I taught English in Bogota, Colombia.
First of all, for anyone with any ideas of making money doing this, absolutely forget it.
The way this works, as far as getting a "good" job is thus:
Most places that pay anywhere near "decent" will be catering to businesses which want classes for their employees before and after the working day. So a typical teacher's schedule would look something like this:
6am-8am: Class
6pm-8pm: Class
This seems OK, until you consider that Bogota is an immense city with awful transportation, and realistically, you may be commuting for 1-2 hours each way for each of your classes. So teaching a 6am class somewhere really means waking up at 4am.
Now if you're in Colombia, perhaps you're there to enjoy yourself and don't want to wake up at 4am every day. Many people are that way. And so many English teachers call out of 4am classes quite a lot. Also, imagine you have a family and are working an office job in Colombia. Maybe you don't want to get to work 2 hours earlier than usual or stay 2 hours late for English classes every time, even though it seemed like a good idea to you at the time when you signed up. So lots of times, your students don't show up either.
Normally, you will be given a schedule where you have classes with, say, 2 different companies. Usually, you do not have classes at the same company every day. So you may teach classes at Company A's office from 6-8am on Monday, Wendesday, and Friday, and teach classes at Company B's office from 6-8pm on Monday-Thursday.
Normally classes are 1.5 hours or 2 hours. You should expect to make at least $35 mil for a class, and up to $60 mil. That is, if you're working for International House or something like that.
These offices are probably far from where you live, since the cool places to live are not really near the places with lots of offices. So you will be commuting a lot. For about half the year in Bogota, it can rain torrential downpour at any moment, so you may leave your apartment and it's sunny, and then arrive during a torrential downpour. You will not be taking taxis because that will be too expensive, so you will be taking busses, and the stops may not be terribly close to the location you're working at. So besides bringing an umbrella with you everywhere you go, you will need to think seriously about wearing waterproof boots everywhere you go for half the year. Or you will be up to your ankles in water wearing some ruined-ass shoes.
If you were hustling hard, you would set up private classes during the day or in the evening. For a time I taught private classes at a restaurant where they got lots of tourists, I taught them how to speak to the tourists about their menu and what the items were. That lasted for a few months until the owner decided he did not like the expense, and stopped the classes. Many private students followed that pattern.
I had a CELTA. Many places will hire you without a CELTA. Some will not. Usually places will pay higher for a candidate with a CELTA than one without. A normal teacher's salary might be 1.5 million COP a month, if you have a CELTA. It is not unusual for companies to pay you an incorrect amount, so keep your records. It is also not unusual for payment to be a bit delayed because of this or that problem.
To get a work visa, a company needs to sponsor you. My company, International House, sponsored me and paid for the entire process, including flights to Venezuela and a hotel there, which was less fun than I thought it might be, since we ended up in a quiet border town where they had nothing to do at night.
The types of companies that hire you and contract you out to offices to teach classes, like International House, or Peterson's, are the basis of your ESL business there.
There are other companies which pop up all the time, one such I know called "Verve" which offer private classes to wealthy people in Bogota. These classes can pay just as much as teaching an entire room full of office workers. Of course, rich clients expect a better quality product than office workers who basically expect the drudgery of running through a textbook without much thought.
Setting up private classes would be the best way to make actual money, but they are often precarious. People there would like to learn English, but salaries are very low. Lawyers can make as little as 1 million COP a month, so they aren't going to be able to pay you very much. Very often private classes are short-lived as people fully realize what a huge expense it is to pay you anything that would make it worth your time.
At "Verve" I ended up doing private classes at the home of a University student. Really, that might be the best way to do things, is meet University students who have wealthy parents and organize some type of group classes with them.
The lifestyle of the ESL teacher in Bogota is basically awful, if you compare it to a western lifestyle. You likely have an awfully shitty bed, because buying a nice bed is worth about 1-2 months' salary. Many for instance sleep on roll-out mattresses on a floor.
You likely drink way more than you should on your salary, as beers cost about 2mil COP which seems cheap until you realize that you really only have about 20-40mil COP to spend a day without going completely broke.
You will probably hang out with lots of grifters and hustlers and criminals, and quickly that will seem normal. In a certain way this can be fun or seem interesting for a while, I don't know what this phenomenon is called, slumming it? Some may enjoy it. I definitely thought it was invigorating to mix with the lower elements of society, something I had never really done before.
The food in Colombia, in Bogota, in my opinion, was bad. It was bland, it lacked flavors, it was like they took good ingredients and ruined them. Fresh meat and vegetables are remarkably chepa there. I got like 7 pounds of fresh beef tenderloid for $14mil COP (7 dollars) I remember. An egg is 200COP (about 10 cents). A giant bag of carrots is like 2milCOP (1 dollar). You can cook and buy all the ingredients to make wonderful fresh food, but the stuff they prepare is just pretty bad overall in my opinion. Overcooked dry chewy meat was really common. Super salty or no salt at all was another thing that bothered me. You are better off cooking for yourself honestly.
As for the girls, here's the messed up part.
You will be living as a person who, from a first-world perspective, is basically in poverty. From a local perspective, having your own room full of beer cans and a roll-out bed on the floor is a lot more than many many people have down there. Basically, having your own place of any sort is a real plus down there.
Obviously you will not be dealing with rich socialites and classy ladies. But there are plenty of very cute girls who are not at all ratty or scummy who will gladly share time with you. And if you are into the ratty and scummy girls, there are many of those too. I mean, it was a real shock coming back to the U.S. afterwards. I had graduated college and went to Colombia, and seeing the struggle that the average guy has with girls in the U.S. I was completely shocked. None of my friends could understand, they think I'm crazy, talking about the problems of obesity and how ugly/fat/annoying girls are here. But seriously, on a poverty salary in Colombia, your experience with girls will be 10X better than the average guy making 50k in the USA. The amount of easy pussy that guys with blonde hair/light eyes get is especially ridiculous, as guys who were complete weirdos with no game, style, or anything would frequently get with girls that would be impossible for them in the U.S.
Overall, it was an experience I look back on with very mixed emotions. It helped me become fluent in Spanish, at the time I certainly enjoyed myself, it's a chapter of my life I will always remember fondly no doubt. I left with no money but a lot of interesting memories. I would say I am very happy I did it, and learning Spanish is a huge plus to me. I also learned to dance a little, and how to best adjust to new situations. As an adult though, I left there with little in the way of skills or real world experiences. Sometimes in job interviews, people seem really fascinated that I have done this, they see it as a positive, clearly vicariously living their wanderlust through me. Others understand that this was just a gig anyone could have gotten to bum around South America for a while. Without a doubt, it was a year that I was very happy during. Certainly happier than working a job in the United States, despite the third-world living.
Overall I would recommend people do this if they are curious. 1 thing I would say is make sure you have a few thousand dollars "fuck you" money that you do not touch at all, in case of emergency.
And finally, I knew people who did this WITHOUT a university degree. Their experience was no different than mine. They had as much fun, as many struggles, and learned just as much. This job really is perfect for people BEFORE they go to University. It is a wonderful learning experience that can help you think about what you want to do with your life, but isn't really going to put you on any professional track at all. I think I would recommend to anyone who just graduated High School that they should forego University for a while and, if they're interested, teach English abroad somewhere living like a lowlife and seeing a different side of the world.
First of all, for anyone with any ideas of making money doing this, absolutely forget it.
The way this works, as far as getting a "good" job is thus:
Most places that pay anywhere near "decent" will be catering to businesses which want classes for their employees before and after the working day. So a typical teacher's schedule would look something like this:
6am-8am: Class
6pm-8pm: Class
This seems OK, until you consider that Bogota is an immense city with awful transportation, and realistically, you may be commuting for 1-2 hours each way for each of your classes. So teaching a 6am class somewhere really means waking up at 4am.
Now if you're in Colombia, perhaps you're there to enjoy yourself and don't want to wake up at 4am every day. Many people are that way. And so many English teachers call out of 4am classes quite a lot. Also, imagine you have a family and are working an office job in Colombia. Maybe you don't want to get to work 2 hours earlier than usual or stay 2 hours late for English classes every time, even though it seemed like a good idea to you at the time when you signed up. So lots of times, your students don't show up either.
Normally, you will be given a schedule where you have classes with, say, 2 different companies. Usually, you do not have classes at the same company every day. So you may teach classes at Company A's office from 6-8am on Monday, Wendesday, and Friday, and teach classes at Company B's office from 6-8pm on Monday-Thursday.
Normally classes are 1.5 hours or 2 hours. You should expect to make at least $35 mil for a class, and up to $60 mil. That is, if you're working for International House or something like that.
These offices are probably far from where you live, since the cool places to live are not really near the places with lots of offices. So you will be commuting a lot. For about half the year in Bogota, it can rain torrential downpour at any moment, so you may leave your apartment and it's sunny, and then arrive during a torrential downpour. You will not be taking taxis because that will be too expensive, so you will be taking busses, and the stops may not be terribly close to the location you're working at. So besides bringing an umbrella with you everywhere you go, you will need to think seriously about wearing waterproof boots everywhere you go for half the year. Or you will be up to your ankles in water wearing some ruined-ass shoes.
If you were hustling hard, you would set up private classes during the day or in the evening. For a time I taught private classes at a restaurant where they got lots of tourists, I taught them how to speak to the tourists about their menu and what the items were. That lasted for a few months until the owner decided he did not like the expense, and stopped the classes. Many private students followed that pattern.
I had a CELTA. Many places will hire you without a CELTA. Some will not. Usually places will pay higher for a candidate with a CELTA than one without. A normal teacher's salary might be 1.5 million COP a month, if you have a CELTA. It is not unusual for companies to pay you an incorrect amount, so keep your records. It is also not unusual for payment to be a bit delayed because of this or that problem.
To get a work visa, a company needs to sponsor you. My company, International House, sponsored me and paid for the entire process, including flights to Venezuela and a hotel there, which was less fun than I thought it might be, since we ended up in a quiet border town where they had nothing to do at night.
The types of companies that hire you and contract you out to offices to teach classes, like International House, or Peterson's, are the basis of your ESL business there.
There are other companies which pop up all the time, one such I know called "Verve" which offer private classes to wealthy people in Bogota. These classes can pay just as much as teaching an entire room full of office workers. Of course, rich clients expect a better quality product than office workers who basically expect the drudgery of running through a textbook without much thought.
Setting up private classes would be the best way to make actual money, but they are often precarious. People there would like to learn English, but salaries are very low. Lawyers can make as little as 1 million COP a month, so they aren't going to be able to pay you very much. Very often private classes are short-lived as people fully realize what a huge expense it is to pay you anything that would make it worth your time.
At "Verve" I ended up doing private classes at the home of a University student. Really, that might be the best way to do things, is meet University students who have wealthy parents and organize some type of group classes with them.
The lifestyle of the ESL teacher in Bogota is basically awful, if you compare it to a western lifestyle. You likely have an awfully shitty bed, because buying a nice bed is worth about 1-2 months' salary. Many for instance sleep on roll-out mattresses on a floor.
You likely drink way more than you should on your salary, as beers cost about 2mil COP which seems cheap until you realize that you really only have about 20-40mil COP to spend a day without going completely broke.
You will probably hang out with lots of grifters and hustlers and criminals, and quickly that will seem normal. In a certain way this can be fun or seem interesting for a while, I don't know what this phenomenon is called, slumming it? Some may enjoy it. I definitely thought it was invigorating to mix with the lower elements of society, something I had never really done before.
The food in Colombia, in Bogota, in my opinion, was bad. It was bland, it lacked flavors, it was like they took good ingredients and ruined them. Fresh meat and vegetables are remarkably chepa there. I got like 7 pounds of fresh beef tenderloid for $14mil COP (7 dollars) I remember. An egg is 200COP (about 10 cents). A giant bag of carrots is like 2milCOP (1 dollar). You can cook and buy all the ingredients to make wonderful fresh food, but the stuff they prepare is just pretty bad overall in my opinion. Overcooked dry chewy meat was really common. Super salty or no salt at all was another thing that bothered me. You are better off cooking for yourself honestly.
As for the girls, here's the messed up part.
You will be living as a person who, from a first-world perspective, is basically in poverty. From a local perspective, having your own room full of beer cans and a roll-out bed on the floor is a lot more than many many people have down there. Basically, having your own place of any sort is a real plus down there.
Obviously you will not be dealing with rich socialites and classy ladies. But there are plenty of very cute girls who are not at all ratty or scummy who will gladly share time with you. And if you are into the ratty and scummy girls, there are many of those too. I mean, it was a real shock coming back to the U.S. afterwards. I had graduated college and went to Colombia, and seeing the struggle that the average guy has with girls in the U.S. I was completely shocked. None of my friends could understand, they think I'm crazy, talking about the problems of obesity and how ugly/fat/annoying girls are here. But seriously, on a poverty salary in Colombia, your experience with girls will be 10X better than the average guy making 50k in the USA. The amount of easy pussy that guys with blonde hair/light eyes get is especially ridiculous, as guys who were complete weirdos with no game, style, or anything would frequently get with girls that would be impossible for them in the U.S.
Overall, it was an experience I look back on with very mixed emotions. It helped me become fluent in Spanish, at the time I certainly enjoyed myself, it's a chapter of my life I will always remember fondly no doubt. I left with no money but a lot of interesting memories. I would say I am very happy I did it, and learning Spanish is a huge plus to me. I also learned to dance a little, and how to best adjust to new situations. As an adult though, I left there with little in the way of skills or real world experiences. Sometimes in job interviews, people seem really fascinated that I have done this, they see it as a positive, clearly vicariously living their wanderlust through me. Others understand that this was just a gig anyone could have gotten to bum around South America for a while. Without a doubt, it was a year that I was very happy during. Certainly happier than working a job in the United States, despite the third-world living.
Overall I would recommend people do this if they are curious. 1 thing I would say is make sure you have a few thousand dollars "fuck you" money that you do not touch at all, in case of emergency.
And finally, I knew people who did this WITHOUT a university degree. Their experience was no different than mine. They had as much fun, as many struggles, and learned just as much. This job really is perfect for people BEFORE they go to University. It is a wonderful learning experience that can help you think about what you want to do with your life, but isn't really going to put you on any professional track at all. I think I would recommend to anyone who just graduated High School that they should forego University for a while and, if they're interested, teach English abroad somewhere living like a lowlife and seeing a different side of the world.
