el crispito

Guadalajara is lousy with language schools. If you want to learn Spanish, you can come here, stay with a host family for a few weeks or even a semester and study the language in a "native" setting. One of my friends and former classmates at Metro has done this on a couple of occasions, and while it isn't the best way to see the city (classes take up most of the day), you do get excellent exposure to things you just cannot learn in a classroom. You can also learn to teach English to those who wish to study it, and in Mexico, there are a lot of people who want to learn English for a variety of reasons. I'm not knocking love, but it is English that serves as the international language in more rational pursuits, like business and technology.

Given the demand for native speakers of English for teaching positions, one can walk in off the street with no credentials and no experience and earn $3,600 USD per year. Even though prices are much lower for most daily necessities in Guadalajara, that is not enough to live on comfortably, but if one has a certificate to be a teacher of English as a second language, the job prospects improve dramatically. With this certificate but with no experience, one can get a much higher paying job, and often schools will help you out with initial job placement. One school in town, the one Shawn hopes to attend, even offers their graduates job placement services for life.

The new semester starts in January, and the class runs for six weeks. Therefore, he will get his certification in February, and it is unlikely that he would be able to start working right away. More likely is the idea that he would be starting in the summer, and that is if he can find a job here in Guadalajara. While the school guarantees that they will get you a job, they guarantee only that it will be somewhere within the country of Mexico, not here in Guadalajara. We do not know the odds of getting a job in Guadalajara yet, nor do we know if the school will work with you to try and place you in the area of your choice. Demand is great throughout the country, but there are several places where we just would not want to live. We are pretty set on the idea of living in a big city, chock full of cultural amenities, so that really narrows it down. We might be convinced to go somewhere that was less fabulous for exceptionally high pay or great benefits, but I think we prefer to be either in Guadalajara or Mexico City, and at the moment, we're a bit afraid of Mexico City. It has a high crime rate, awful traffic and terrible pollution (I have read that if you live there, your lungs endure the equivalent of smoking two packs of cigarettes per day), but oh what a fabulous city it seems to be.

The cost for the training is around $1,500 USD, so we are going to have Shawn go first and see how it goes. If he enjoys it, if it seems to be helpful and if things work out so that we can swing it, I will probably take the certification course there later in the year. I would rather be taking classes in Spanish, but given our need to bring in some cash and since we get a daily education in Spanish on the streets, it looks like that isn't going to happen for a while.