I'm looking to teach English

Hello Franciele,

Welcome to Expat.com

I have created a new thread with your post on the Belo Horizonte forum for more visibility.

How can we help? Are you actually looking for job as teacher in a school or you wish to give private english tuition?

Thanks

Priscilla 

Hi Franciele,

Finding a teaching position at any of the established English schools (SKILL, Fisk, CNA, CCAA, etc,) won't be too difficult if you're a native speaker of the English language. You'll probably walk out with a job offer from the first place you go to.

Teaching isn't going to pay you a lot even if they can give you several classes, but it will be some easy money in your pocket.

If you have any previous teaching experience then private students are where the real money is, but it takes time to recruit enough students to make a good living. You should think about teaching for a school, start recruiting using business cards, set up your own website, print up and hand out pamphlets, ads in community newspapers, etc. and as you build up a student base reduce your availability with the school.

The only problem with finding private students that I found when I lived in BH, is that unlike many other state capitals people in BH don't seem to give as much importance to learning English as they do in most other capitals and major cities. Also they want you to give them classes almost for free. You start talking about R$25 an hour for private classes and they begin crying, when in other cities you can charge around R$90-100 and they won't flinch.

Good luck in the job search.

Cheers,
James    Expat-blog Experts Team

Hello! I have a follow-up question. As someone who is also interested in teaching English in Brazil, is it best to try to find a job before traveling there, or should I job hunt once I get there? What is the likelihood of success either way?

Well, since none of the schools will help you in terms of a VITEM-V Work Visa you need to get to Brazil by some other means. As you're probably aware by now that many of the schools aren't the least bit concerned about your visa status, in fact they hope you've not got all the proper documentation so they can keep paying near slave wages.

That said, it's going to be a piece of cake to find a teaching position once you're here in Brazil. Often you will walk out of the very first school where you apply with a job offer in hand. It is also easier at certain times of the year. Many schools hire and train new teachers twice a year (December and June - never could figure out just why only then) and if you apply then your chances are even greater.

Just remember that any one school may not fill up your available teaching hours, and they only pay for actual teaching hours not for class prep, correcting homework, etc. You may find you'll need to work in a couple of different schools (depending on the city) just to make ends meet.

Cheers,
James     Expat-blog Experts Team

Thanks for the response, James!

A few more questions:

1. How much of my own English teaching materials should I bring with me to Brazil?

2. Do you think $4000 enough to save/raise for 3 months in Brazil? (for purchasing round trip ticket as well as for survival)

3. Should I turn my resume into a CV, and should I translate it into Portuguese?

You're awesome,

Marcia

1. If you're coming in on a VITUR Tourist Visa, bringing your teaching material may raise a few eyebrows with the Federal Police at the point of entry. They'll want to know why you'd need them since you can't work on a VITUR. Also it's unlikely that you'd even be allowed to use your own material at any of the schools here as anything other than personal reference, since they all have their own material (poor as it may be). They're also extremely Gung Ho on their own particular "methodology" and really get ticked off at teachers that stray from it, even though they're teaching the RIGHT things.

2.  I would say what you've budgeted will be the bare minimum, more would be better, especially if you're paying for accommodations. Better to have too much in the budget than not enough. For safety leave your money in the bank at home and withdraw what you need as you need it at an ATM here in Brazil. (You need to check what network your debit card works on so you can determine which bank ATMs you can use). That way you'll be safer than bring a lot of cash with you and you'll also benefit from the daily exchange rate on the dollar, which is quite strong right now.

3.  Unless you plan on applying for work in places other than English schools, there is really no need to translate your resume/CV into Portuguese. They'll actually be more impressed by a well written and professional CV that's in English. If you aren't fluent in Portuguese yourself you may not even notice any fundamental errors in the translation if you get a poor translator, this could do more harm than good.

Hope this helps you considerably.

Cheers,
James