Business by Janice

It’s been some time since I’ve written a post related to the language training sector in Madrid so I thought it was time to remedy the situation before my TEFL readers completely abandon my blog!

The beginning of a new academic year is always unsettling for everyone, especially  for teacherswho anxiously wait for  timetables to get confirmed, but this year seems to be flowing really well. All our company clients are confiming to restart classes, we have new clients on board and the best bit of all is the quality of teacher profiles that we’re seeing. There seems to be a boyancy in the market that is reflected in all areas;my contacts in the sector are saying the same.

Teachers are applying who are properly qualified, with exceptional experience and it appears that the tightening up of “illegal” teachers, (those without working papers) has had an effect as we rarely receive CVs from teachers without papers now.

Are we at last seeing the start of a period where more participants in this market are taking it serously? I hope so. Even the clients are getting in on the act and CARING about the profile of teachers who  are assigned to their classes. This is great news.

Or perhaps our school is seeing the fruits of the long term investment in a humane and professional culture which ultimately attracts the type of client and teacher we  want to work with?

Although many of the teachers this post could be dedicated to won’t read this, I would like to say thank you for your professional applications and communication, and to your dedication to improving your skills which ultimately raises the reputation of our profession.

One tip I would like to give to teachers still looking for work - if your CV hasn’t had a response from a school you’re keen to work with, send it again - even though I myself organise the CVs I receive into appropriate electronic files, it’s often about timing. If I’m running out of available teachers so decide to do another round of interviews and several CVs land in my inbox that day, it’s often those teachers who will be contacted for interview.

And be assertive; follow up with a phone call. We receive so many CVs that some slip through the net. A quick chat on the phone may be just what is needed to make the difference between getting invited to interview or not. It doesn’t always work, but you have nothing to lose.

Here’s to a great year in English language training! I won’t be around much longer as I make my move  to Business Coaching but it would be very satisfying to leave with the feeling of “we did it”; we survived the recession, we came out the other side stronger, more positive than ever before and with an improved skill set all round.

Up to now we’ve concentrated on face to face language training but have recognised that to keep up with the times it was essential to have an on-line or “blended” product in our portfolio. And of couse the advantage to the client on this product is price.

As we’ve been hearing so many comments about budgets contratints from our existing clients, you would think that the offering of a product which allows language training to continue and at the same time meets new (much lower) expectations on price would be welcomed or at least considered.

I don’t know what other schools’ experience has been so far this year in this area, but we just can’t seem to raise any interest for this type of product.  Every time, the reaction has been that there is nothing like having a real flesh and blood teacher to motivate the student and on line classes are a very poor substitute.

Quite frankly, I totally agree. And so I wonder if I’m  projecting my beliefs on this subject subconsciously onto the client which then accounts for the results I’m getting? At the end of the day we are really only successful in selling what we feel passionately about.

I’d be interested to know if other schools have seen an increase in their on-line products this year and whether they feel this can be attributed to prices sensitivity in this recession.

Times of crisis affect everyone differently but the one thing that impacts on any of us is our level of proactivity.

What prompted me to write this post this week is the varying attitudes I see from teachers as they hunt for classes. There are teachers who take full responsibility for their own future and calmly and persistently seek out the few vacant classes that are around, and there are others that consistently project their neediness on us, demanding that we find them classes.

Getting more classes is what our business  about,  so of course , as business owners, we are going to be as proactive as possible to  achieve that end. In fact,  if we don’t have a minimum number of classes running, we are in danger of falling into a headlong spiral of losses which could ultmately result in the loss of our houses as the majority of the overdrafts from the bank are guaranteed by the business owners’ properties! The old story of entreprenuers taking risks in anticipation of greater rewards, I know. I just like to throw it in from time to time.

My observations this week got me thinking that regardless of whether you are an employee or an employer, you are responsible for your future. We are all our own “personal corporation” and must invest in ourselves and act accordingly. It is indeed our level of proactivity will give us results and shape our lives.

Times of economic recession are times of adjustment, reshuffling and flexibility. The first challenge for many comes from a simple acceptance of a situation. Yes, times are hard, let’s accept that and just get on with it. The next step is to ask ourselves, what needs to be done differently? How can I adjust to this new situation? How can I be flexible to change what I’m doing to fit this new situation? Because that what recession is - a process of change, so it makes sense for us to change as well. If we don’t, we will be in a state of resistance with all the negativity and conflict that that would involve.

I love the spiritual tenet that nothing is good or bad, it just is.  Something is a problem because we decide to name it so, and then surround the situation with negative energy.  If not controlled, that negative energy then takes on a force of its own as more negative thoughts are drawn to it by the Law of Attraction. Before long, we see a physical manifestation of our negative thoughts.

So, where are you? Do you view the crisis as a problem? If you do, what can you do to change your perspective? Because the crisis just is, the problem lies in how you see it.

For the last two years the EFL market in Madrid has been challenging to say the least.

There has been a severe shortage of  teachers which has led to many without qualifications and working papers getting work. Another effect has been  teachers suddenly dropping classes  as they are offered 2€/hour extra in the academy down the road etc.etc.

But then the famous “crisis” came along. I’m not sure what it’s like in the rest of Spain but here in Madrid there has been a total turnaround in demand and supply. All of a sudden teachers are in abundant supply as multinationals cut their training budgets and hence their demand for language classes.

Ok, you’re saying, this is all very obvious and to be expected, but I was inspired to write this post thinking more of  those teachers coming to Madrid to look for work. What are the implications of the current situation for incoming teachers?

Firstly, if you are non EU and don’t have working papers for Spain, you are going to find it very difficult to find classes. I’ve received quite a few emails from American teachers already expressing this. However, a large supply of legal teachers available in Madrid is not the only reason why non legals are feeling the pinch. In general the Spanish authorities are tightening up in lots of areas which is making schools take a long hard look at the way they are doing things.

To illustrate what I’m talking about, in the last few months we have had the following:

• A visit from the local police to check our “licencia de actividades”
• An inspection from the Ministerio del Trabajo on the correctness of the baja of a teacher
• A visit from the “Departamento de Consumo” of the Town Hall to make sure (and help us get in order-  what a civilised way of doing things!) that we weren’t in breach of the laws governing consumer rights.
• Calls from company clients to ask for the TCS (the document proving that teachers have had a contract) so they could complete the offical paperwork necessary to claim the Government training subsidy.

The point I’m making here is that SPAIN IS TIGHTENING UP. Recruiting non EU teachers without papers is one of the most serious things that an academy can do. Many are no longer prepared to take the risk, and with the market being as it is at the moment, most academies don’t need to.

Another implication of the effects of the crisis is that in general, in order to be more competitive in the labour market, people improve their skills and qualifications. And this, of course, applies to teachers.

The proliferation of short TEFL courses might be ok for getting you a job when there are lots of classes available. But when there aren’t, no reputable school is going to give a weekend TEFL course a second glance. What we want as a minimum is ALWAYS the full 4 week long TEFL (I’m referring to the full time course here). We have always, and will always want this. Teaching is complex and you are simply not prepared for it properly with a mere weekend’s training.

Economic recessions lead to readjustments. Leaving the emotional side apart, of people losing their jobs and houses etc, recessions are necessary, some would say even good, as they cause economies to strengthen and move forward. I have a couple of friends who are economists and when I ask them about the “crisis”, it always strikes me how calm and fatalistic they are.

So where may we see readjustments in our market?

If the current situation stops non EU teachers comng to Spain, it means they won’t suffer not finding work once they’re here and it prevents schools from being tempted to hire them and running the risk of being prosecuted.

If the current situation encourages new teachers to get a better TEFL qualification, it means we will be sending better  teachers to clients and the quality of the sector in general will improve.

This is what we are crying out for in Madrid - BETTER QUALITY LANGUAGE TRAINING.

And finally, looking at this whole issue from the business side of the school, what implications do we have there?  That’s easy. If there is less demand for classes, those schools who are not offering a good service need to get their finger out and start offering one, otherwise they will go out of business.

What are we talking about again?  - BETTER QUALITY LANGUAGE TRAINING.

I’ve just returned from Seville. No frilly flemenco dresses in sight though as I was there to attend 2 conferences related to our sector. The first was the FECEI conference on Friday (Federación Española de Centros de Enseñanza de Idiomas) aimed at academy owners and the second on Saturday, the ACEIA conference (Asociación de Centros de Enseñanza de Idiomas de Andalucia) aimed at everyone related to the sector. What a buzz to see  the place full of over 350  teachers willing to give up their saturday to learn something new, seeking inspiration and motivation via the speakers at the workshops.

But you know, there’s only around 80 schools in Andalucia. In Madrid we have over 300! Where’s the buzz in Madrid? Just think what could be generated in our capital city? So what’s going on in Andalucia?

The energy in Andalucia is coming from the President of FECEI, Richard Johson and a small team of incredibly ENTHUSIASTIC academy owners who belong to ACEIA who have realised how much more productive (and fun) it is to collaborate. They have discovered that collaboration leads to creativity, learning and improvements in the way we do things, which ultimately leads to IMPROVEMENTS IN OUR SECTOR, a subject which for those of you who regularly read my blog know I’m passionate about.

Richard told me some time ago the story of ACEIA, how there used to be loads of cowboy schools in Andalucia and how gradually standards have improved leading to better contracts and conditions for teachers, more professionality in the managing of the schools and a better service to the customer.

Collaboration is also a passion of mine, and attending these conferences made me realise exactly how much power there is in relationships. Apart from what I learnt from the talks about running an “exemplary” school, tips  for recruiting and retaining teachers, how to manage our offcial funds for training and what’s happening in the EFL market at the global level, I came away with ideas for marketing and positioning a section of our company, concrete contacts to introduce different products and lots of other things.

In fact I was invited to talk about the advantages of collaboration, and there are two sentences that stand out for me from my talk. The first is that “no industry has ever developed or prospered by its businesses operating in isolation”. Apart from myself, there was only one other school from Madrid represented at the FECEI conference, that was Hyland.

What the hell is going on in Madrid?

The answer to that is easy - nothing. We’ve probably got the most acute issues of the whole country (don’t need to list them as they’re all to found on the other posts on this blog), and nothing is happening to try and address them. I’ve held a couple of informal meetings over the last year  with a group of around 10 school owners to try and get something off the ground, (it’s still early days), and do you know how many emails I actually sent out with not even a response? 80!

It’s great to see lots of blogs by teachers but where are the academy owners? Are you that apathetic? Don’t you care?  There’s so much we could do if we just started building a relationship  with each other. When an industry is having problems it’s very difficult for an individual business to soldier on alone.

The second sentence from my talk which is always on my mind is, “the greatest resource is a relationship because it opens the door to every other resouce you may need”. I owe this to the author James Ray, from the Book “Harmonic Weath”, (recommended reading).  As a  school owner, when you’re not sure if your gestoria’s doing the contracts properly, when you need help improving the format of your level test, when you’re not sure what to include in a company client’s contract, if you’ve built a nework in your sector of people you like and trust, you can always find the answer to what you’re looking for.

Power really is in relationships. It was great to see that exemplified this weekend in Seville and I encourage anyone reading this post to reflect on that. In fact it’s motivated me to organise a third networking meeting here in Madrid, (just in case it ocurred to anyone to comment saying, that’s alright Janice but what are YOU going to do about what you’re writing about!)

Hey, talking about relationships, you can start (or consolidate) a relationship just by commenting on this post. I would love to get more feedback from other language school owners. What do you think? Have I got a point or am I being unrealistically utopian?

In a word, there would be chaos.

One of the most frustrating parts of running a business is when there exists an obstacle which hinders you from satisfying a demand and therefore from selling.  I often ask myself, why can’t American teachers get work visas when the demand for English is so huge?

It doesn’t make sense.

I haven’t done a great deal of research into this, I presume the Spanish government believes that there are enough qualified Spanish teachers of English to satisfy demand and that’s why they won’t give any quota on this immigration category.  What the government don’t appear to understand however is our market works; how many times have you heard clients say they want a native? Ok, they might accept a Romanian or Polish teacher (who are usually excellent with grammar by the way),  but a Spanish teacher of English is largely frowned upon.

We would love to employ American teachers, I love their work ethic, they’re generally enthusiastic and hard working but  the risk is immense, it’s one thing to have an inspection and to be found to have some errors in the contracts of European teachers and quite another to be found to be “employing” illegals. The fine can close your business. Is it worth the risk?

Apparently, for lots of schools in Madrid, yes, they feel that it’s still worth taking the risk, although I believe more and more are becoming cautious and  saying no. I’m amazed however by how many American teachers come here to do TEFL and then believe they can get a job when they know they will be illegal.

The ideal situation would be for qualifed non EU teachers to receive work visas of one to two years. Everyone would be happy, schools would have a wider choice of teachers and could therefore pay more attention to finding the right teacher for  a certain profile of class, the non EU teachers would at last be able to work for the reputable schools, clients would get their classes covered more quickly and those Spanish teachers of English whose strong accent gets in the way of giving effective classes wouldn’t be affected as they rarely got assigned classes in the first place!

Does anyone out there reading this know if there’s anything happening about this situation? Does anyone or group of people even have the energy never mind the time to lobby for action in this area?

I know we don’t live in a perfect world, and in fact, the TEFL world is much less than perfect in many respects, but when we have such an imbalance between the demand for English and the supply of teachers who can teach it, surely SOMETHING  can be done.

Firstly, my apologies for leaving it so long between posts, I had a problem with accessing the page coupled with the usual hectic period of September/October setting up courses, recruiting etc.

It’s come to my attention that many prospective new clients are really putting pressure on getting price down which I suppose is quite understandable given the current economic conditions.

Will schools concede on this and will quality be affected?

Margins are really low in this industry to start with and if competition gets any fiercer, we may well see the standard of service decline in terms of communication with the client, mix ups with class organisation etc. It’s very unlikely (if other academy owners have any common sense) that teacher rates will be reduced to rebalance the margin on classes, as we’re still experiencing a shortage of teachers especially here in Madrid. Teachers can choose where to work and they’re certainly not going to, and shouldn’t, work for peanuts.

Time and time again we try to point out to clients that it’s not the PRICE that is important, it’s the COST of classes. A company can contract the cheapest language school in the city, but if that school is employing non qualiified and inexperienced teachers, the cost to that company is HUGE as the students won’t make the desired progress. The company might as well flush their money down the drain.  If budgets ARE tight, It’s a much more sensible to contract fewer classes with a school that guarantees quality, thereby ensuring  a return on investment on those students receiving quality teaching.

In any crisis it’s inevitable that there is some reshuffling of position in the market to maintain  a certain level of business.  Some  schools however, stressed out by fighting fires all day, may decide that it’s not worth it  any more. If you no longer enjoy your workas you have less and less resources with which to run your business and provide a decent service, what’s the point?

Quite frankly I refuse to be pulled into this doom and gloom. I’m not saying that these aren’t challenging times but if we fan the fire with pessimism we just get pulled futher down into “problems”.

I love the saying, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going”. If an economic crisis means you have to be more creative in looking for clients (who’ll pay your rates), so be it - at least you hone your sales and marketing skills. If it means you have to monitor your budgets more carefully, fine, again this experience adds to your business skills.

There is always a positive side to every negative situation and those who ARE positive stand out, they attact good things to them. (For those of you who know anything about the Law of Attraction, you’ll know where I’m coming from, more about that in later posts).

So, will quality in our sector be sacrificed in the “Crisis”?  - Only if you want it to be.

… a very pertinent question, and if we get down to the nitty gritty we could ask, would I employ a teacher who didn’t have TEFL? (Teaching English as a Foreign Language)

When I interview I’m looking for a teacher who satisfies certain basic criteria:

• they are aware of the importance of setting learning objectives
• they confidently tell me what they think about when planning a class
• they have a reasonable handle on grammar, at least knowing the difference between certain tenses
• they talk about error correction techniques and how they recycle previously taught language
• they take needs analysis for granted
• they are aware of what type of activities motivate different student groups

I’m also looking for people who have excellent communication skills and an assertive personality.

Could a teacher satisfy the listed criteria without having done a TEFL course? It’s quite possible.

However, unless the teacher has an exceptional CV with many years teaching and other professional experience, and their covering letter has really caught my eye, it would be difficult to move to the stage of being invited to interview with our school. Like any skills based qualification, TEFL acts as a sceening device and does indicate to us that the teacher at least knows the basic teaching techniques.

I remember when I first started teaching I did some private classes before doing my CELTA. The before and after was amazing and quite frankly I felt gulity that I had actually charged people for my classes pre CELTA, I knew NOTHING! That’s another reason why I’m sceptical about all the week end and on line courses that have suddenly appeared on the market. How much can you really learn in a week end? And it can’t possibly compare to a full 4 week course. In my interviews I always ask the teacher for their opinon of the course and nine times out of ten I get a strong reaction saying that they found the course extremely challenging.

There’s also the personal development angle. If you’re serious about doing something, shouldn’t you try to do it to the best of your ability?  So if you want to teach and be taken seriously you need to do a TEFL course. Some people may say that the cost is prohibitive, but as mentioned above, there’s a TEFL course to fit every pocket and SOMETHING is better than nothing. At least it demonstrates some commitment.

Here in Madrid as I’ve mentioned in another post, the demand for English is HUGE, which means that there is work for every type of teacher, TEFL or no TEFL. And I think that is a big shame as it’s lowering standards and consequently damaging the reputation of our industry.

So please, if you are thinking of going into teaching, take yourself and our sector seriously and get TEFLed.

I was out with a group friends the other night and we got to talking about people’s experience of English classes. One of the girls who has worked many years as a management consultant commented that her major complaint of many of the classes she’s received is that there is no obvious method. By method she meant a disciplined structure to every class that would take her securely to the end result she was looking for.

There are of course some schools who have their own method such as Vaughn Systems and Berlitz but the majority of schools leave the details of how the class is going to be imparted up to the individual teacher. The majority of these teachers have been trained in teaching techniques, handling classroom dynamics, planning a class etc via their TEFL course but when they get into class they decide exactly how they are going to teach to achieve the results required. Now that is a BIG responsibility.

And the course books the teachers are issued with have so much material that the teacher is often overwhelmed, either trying to fit it all in in class and not covering anything properly, or throwing in the towel and going in with photocopies from internet.

Now there are some excellent teachers out there, but there are many that, even armed with TEFL, seem to need a good dose of discipline to give structured classes. Can we depend on our teachers to give disciplined classes, to stick to their class plans and so lead the student forward to achieve their objectives? And if we can’t depend on our teachers to do this, how much extra training and feedback do we need to do to ensure it does happen, and does this fit into our cost/revenue structure?

Throughly TEFL trained teachers can add a diversity and richness to classes via the use of imaginative activities not found in those that use a specific methodology. And these teachers can adapt their approach to the different learning styles and interests of the students, to get right into the individual’s motivation for learning. But how many teachers do this as effectively as we would wish? The more freedom we give to the teacher, the more risk we take that the class is not as effective as we would want.

So, which is the best way? A strict methodology to ensure specific results or a more open approach to try and satisfy the different learning styles and interests of the student?

Whether you are a teacher, student or language school director I’d be very interested to hear which approach you favour and why.

It surprises me how many people are fearful of competition.

If competition didn’t exist where would we be? - Every company would function in the same old way (a bit like funcionarios actually - although I have to admit I’ve seen quite a few changes here in Spain over the last 20 years!)) and we would become bored by a lack of challenge and lack of satisfaction of achievement.

Competition motivates us to do the best we can - to look for the best teachers, to go that extra mile with the customer, to look for ways to motivate and retain our best staff. And if we’re doing the best we can with a viable business model there’s a good chance that our business will be successful.

But let’s go one step further - collaboration with your competitors is EVEN BETTER!

As soon as you form a relationship with a competitor any sense of insecurity, fear or scarcity between you disappears and you can take advantage of exhange of best practices, mutual contacts etc which can help to grow your business. It’s all about the sum being greater than the individual parts.

I’ve had experience of this recently in our sector and it’s proved to be very positive.

We share teachers with some of our “competitors”. If a contact rings up looking for a teacher for a specific time and we’ve got one free, if the teacher is interested in the class, great. We’ve done a favour for the teacher and helped out another school. With the current teacher shortage in Madrid, there’s no point in trying to keep hourly contracted teachers to yourself as they’ll find classes themselves within a couple of days anyway.

Every company has strengths and weaknesses. if you can partner up with a school that has opposites strengths to yours you’re in a win-win situation. We recently spent some time with another school who were very strong on marketing and sales but weak pedagogically, our situation was exactly the reverse. We’ve exchanged information on telemarketing companies, scripts, databases, sales techniques, level tests, training, teacher interview questions and lots more. Both our companies have benefitted. If that happened between more schools I’m sure the sector would become more professional.

Just imagine how the whole sector could be improved if schools got together to pool their knowledge and we adopted best practices in the areas of:

• teacher sourcing
• teacher interviewing and selection
• pedagogic systems
• teacher training
• remuneration packages which were mutally beneficial to teacher and language school
• administration systems
• contractual policy with clients

and I’m sure there’s many other areas you can think of.

Whilst we’re all working in isolation we stick to our own way of doing things because basically we’re all creatures of habit with our particular perceptions of the world.

If we’re confident that we’re doing a good job running our schools why should we be afraid of competition? It’s much more interesting to get to know other academy owners, share experiences and ideas and know that other people with the same or a similar job are having to deal with the same issues as you.

If you run a school here in Madrid and share my point of view, let me know, as a group of owner/directors have been meeting up recently to get to know each other and share ideas etc as described above. We’d love to see some new faces.

The demand for English Language training in Madrid is huge, there’s enough business to go round for everyone if you’re providing a quality service. Competition is necessary and acts as an impetus for us to get better and better. As stated in many business books - if your business is not growing it’s dying.

However when competition is viewed as a collaborative, learning opportunity then it’s win win for everyone.