I'm planning to move to Spain with my boyfriend after Christmas to teach english. How hard is it to find a teaching job? Also how "English" is Madrid? I know absolutly no Sapinish (yet) so will I be doomed to trying to communicate by acting out things with my hands and drawing pictures on paper?

Also what about my Canadian cell phone and laptop? Will I be able to use them in Spain or will I have to buy new ones over there? I know the cellular networks must be different....but does that mean my phone will be useless if I bring it?

Hola & welcome to multimadrid.

I did type up some stuff before, asking you various things, and explaining other things, but my internet connection crashed, and wiped out my text with it, and I'm not going to type that all again, but I still have to ask you one thing, and that is, if as you say, you know absolutely no Spanish, and don't know the country, why on earth would you want to come to Espa�a to teach english? why not some other place in the world?
English teachers are needed in many countries, not just Spain, even in England, Australia, New Zealand etc, they need ESOL teachers!!

Have you got any idea how many individuals there are at any one time, roaming around in Espa�a and all over the Iberian Peninsula looking for work as English teachers? Not dozens, but hundreds, literally, hundreds of people all looking for work as English or at least ESOL teachers, and many of them speak a reasonable level of Castellano, but all of them struggle.

I could have gone in to teaching English if I wanted to, and I have taught I.T. support & admin plus computer hardware & software maintenance, and have the 3 qualifications to back that up, and I get by quite well in Castellano/Spanish (without hand signals & drawings etc) but I would not give teaching English in Spain a second thought knowing what I know, and having the experience that I have of working/doing business/making money etc here in Spain. You just ask any of the English teachers on here, who have already been through the meat grinder here, and they can speak & understand Spanish well enough, and some of them speak it fluently, and yet still they have struggled.

As for your shlaptop & mobile, you have to speak to Jeremy about that, but I think your shlaptop will work fine with an adaptor.

cheers & good luck. :cheers:

actually, there are THOUSANDS (not hundreds) looking for english teaching work.

CanadianGirl22, you need to do a lot of research and SEARCHES on this board.

Iberian wrote...

quote:

As for your shlaptop & mobile, you have to speak to Jeremy about that, but I think your shlaptop will work fine with an adaptor.

close, but what you really have to do is SEARCH, the laptop and cell phone topics have been discussed to death.

also, there are tons of threads on everything you asked about so you have your reading cut out for you.

CanadianGirl22, you will get out of this board what you put in.

you have about 6 months, use them wisely

saludos,
jer...

Iberian
We choose Spain because my boyfriend has a good friend (also from Canada) who has been teaching English in Madrid for the past two years and who has been encouraging him to do the same.
I'm just finishing up my undergrad in marketing but since both my parents are teachers I thought I'd give teaching english a shot and see Europe at the same time. After reading your post I've decided it would be a good idea to take a Spanish class before we go. Thanks for the reality check...lol....but if you see a girl trying to buy some fruit at the market using exagerated hand movements....help her out cause it might be me

Jer,
Hot website by the way....very impressive. I was being lazy and thought I'd drop a few questions on here....but you're right....I just need to search the forums for answers....one last one though...does Madrid have a lot of American stations like MTV and NBC??

Hi CanadianGirl22!!! I see you are going to do some searches to find the answers to your questions. The answers are there when you look.

But... I am sorry, (and don�t take this the wrong way) why would you think that a country as big as Spain would need to show American TV? Would you ask that same question if you were going to Britain, or Australia, or France!!!!

Erm, Madsue, that question is totally valid (other than for the fact that it may have been covered before) the local TV here is crap for one. It make that bee dude on the spanish tv station on the simpsons look like really great content. 2. getting cable here is more expensive than putting a kid through school particularly if you adjust price to local income levels.

And to answer your question, no you can't get american tv stations here. I actually think there is some protection laws that prohibit it.The same way you can't (or at least couldn't get) Eurosport in N. America. There is a pseudo NBC, which is a mix of CNBC and NBC, but they don't put the prime time shows. There is also an MTV but it shows mostly local musician video clips and translated shows which really really suck in spanish.

So definitely get used to the idea of doing without TV for a while and finding other activities like going out or playing sports, walking.... or just plan on visting your local blockbuster a lot... (which incidently also sucks)

Hey I like Spanish TV! they air the movies without cuts. And I honestly do like a lot of the shows... I miss Spanish TV! I hope I get TVe in Florida.

Melinda

madsue....the reason I thought I'd ask if Spain had any American stations is because here in Canada (second largest country in the world) 90% of our TV stations are American....or even if it's a Canadain station they still buy American shows and play them....thought it was worth asking about anyway. I can speak basic French and I know how mentally exhausting it can be after a full day of trying to speak french.....and the thought of going home to relax and watch tv in a lauguage were you don't have to concentrate to understand would be nice.....but whatever....I guess I can just buy dvds off ebay and get them mailed to me in Spain. hahaha.....dumb topic....sorry

quote:

I can just buy dvds off ebay and get them mailed to me in Spain.

or you can buy the dvds here. the stores here have many of the popular u.s. tv series for sale on dvd.

if you end up missing tv in english, you can always pay for satelite digital tv here and have the option of watching in english.

do a SEARCH on "satelite tv" for the threads.

read them all, especially the one entitled "satellite dish in Madrid:english-US-Canadian,UK tv?".

saludos,
jer...