married to a Spaniard and plans on staying in Madrid long-term.