Question: What is a typical day like for an English teacher in Spain?
Answer: Full time contracts with one school in Madrid and Barcelona are rare and most teachers juggle a number of contracts to make ends meet. The highest demand for teachers is for 8am business classes (before work starts), 1pm business classes (during lunch breaks) and evening academy classes. Most classes run twice a week, so each class will usually run on Mondays and Wednesdays or Tuesdays and Thursdays. Most teachers have Fridays off, though many have to work Saturdays mornings.
Most EFL teachers (especially new arrivals) are forced to travel all over the city to get to each of their classes and many are forced to take classes at all hours of the day. Once you get to know the schools and what sorts of contracts are on offer, you can usually organize your timetable to suit what you want - either all morning and afternoon classes, all evening classes or a mixture of the two.
A normal working week for an English teacher in Madrid or Barcelona consists of 20-25 hours of teaching. This may not sound like much, but when you take lesson planning and transport time into account, this is actually a very full week.
In other cities, expect less business classes and more full-time contracts with a single school.
