by
bryan(MSG)
First off, getting work teaching English in Chile is incredibly easy. There is no need to arrange a job before arriving, and there is no need to get a work permit. Working on a tourist visa means you will have to leave the country every three months; an incredible amount of foreigners in Santiago achieve this by embarking on the six-hour bus ride to Mendoza, Argentina. It is almost unheard of to run into legal problems while doing this; the Chilean government is not overly concerned with Americans and Europeans (and Canadians!) teaching languages while spending lots of money in their country.
At many institutes, you actually receive less money in your paychecks if you have a work permit, because 10% of your check goes to taxes for healthcare, social security, whatever. At the year's end, you can file a bunch of forms to get this money back. However, this is a hassle, and you'll find work permits are only needed at KOE, Berlitz, and maybe one or two other institutes. If you encounter a native English speaker in Chile who hasn't managed to find work, it's because (s)he:
a) has typos on his resume
b) showed up to interviews in shorts and a t-shirt
c) is in some small town where there's no demand for English
d) isn't a university graduate
e) is stupid.
If you haven't graduated from a university but want to teach down here, you may be able to find work, but it would be wise to arrive in February, March, or possibly August, when the most jobs are available and institutes will be more likely to snap up any native speaker.
It may take a little while for all but the most qualified to find work once semesters have begun. School semesters run from March to July and August to December. December and January are probably the worst months to arrive, unless you plan to spend them traveling before settling down to teach. Not a bad idea actually since everything's so warm, but be warned-the whole country spends these months on vacation, so in popular areas buses, hostels, and hotels can be completely booked days in advance.
When you arrive in the city in which you want to teach, dress up nicely and print out a bunch of copies of your resume. Make extra sure your resume has absolutely no typos since you're going to be an English teacher. Cover letters are definitely not necessary, although they may possibly give you a slight edge at some American-run institutes. There's no need to call English institutes before you show up at their door, except perhaps to make sure they're still in business. Just use this webpage and an up-to-date phonebook, map out an order in which to visit institutes, and go at it. In Santiago you'll need at least two full days since there are so many and they're so far apart. Other cities have far fewer institutes, which generally means less work and lower pay. At each institute you only need to mention you're a native speaker (or have fluency), have the TEFL or CELTA certification (if you do), and then leave them a copy of your resume. By the way, the word for apply in Chile, when it comes to jobs, is postular.
A couple other things�we've heard a couple of times that institutes with websites are more likely to be sketch. Perhaps true a few years ago, but this no longer seems to be the case since almost all of them are online now. What does still seem to be true though is that institutes which recruit online-i.e. the institutes that will let you apply for a job from abroad and guarantee the work permit-pay less. That's because when you arrive you're already under a contract with them, and are less likely to look into other options. As for contacting institutes before you get here, that's unnecessary. An exception is if you are arriving short before the semester begins, like in March, and want to make sure they know you're an option for them.
Other specs: A good wage is anything above 4.500 an hour (about $8 U.S.). In cities other than Santiago, it may be more difficult to find such good payment. Full time is 25 hours a week. Don't walk into places saying you want 40 hours a week. First of all, teaching involves correcting homework and tests, prepping lessons, making quizzes, etc. This will all eat up time, especially as you're getting started. Secondly, you'll have to travel to your classes, and they often won't be in convenient time blocks and at many institutes will be all over the city, since institutes provide in-house classes to businesses. Finally, why are you coming to Chile to work your ass off? Enjoy life here and make sure you have time to spend your money, it goes a lot further here! (You are also making A LOT more than the average Chilean. If you get 5.000/hr, approx. 100 hours a month, that's 6.000.000 pesos a year (about 10,000 dollars), which is WAY more than double what the average Chilean makes in a year.)
Note: There seems to be an incredible amount of instability and fluidity in the world of Chilean language institutes. The 4Gringos.com team used a 2004 phonebook to look up and visit institutes in January 2005, and we arrived at about a third of the addresses only to find that the institute had gone under or changed names and moved. Therefore some of the institutes listed on this webpage (written February 2005) may no longer exist.
SANTIAGO (ordered by barrio)
Centro
ALIEF
Matias Cousi�o 64 p�2
Santiago Centro
The director of Alief was a partner of Acpen up until last year, but once the
partnership was disolved, he opened Alief. They have now been working with
companies and the general public for 2 years and currently have 2
locations. One in downtown and the other one is in Providencia.
Webpage: http://www.alief.cl
Grant's English
Based in the heart of
Santiago, we offer English classes to a series of multi-national
companies in and around the city. We have been steadily growing over
the last 6 years and now employ around 10 to 12 teachers from various
parts of the English-speaking world. We encourage our teachers to share
ideas, participate in workshops and help to develop resources. We
therefore take on people who are enthusiastic, team-spirited,
enjoy using their own initiative in preparing for classes, and , most
importantly, really enjoy teaching. In return we try to be as
supportive as possible in providing our teachers with a comfortable
working environment.
We can be contacted on: 638 1128. Speak to Nick or Joanne. Or you can send us a CV and cover letter to grants@grantsenglish.com. You can also visit our website at www.grantsenglish.cl. Our address is:
Calle Londres 70, Santiago Centro.
The House of Conversation
San Antonio 19, Piso 26
664-4225
The pay they offered in beginning 2005 was low, but drop by here to check out the view of Santiago from the 26th floor. Ahh�what a lovely layer of smog you can see!
Instituto de Ingles Chile Docente
Jaime Eyzaguirre 9 Of. 33
222-1362
chiledocente@hotmail.com
John F. Kennedy Institute
Ejercito Libertador 20
471-3900
One of those big factory institutes that doesn't pay well.
KOE Corporation
Don't know address, but they're online. And you need a work permit to work here. And the pay is low.
Manpower
Estados Unidos 291
280-5500
www.manpower.cl
Natalis
Av. Vicu�a Mackenna 6, P. 7, Of. 4
(56-2) 222-8685
www.natalislang.com
Tandem (in Bella Vista)
Ernesto P. Lagarrigue 362-A
735-8211
www.tandemsantiago.cl
When you walk in, the place has a strikingly different feeling, employees are sitting around relaxing and shooting the shit. A family feel, all sorts of decorations on the wall, very different from the business-oriented institutes.
Providencia
American Business English Language Services
Barros Err�zuriz 1954 Of. 807
(056-2) 946-2629
dday@netexpress.cl
One
of the best paying institutes in Santiago, 5.000/hr and up (depending
on where your classes are). Run by Douglas Day, a hot-tempered
American. Their structure is different�basically, they have a database
of teachers, and they send the teacher profiles to businesses, which
then pick out the professor they're most interested in.
Berlitz
Padre Mariano 305
235 2341
Moneda 1160, Piso 7
672 7639
www.berlitz.com
You need a work permit to work here.
BridgeLingautec
Los Leones 439
233-4356
www.bridgelinguatec.com/chile
Big,
international, professional, lots of gringo teachers. Rumor has it the
pay is average, not great, but average, since they'll contract teachers
through their TEFL program.
British English Center
Providencia 1308, P. 2, Of. D
235-3039
britishcentre@hotmail.com
Word on the street is not good.
Burford Institute
Av. Pedro de Valdivia 511
(056-2) 223-9357
www.burford.cl
Word on the street is good.
Centro Chileno Canadiense
Luis Thayer Ojeda 0191 Of. 601
334-1090
www.canadiense.cl
Word on the street is the pay sucks.
Competent Ltda.
P�rez Valenzuela 1435
236-2551
www.competent.cl
Curtis Language Consulting
Av. Providencia 2608, Oficina 54
233-4056
www.curtislc.tk
English Connection
Bucarest 207 p. 3
335-3033
www.englishconnection.cl
Seems professional and friendly.
English First
Hernando de Aguirre 215
(2) 374-2180
www.englishfirst.com
Executive English Solutions
Luis Thayer Ojeda 0130 Of. 707-708
232-3571
www.ees.cl
A
small institute, but one of the best to work for. Pay is 4.500/hr and
up depending on class location. The institute is professional,
American-run, and with purely business professionals as students. A
great bonus is the free weekly Spanish class the institute provides to
its teachers.
Fischer English Institute
Cirujano Guzman 49
235-6667
www.fischerenglishinstitute.cl
Large
and well known, pays well, very professional, been in business for 20
years as of 2005. Adriana Otero, the director, is nice but intense.
Impact English
Marchant Pereira 313 Of. 112
InBusiness
La Concepci�n 81 Of. 1304
235-5707
www.inbusiness.cl
Supposedly provides good pay in a laid back fashion.
Instituto Chileno Britanico
Dario Urzua 1933
204-4800
Santa Lucia 124
638-2156
www.britanico.cl
Prefers Brits.
LM Language Center
Luis Thayer Ojeda 073 Of. 701
233-3214
Polyglot-Mitford
Guardia Vieja 181, Of. 1302
(56-2) 233-3250
www.polyglot-mitford.cl
Word on the street was good for Polyglot and bad for Mitford, so who knows what the deal is now.
Sam Marsalli
Los Leones 1095
231-0652
www.sammarsalli.cl
Heard awful things about this place.
Wall Street Institute
Guardia Vieja 62
362-9700
www.pvw.cl
The pay supposedly sucks.
Las Condes
Nova Language Consultants
Callao 2970, Of. 907
242-9504
www.nlc.cl
Tronwell
Apoquindo 4499 p. 3
246-1040
Everything
I've ever heard about this place-quite a lot, actually-was negative.
They have some sort of system where you sit in the institute and wait
for students who come to you with problems they're having on
self-guided English lessons. People like to call it a factory. But the
pay's okay.
Vitacura
Henry Renna Institute
Mark Twain 7241
219-2741
Woodbridge Academy
Vitacura 3568
245-0646
info@woodbridgeacademy.cl
San Miguel
Manhattan English Center M.R.
Gran Av. Jos� M. Carrera 4710 p.2
551-6180
www.manhattan-english.tie.cl
Institutes which no longer seem to exist as of February 2005:
ACPen Academy?
American Academy
Calbert
Classcenter
International Business Consultants
International House Santiago
Let's Do English
VALPARAISO
Instituto Chileno Norteamericano
Esmeralda 1069
www.norteamericano.cl
The pay is supposedly low.
VI�A DEL MAR
Berlitz
2 Norte 610
69-5660
www.berlitz.com
You need a work permit to work here.
Camelford
2 Norte 531
97-7446
www.camelford.cl
So the story we've heard about them is that the used to be a different institute, and then one semester they didn't pay their students anything. The students sued, and the institute declared bankruptcy, only to pop up later as�Camelford.
Centro de Capacitaci�n en Idiomas
7 Norte 553
(56-32) 68 8650
www.cci-idiomas.cl
One
of the best paying institutes in Vi�a. Run by an American and Chilean
husband and wife team; they are exceptionally decent people. Work here
if you can!
International Center
Calle Monta�a 712
480301
www.internationalcenter.cl
A very young Chilean-run institute. The pay is OK by Vi�a standards, but you need to make sure they don't cheat you on your pay check and you need to be prepared to work for people who understand nothing about language instruction. It's all very unprofessional; often you won't get teaching materials in time or you'll only be notified about changes in plans at the last minute, if at all. Oh, and they have curious desire to pay 10% of your wages towards taxes regardless of whether or not you have a work permit. And they pay you with checks instead of cash�all this means someone else is getting your 10% back at the end of the year.
John F. Kennedy Institute
Supposedly the pay is low.
KOE
7 Norte & 2 Poniente, right next to CCI
You need a work permit to work here, and the pay is low.
Wall Street Institute
Libertad 342
www.pvw.cl
Supposedly the pay is low.
