Life as an English Teacher in Madrid

Well, I arrived in Madrid in July 2018 excited as I´d decided to move to Madrid. Tired, bored and disenchanted with the grey skies of Dublin and the average three days summer we were blessed with, arriving in Madrid to a 32 degree June summers day was a welcoming experience. What I didn´t appreciate was that it would take me a while to acclimatize to my new surroundings.

The Gran Vía and its imposing metropolitan building under a cloudy and blue morning, Madrid - Spain.

Sunset in Juan Carlos I Park

I had joined a group of fellow enthusiastic foreigners and signed up to do a one month full-time TEFL teaching course. Arrogantly I expected this course to be an absolute doddle for me as a native speaker. I soon realized that I was a little out of my depth in the beginning as my computer skills from 1999 were not at the level of these young twenty somethings who grew up on Macs.

I also had the worst possible computer, a refurbished windows 7 HP computer that I bought from a scrupulous salesman helped add to the stress of completing my teaching assignments. When your words per minute typing speed is 15 wpm and you´re in a class of young twenty-somethings whose speed is 56 wpm you realize that it's going to be a challenge to keep up with the rest of the class.

Eventually thanks to very patient lecturers helping me get more organized I started delivering excellent lessons and after three years of experience, I believe that I am an excellent teacher. I guess it helps if you're passionate about helping people and you are patient. These are two useful traits that I think are imperative to have as a teacher.

What was great about our course at TT Madrid was the in-depth preparation. The body of work that we completed in one month was incredibly impressive and it made me realise how many elements go into being a teacher. It was great to have such an assortment of different nationalities on the course with me. My fellow TT graduates included American, Philippine, Australian, Brazilian, Italian, Portuguese, French and me your token Irish/English South African.

Classroom environment

Two months after graduating I joined the first of my academies. Excited but a bit apprehensive about giving my first lesson I did a bit of additional reading on various blogs from experienced teachers. My first lesson was a one to one lesson with the head of a regional tax office in Madrid. I was the third teacher she had used as she wasn´t particularly enamoured with the other three so feeling hesitant I had my first lesson.

Amazingly I thoroughly enjoyed my first lesson and the director rang the school the following week to say how delighted she was with her new teacher. My academy was asking what I did during the lesson. I said, "I followed our textbook but did a role-playing exercise involving her telling a story about herself and I recorded her responses". This wasn´t some teaching mastery that I used. Perhaps it was that I listened to her and after observing many classes and reading teaching blogs this is something that so many teachers don't do. They rarely listen to the needs of the students.

So buoyed with enthusiasm after surviving my first lesson I took on a few group classes. My first group class was an absolute nightmare. I´d say in the culpability stakes it was 50 % down to the teacher and 50% down to the design of the building. The design is a labyrinth from hell. Theseus would struggle to find the minotaur in this building! If I were Theseus walking around that building I would welcome being eaten just through absolute exasperation of walking in many different directions. Every passage looked identical. I was looking for room 450 which I assumed would be on the 4th floor but it was on the second floor and next to room 217.I subsequently found out that a lot of teachers got lost on the way to their classes.

My class was due to start at 3:30 pm and I arrived at 4:00, not a great way to start the lesson with six new students! As I mentioned earlier my dinosaur HP windows 7 computer was on its last legs. It took ten minutes to turn on and it sounded like a 15-year-old washing machine on its last spin cycle. I introduced myself and apologized for my lateness and then tripped over my laptop cable and I knocked over their whiteboard and it broke in two pieces. Thankfully it must have been amusing for them as they burst out laughing so it was a useful icebreaker for the lesson, but I was so embarrassed.

My wife (@flores39) knows how clumsy I am. I have always been this way. My theory is that when you are tall and you have those long-limbed joints one moves in a fairly cumbersome way and being clumsy is something I will take to the grave.

There are many highlights I've experienced whilst teaching. Positive feedback from your students is instrumental in one's growth as a teacher. It might be a grammar rule that has just resonated with a student or a student improving in their reading without your correction. That "Eureka" moment when a student gets it and connects with you is what one strives for as a teacher.

There is also a downside to teaching, the endless travel on the Spanish metro, and bus. Often spending 6 hours travel to chase 48 euro only to find that some of the students didn't bother coming to class. That can be particularly disheartening especially when you have spent a lot of your time developing your lesson plan. On a personal note though tolerating the smell of people that have never been introduced to deodorant is the thing that I battle with the most.

I´m blessed though doing the one job I can do without having to utilise my inferior Spanish. It's liberating to be speaking your language to the masses and getting paid for it. There are very few professions out there where one can make a reasonable living without the local lingo. So for any aspiring English teachers out there, looking for some affirmation, "Carpe Diem" and give it a go.