I arrived in Colombia bright eyed and bushy tailed. I was so excited to learn salsa, improve my Spanish and live in Medellin, the much talked about city on the travelling circuit. I had heard so many great things about the city. It is known as ‘la ciudad de la eterna primavera’, the city of the eternal spring, owing to the 25 degrees temperature and sunshine during the vast majority of the year. The landscape is beautiful, at any place in the city you can see mountains in at least three directions. Who wouldn’t want to teach English and live in such a place?
I was pleased when I got a job fairly quickly at one of the many English schools littered around the city. There was more than one caveat but I was optimistic. I wasn’t in it to make a lot of money or become a DOS, just make enough to pay my rent, go to salsa classes and the few beers it took for me to get up the confidence to practice my Spanish with the locals.
Caveat number one: Teaching children
My nightmare was fully realised walking into a room with 6 children ranging in age from 7 to 12.. Yes, that’s right 7-12. They had all been at school since 7am and I was walking in there at 4.30pm without a hope in hell of getting or maintaining their attention. They were a heady mix of hyperactively throwing things at each other and sprawled across the desk asleep. I, like most TEFL teachers, have no training in teaching children. The reason we chose this job is to avoid the responsibility of dealing with parents and unruly behaviour. The A in CELTA most definitely stands for ADULT!
Caveat number 2: Crazy working hours
As with any country where English is not the native language, you end up working bizarre hours, to fit around a 9-5 (or in Colombia 8-6) day. Twice a week my day started with a 6am class, lasting 2 hours and delivered in a company to their employees. I had to travel there and I wasn’t paid for the travel time which was 30 mins each way. From 8-1 I had a break, usually nap time and lunch. Then I’d have another 2 hour class at a school (with the dreaded children) from 2-4 that was literally an hour’s drive from the city. You’ve guessed it… I wasn’t paid for that travel time either. Then I’d finish off the day with a delightful 6-8pm evening class with adults just as exhausted as I was. All in all that adds up to a 14 hour day from start to finish with hours of travelling from place to place, and only 6 of those hours being paid. Not what I had envisioned upon my arrival to Medellin.
Caveat number 3: Low Pay
It will come as no shock to any of you, I’m sure, that the pay in Colombia isn’t great. I went there knowing that, however, I didn’t realise quite how bad it would be. So bad in fact that I had to sell my soul to the devil three mornings a week. The devil being DaDaABC, a Chinese company, whose sole purpose is to torture English teachers. If you thought a 6am class was bad…you wait for this. Three days a week I had online classes 5-8am with children ranging from 3-18. Sometimes, I was so tired that I had to dig my fingernails into my legs to stop myself from falling asleep. More than a few times I did a micro sleep with my eyes open. Zoning out for a few moments only to reappear at the end of a student’s sentence confused.
Between the screaming children whose English programme had zero resources, the exhausting working hours and pay so low I couldn’t even afford my longed for salsa classes, and the gruelling schedule, Medellin was not what I had hoped it would be. I was either too broke or too tired to utilise my time well. Luckily (kind of) for me, the Colombian government refused to grant me a working visa twice and I had to leave after 6 months of working illegally (shhhhh). Colombia is truly a beautiful country, if you do decide to take the leap and teach there… make sure you have some money in the bank, and a higher tolerance than mine for children.