Business by Janice

I’m sure many teachers have often wondered what it would be like to run a school themselves.

Would it work out?

Would they be able to earn more money?

Would they get more job satisfaction?

Quite frankly, until you try it you’ll never know. Let’s look at what might be involved.

From a risk point of view we’re in a very fortunate industry. We don’t have to invest in expensive machinery or buy in stock that may never sell. As we get a class, we teach it ourselves or we find a teacher to teach it for us. When the class finishes, the teacher finishes. as simple as that.

Everyone’s story of how they got into running a language school is different. In my case, I was teaching at a school that was already established, the owners wanted to sell and asked if I was interested in buying it. Here the risk was low, as it was already a going concern, students were guaranteed, all that was needed was to work to increase student numbers and company clients.

Many teachers begin by becoming autonomo to be able to take on corporate clients themselves, and then as they become well known and are asked to do more and more classes, they subcontract out these classes to other teachers. Eventually their base grows to such an extent that they open an office and begin to set up administration and pedagogic systems, contract a gestoria etc. The successful teacher is now on their way to becoming a successful business owner and they begin to juggle those balls I referred to in an earlier post. If you’ve got previous management experience and have been trained in such things as time management, leadership, sales skills, interviewing techniques and basic financial management skills you’ll be way ahead of the competition. Let’s face it, to combine general management experience with an expert knowledge of your product (TEFL) has to be a winning combination.

So what happens now?

I believe that the biggest factors influencing the success of a school are focus and vision.

Now you’re running a business instead of just teaching, what do you want from this business? This is the most important question any business owner can ask themselves and the question we always start with when we are coaching such people.

The questions you may want to ask yourself are:

• How big do I want this business to grow?
• Am I prepared to put in the hours the business needs to get established?
• What niche of the market do I want to concentrate on?
• Am I prepared to take a financial risk if necessary?
• Who do I know who can help me?
• What lifestyle do I want?
• What are my strengths?
• What are my weaknesses?

It’s by asking yourself questions such as these that you can formulate your vision and from your vision you formulate your business plan and set your goals.  People and businesses often become confused and lost because they don’t know where they’re going. It’s also often the case  that you see other schools doing different things and you say to yourself, “should I be doing that?” If you’ve spent some time initially deciding what sort of business and lifestyle you want, you will immediately know the answer instead of wasting time debating whether to follow or not.

We’re lucky; we’re in a market where the demand for our service is huge. The downside is that the competition is extremely fierce. If you are offering a good service at a reasonable price, keeping an eye on the financials, know what you want to achieve and by when, you shouldn’t have too many problems. Beware of your weaknesses however.

As your business grows it’s important to recognise the weak areas and find the necessary resources to fill the gaps.

If want to own a large school, one of the most important tips I could pass on would be to keep your head up and look at your business as a whole, don’t get too hands on, don’t get too involved with the teaching and ignore the business development. If you do, you will continue to be a great teacher but you will be lucky to achieve your goal of having a great school.

If there are any teachers/language school owners out there who would like to raise any questions about business development, I’d be happy to answer them and this would give concrete examples to teachers who are thinking of starting up on their own. I don’t profess to be an expert, that’s the great thing about running your own business, you’re always learning. However, we have been running our school now for 9 years and my recent training in small business coaching is contributing tremendously to our progress.

… 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.

It’s the beginning of September so we’re all busy trying to fit ourselves into this giant jigsaw puzzle of timetables.

If you’re a teacher and new to the city or looking to change schools you’ll be sending your CV to lots of places.

I thought that this week would be good time to give those teachers who read my blog some tips and hints on how to make sure your application for a teaching post stands out.

Nowadays most teachers send an email with their CV attached and I have to say I do prefer to receive Cvs this way instead of a phone call, I think it’s more professional.

So here are my tips for getting noticed and getting that interview:

• Include a solid email heading that SAYS something. For example, “TEFL qualified teacher looking for full time work” or Teacher with 6 years experience seeking work“. In both these examples the words “TEFL qualified” and “6 years experience” grab my attention and I would open this mail before any others.

• Make sure you include a brief covering mail to introduce your CV which includes the most important and relevant points. A sentence here  about your personality is fine but please, just keep it to one or I will lose interest and I’ll  find out about your personality at the interview anyway.

• If you’re not already in Madrid, include in the mail the date you will be arriving and available for interview, this helps us to prioritise our responses to all the applications we get.

• Mentioning your teaching strengths is ideal so we immediately get an idea of your profile, whether you’re suitable for Young Learners or companies for example.

• It’s very helpful to tell us in your mail where you found the school so we have an idea of how our publicity is working

• Try and keep your CV to two pages maximum

• There is no need to include educational qualifications below A level

• Be specific about your TEFL qualification, what type it is and it’s duration, especially if it’s the full 4 week course, these are the ones we prefer. There are many short courses now on the market and if you’ve invested all that money in a 4 week one, make sure it’s clear.

• Make sure you include dates so we can clearly see from your CV how much teaching and work experience you’ve actually had.

• Be clear about your nationality and if you aren’t from the E.U. please let us know if you have working papers for Spain or not. This saves me time getting back to you to ask you.

• Keep details about hobbies very brief

• Any information which demonstrates assertiveness and initiative is very welcome

• Tell us if you have a car.  We’re desperate for teachers with cars as many companies now operate from out of town business parks.

Remember, we are most interested in your TEFL qualification, teaching experience, your legality to work and your availabilty.  If you express this information clearly and politely and you tell us exactly what type of classes and timetable you’re looking for you’ll get lots of interviews arranged very quickly.

Good luck!