spainwise.net info@spainwise.net
Summer Schools
Whether due to short contracts or a desire for change, many teachers find themselves spending the spring months looking for summer work. Thousands of young people (and a few adults) migrate (for the cooler climate?!) to the UK to brush up on their English skills whilst escaping from their parents.
There are a wide variety of different options for a qualified EFL teacher both abroad and in the UK, residential and non-residential. Working for a short period with a different group of teachers from various backgrounds is a great opportunity to get new teaching ideas and recharge the batteries in a new environment.
The options:
There are English summer camps all over the world (Canada, France, Italy etc...), so choices are not restricted to where you currently work or the UK. Within Spain itself there are a number of summer schools along the coast.
Summertime is boom-time for most UK-based schools and they all need more teachers than they have the rest of the year. Working in the UK gives you the chance to see friends and catch up as well as access to swathes of authentic materials. There are two main benefits to a UK-based summer school; firstly, learners have a real need for English; they will want to go shopping and understand what is happening around them. Secondly, students are usually from all over the world (or at least Europe) and therefore need to use English to communicate with each other.
UK-based summer schools fall into two categories: residential and non-residential. Non-residential schools tend to place students in the homes of local families and residential schools are more like a boarding school.
In some schools teachers live in with the students and have residential duties (e.g.: being a shoulder for homesick youngsters or taking the register at night) in others teachers are housed separately. In addition, both residential and non-residential schools also run an activity programme usually including sports, arts and excursions. 
In some schools teachers are expected to help out on these trips, in others they can opt in or out of extra work, in others they are encouraged to focus purely on teaching. This also means that if you want a short break from teaching but to use your skills with young people you may choose to apply for a position as a member of activity staff instead of as a teacher.
What to ask:
There are plenty of jobs out there in the summer and the sooner you start applying the better, unfortunately there are some poorer quality schools who provide very little support for teachers and only value them for their babysitting abilities. Be picky, think carefully about what kind of school you would like to work in and what conditions will suit you. When you have found a school you would like to apply to, find out all you can about them; most schools nowadays have a website. Remember that during an interview as well as the school deciding whether to offer you a job, you are deciding whether or not you would like to work with them, think carefully about what you want to know, e.g.:
- What age, level and nationality are the students?
- How long is the course and is there guaranteed work for the whole course?
- How many students are in each class?
- Are staff returning from previous years? (if a number of staff are returning then you know they were sufficiently looked after to warrant coming back)
- Is there a syllabus?
- What materials are available?
- Will you have any other duties besides teaching (e.g.: excursions and activities, placement testing, writing reports)?
- What are the accommodation arrangements?
- Is the cost of accommodation included? And meals?
What to expect:
Summer school work is hard and very different to year-round teaching, but it is also great fun. Most students are at a camp for 2-3 weeks and both they and their parents have high expectations of the teaching. As a teacher you need to get to know your students and their needs as quickly as possible. If you are working at a residential school for the first time you may suffer from institutionalisation - set meal times, curfews and never leaving work is harder for some people than others. On the other hand, having your meals prepared for you, no travel time and living with new friends and acquaintances are definite advantages.
Fari Greenaway
Fari Greenaway is Director of Studies at Education aBc Oxford
Search again
Location Directory