Business by Janice

Had a great meeting the other day with about 15 other language school owners/directors.  This was the third time we’ve met, originally called a “networking” event so as not to scare anyone off but now definately converted into “meeting”  We were talking  about the issues that concern us and it was great to see respresentation from some of the “big boys” like International House and Astex as well as small agencies who work with just a handful of teachers.

Two issues received the most attention - American teachers without papers and the inflexibiity and ignorance of many clients re. achieving language learning objectives (does this sound familiar?)

I won’t go into the all the details of the discussion on these topics as basically the points are covered in other posts in my blog. An interesting point was raised however regarding the Americans - how is it that certain schools do get Americans their papers when we’re all being told that there is no quota for American teachers?  Before you all cry out “don’t be naive Janice, we’re in Spain after all, the “enchufe” culture is still rife”, yes I know this is bound to a factor in there somewhere but even so….

I don’t have the data but it seems that there’s been no quota for Amercian teachers for years. Of course the Administration always contend that there are enough Spanish English teachers to meet demand. But what demand? The demand for Spanish teachers of English is virtually non existent. We reckon the Spanish Government DOES NOT UNDERSTAND OUR MARKET. Spanish companies DO NOT want to be taught by Spanish nationals with an intermediate level of English at best.  If our group grows, and indeed nearly everyone present is keen to move forward on the forming of an association to promote quality, best practices and to resolve key issues, it was thought that  we could easily get support from our top clients eg. Telefonica, Repsol, Ibedrola etc to prove that Spanish teachers are NOT the teachers who are equipping their top directors with the language skills they need to perform in the global market.

Another thing which I’m reflecting on since our meeting is that there IS energy here in Madrid, there IS a desire to try  to improve things in the sector.  What everyone wants is to be able to find well qualified, conscientious teachers to provide an excellent service to clients who take language learning seriously. (And it was agreed that the majority of American teachers are the conscientious and reliable ones).  I’m surprised that this interest and energy hasn’t been sought out and channelled before. There IS an association here in Madrid called ACEDIM yet hardly anyone at our meeting had heard of it. If there’s anyone from ACEDIM reading this blog it’d be great to hear from you.

So,  I think the word is spreading. Making a difference takes a lot of time and energy, but in the meantime if we can at least come together, take steps in the right direction and have fun doing it (VERY important), well that’s fine by me.  And who knows….

I had a meeting the other day with one of our most important clients and the HR manager said something which has had me thinking ever since…

This company invest a lot of money in language training and work with several providers - they have to,  one provider wouldn’t be able to satisfy all their needs. We were talking about the usual… the ojectives of the client, the individual objectives of the students, how different students are motivated in different ways etc., when she casually commented that in general, there doesn’t seem to be a particularly high degree of satisfaction with any of their providers.

WHAT?!!

Now I didn’t take this personally (I’m too resilient for that), but it’s been niggling at me for the last few days. What can we (or any language provider) do to address this sensation that probably many clients have. Is it to do with us, is it to do with the set up in the companies or is it to do the individual students?

In essence I really feel that the companies hold the key and that it often comes back to how seriously they take their language learning programme.

Many teachers having first gone autonomo, then decide to set up (or fall into) their own agency. It seems a relatively easy way to make a living. But at the same time there are lots of academy owners who consciously take the decision NOT  to work with companies for the following reasons:

• Many companies want the the best teachers at the lowest price
• Many companies won’t pay for cancelled classes
• Many students cancel over half of their classes
• Teachers become demotivated and drop classes…

And the list goes on (covered in other posts). There really is something that is a BIG challenge in corporate.

Yet when there is a situation that is not ideal, isn’t this the perfect opportunity to look for new solutions?

Is this a case for specific methodologies? But specific methodologies don’t suit every learner or every circumstance.

Do we need to be more flexible? But can we be more flexible and run a profitable business? Can we be more flexible and at the same time provide our teachers with a stable  income?

And whose satisfaction are we actually talking about? The students’ or the HR Manager’s? Perhaps the perception of the HR department is not totally accurate. I use the word “accurate” but using what criteria?

All very interesting stuff. As you can see I’m in quite a reflective mood…

Perhaps we should be talking to our clients and students a lot more and asking them the most important question of all… WHAT DO YOU WANT?

Teachers should be the first to be asking this question in class, and I really think they don’t ask it often enough. (Perhaps they’re scared of receiving honest feedback). But it also needs to come down from the top - What do our clients want? Perhaps they don’t know what they want, they only know what they DON’T WANT. If that’s the case then as professionals we can advise them and possibly together come up with new ideas for their training needs.  Thinking out of the box is often what’s needed.