English Teacher in Italy

How to become a "real", "published" writer

2010-06-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

Ever tried to write a book? It's not so hard, really. First you need an idea, and some motivation. Then you just need to write regularly until you've got a long-ish text. Finally, you revise it once or twice, keeping in mind your ideal reader and what he or she might think, and that's it. You're done.

The problem, of course, is what to do next. Everyone knows that the hard part is getting your masterpiece published, not writing it in the first place.

The first time I wrote a book, the final version got no further than a floppy disc (that gives you an idea of how long ago it was). The second time, I wised up and sent an e-mail to a hundred or so publishers I thought might be interested (also a long time ago: these days the anti-spam filter would frustrate such an approach). But, a miracle happened! One of the publishers replied, and I was invited to a meeting in Milan. A contract for three volumes of exercises for students of English followed, then, on completion of those, an invitation to write 2 others.

Voila! We have a writer in the family! The 10 courtesy copies of each volume were distributed amongst family and friends, where they remain, proudly displayed, on various living room bookshelves.

It took a while, I admit, to get over the novelty of going into a bookshop and finding my own work on the shelves. The temptation to go back every few days to count how many copies remained was, at first, irresistable. In time, though, as my young family grew, and as my job prospects shrank, my attention shifted to the small print in the contract, and the forth-coming royalties on sales.

I'd had the choice of an up-front payment of 1.5 million Italian lire (about €750) per volume, or nothing at all in advance and please wait for a year to receive a percentage of the sales. More out of insult at the size of the lump sum offered than because I was confident of Harry Potter-esque sales, I opted for the percentage. 6% of the first 1000 copies, 8% thereafter. The cover price is about €8. You work it out, how rich I am.

But then, the second miracle. The publisher, with their eyes firmly fixed on their, much larger, share of the cover price, actually managed to sell respectable numbers of the books! And so, each June, at about this time, a letter arrives detailing the number of copies sold, the royalties due, the tax witheld, and so on. A couple of months later there's a bank transfer, by which point of course most of the money has already been spent.

How much? A small used car, a nice watch, a good family holiday maybe - one of these each year, not all. More likely, a much-needed boost to financial resources after another difficult year teaching English in a crowded market.

And now, here we are, in the future. 13 years have passed since my first computer, and I've just finished "30 Hot Conversation Lessons". Like the first, never-made-it-off-the-floppy effort, it's a resource book for English teachers.

Knowing that this is an extremely crowed market full of professional writers, I haven't bothered with the 100 e-mails this time. The world has moved on, and so have I: this is the age of the e-book, payment by Paypal, and, what's more, my share will not be 8% but 100%!

Does an e-book that I sell on my own website count as a "real" book? From a traditional point of view, I would have to admit that it probably doesn't: the role of a publisher was not just to physically produce the book and distribute it to book shops, but far more importantly to give the aspiring writer credibility and status in the all-important eyes of friends, family, colleagues, and so on.

But then, all my family and friends think I'm ace anyway. Another "real" book is likely to produce just a yawn and enquiries about the royalties. And anyway, if someone actually buys the book, if they read it, if they photocopy bits to use in their lessons, if they find it useful, doesn't that qualify it as "real" anyway? Self-publishing, on a blog, a website, or in the form of an e-book, is the new way; in the age of the Internet, content, not publisher, is king.

But there is a problem. In the past, it was enough to finish the bloody thing, e-mail it off to the publisher, deal with endless corrections and requests for clarification, and then spend the money. Nowadays, though, once the manuscript is finished, there is the need for MARKETING: guys, you have to get out there and sell it yourself.

Actually, though, for me it's the marketing which is the interesting bit. There's all the fun of producing a website, integrating payment systems, offering sample material and spreading the word using blog posts (like this one), mailings, and so on. Without irony, it will be as much of a challenge getting that bit right as it was writing the book in the first place. And when the first sale is made ("when" not "if", we marketeers need to be positive), I'll get a sale notification from Paypal in real time. Imagine the ego boost: much better than waiting 12 months for a letter!

How, then, to become a "real", "published" writer? Simple, write your book. Then hope for a miracle. Or learn marketing, and keep your fingers crossed!

New blog: Selling Learning - Learning Selling

2010-04-23T11:57:00.000-07:00

Guys, faithful readers, all two of you!
I have started a NEW BLOG!
Yes, a new blog. It deals with the language school business, as a business, and is for everyone, whether on the teaching side or the business side, who wants to learn new stuff. You can find it here: http://blog.imparareinglese.co.uk/
No, it's not good-bye to English Teacher in Italy, where I will continue to post on more general topics..like heart attacks.
So check back here soon!

Does it hurt, having a heart attack?

2010-04-16T08:37:00.000-07:00

Funnily enough, since I got out of cardiac intensive care towards the end of January, no one has asked me that. Not even my wife, or my kids. And kids AREN'T usually that diplomatic. One curious colleague came close to it with "Was it like on TV?" but backed off before I got to describe my suffering in detail.

What's going on, guys? Aren't you curious? It would have been the FIRST thing I would have asked if any of my friends had been rushed to hospital with a heart attack. "Shit", I'd have been thinking, "That could have been me. I wonder if it hurts?"

So, given that I don't have any better topics in mind, and that you're all too polite to ask, this post will consider the pros and cons of heart attacks, and tell you what it really feels like. Why? Just to satisfy your curiosity, that's why. And another reason: if you, or someone you love, get the same symptoms, you'll know what to do, won't you?

So, yes. It does hurt, but not like a burn, or breaking your arm. You feel weird, and weak, and maybe want to sit or lie down. My symptoms first appeared while I was queuing in the COOP, but I recovered sufficiently to walk home with all the shopping (I hope my wife feels really bad, reading this). There are pains in your arms, maybe in your chest. It's hard to breath. But after a couple of cold beers and an hour or so in bed, I felt better.

The next day it was back, and this time with more drama. "Call the ambulance" was the only thing to say. But frustratingly, by the time the ambulance had arrived, the symptoms had gone away again. ECG tests showed nothing conclusive. I was able to sit up, then stand up. Did I feel a fool.

Bless the ambulance driver who "supposed I'd better come along to the hospital anyway, just to be on the safe side". No blue lights or sirens, but no queuing in Accident and Emergency either. I was whisked on a trolley right round the back and parked in a corridor, feeling even more foolish. Still that corridor was the perfect place to be when I started feeling really ill again, this time with pains mostly in the arms. My hands were cramped up so badly I couldn't use my i-phone to call my wife and tell her I was OK, which I suppose I really wasn't.

There followed lots of hanging around on the trolley, lots of inconclusive tests, and not a lot of sympathy, until suddenly I was an urgent case and being rushed to the operating theatre which, yes, really does look and feel like being in an episode of Doctor House. Everyone in green, floodlights on the patient, darkness all around. Monitors, tubes, beeping noises, consent forms.
"Just sign here - there's a chance of complications, we might rupture an artery doing this."
"Fine, just get on with it, it hurts, do whatever you can."

A probe was inserted into an artery in my wrist and pushed it all the way along until it got to the coronary artery on the back of my heart (left side, down the bottom - sort of where the heart's left buttock would be, if it had one). The proble was switched into "suck" mode, like a vacuum cleaner, and within a few seconds the blockage had been hoovered up and blood had started to flow again. At which point the doctors started to smile and make jokes. The pain went away, job done, "Can I go home now?" "'Fraid not."

So, if you're reading this at home, don't ignore pains in your chest or arms. If in doubt, call an ambulance (118 in Italy). It's said that most deaths are preventable if treatment is done rapidly. The first hour is critical apparently. The longer you wait, the more damage gets done to the bit of the heart which is not getting blood. Some people don't even know they've had a heart attack, apparently - they just feel ill and weak, and so ignore it.

So, what about the positive side of the experience? Well, it didn't cost me a cent for a start (American readers: SOCIALISED EUROPEAN HEALTH CARE SYSTEMS - THEY'RE GREAT WHEN YOU'RE ILL!), and now I'm exempt from the costs of all sorts of medicines and tests and stuff.

Another thing, though a clichè, is the old "Live every day as if it were your last" idea. Well, it's true. It could be your last, and if a week in the cardiac ward surrounded by gasping 80-year olds doesn't teach you that, you're never going to learn.

And then there's the experience of meeting new people. LOTS of doctors and nurses need to learn English, for example, so as market research, a period in hospital can be very useful for a language school owner.

What else? Oh yes, you may actually find out what people really think of you. The shocked looks, the tears, the visits in hospital (with presents!). Thanks everyone, it was sweet, I was charmed. It was a bit like looking down on my own funeral and seeing people crying. Very flattering. And no "Glad you're dying" cards from my competitors, just a respectful silence.

Turning to religion, those of you whom I have provoked with my views about the foolishness of believing in God may be interested in hearing about my death-bed conversion. Well sorry, but it didn't happen. Hah! I report smugly that, faced an eternity of being dead but NOT in any of the available after-lives, I reacted with a pleasing lack of hysteria and no regret for the supernatural explanations offered me.

But seriously, finally, and surprisingly, being ill can teach a leader a lot. It appears that actually your team CAN manage without you and that, with you gone, they ARE capable of running the show, and that they WILL do what it takes to keep the business on it's feet. This is very reassuring to know when you're stuck in the hospital with only a covert i-phone to read your e-mails on. Stefi, Charly, Lucia, everyone, I salute your efforts in what must have been a difficult time, given your grief. You did a teriffic job (apart from the flood damage to my office) and I thank you in public and in writing!

In short, a sudden illness can be a valuable lesson for any manager or business owner who has problems delegating or feels that the world would grind to a halt without them. I can attest from personal experience: this IS a useful lesson. What's more, one of the pleasures of running a business is having the chance to see the people around you growing and learning too. Knowing that you're not made of steel is a strong incentive to promote employee professional development and encourage more autonomy, so I'm trying harder now.

To conclude then: don't be embarassed to ask me about the pain. Firstly, because it wasn't so bad, not so intense that you should be frightened of it, if it were to happen to you. And also, because I now know who loves me, and that a good business is more than just one person: learning THOSE two things did not hurt me at all.

Watching you, watching me

2009-08-20T01:56:00.000-07:00

Over a year since my last post (they all seem to start like this, don't they), and I have been thinking about economics, specifically neo-liberal, free-market, economics.

Capitalism, red in tooth and claw, has had an image problem in 2009 due to the excesses of bankers and the like. The oft-mentioned advantages of competition such as lower prices and innovation seem less attractive when the entire economy is grinding to a halt in front of your eyes and millions are being thrown out of work. The trend seems ever more towards controlled economies, with governments taking over large sections of the economy.

However, here in our small city, with its population of rich old ladies, lawyers, and punks with dogs on strings, the cut-throat spirit of the market economy is alive and well amongst the 99 Bologna language schools. No state intervention here, no billions from the taxpayer to tide us over. It's sink or swim, fight or die, no second places.

Competition amongst the English schools has long been a vicious and bad-tempered affair (though representatives of three of the biggest schools met up recently at a seminar and mangaged to be surprisingly cordial to each other in an "I stab your back, you stab my back" sort of way). The Italian for Foreigners sector has hotted up too, of late, though the spirit of free and fair competition is not the same: one competitor, who shall remain nameless for obvious reasons, pressed criminal charges for libel in 2008, after having found unfavourable price comparisons while monitoring our website (I'm trusting to the famous efficiency of the Italian legal system to get me out of that one).

Why the need to take such extreme, and costly, action to protect your business from an upstart competitor? Sadly, language teaching in many countries is a "mature" market, with relatively low margins and static or falling client numbers. It also suffers from low "barriers to entry", in the sense that any fool can offer private lessons in his bedroom and undercut rates in larger schools, which have rent, advertising and salaries to pay. The vast surplus of educated graduates with no job prospects doesn't help either (though this is more of a problem in the translation business).

Another problem our sector has, is that of having failed to work out how to "scale up" operations so that they make money. Most language schools are owner-run, like cornershops. How could they be made profitable corporations, like supermarkets? No one knows, though the franchise model (British This, British That) was popular for many years. For all of these reasons, schools which may have had an easy ride in the early or boom years have had a much harder time and are consquently now competing like rats in a sack simply to survive.

Incidentally, who on earth would buy a franchise? The brand and website are out of your control, your image will be tainted should any of your fellow franchise holders mis-behave (this being the language school sector, many will), the franchise-holder can sell another one to someone just up the road from your city, so cutting your pool of customers, and so on. And then, why should a potential customer choose the British This, instead of the British That or the British Other? If the competition is tough in your local market, will your franchise holder step in to reinforce the brand? Unlikely. His interest is in banking the franchise fees, not in investing in the brand.

Anyway, going back to King-Kong vs. Godzilla vs. T.Rex vs. Anaconda in Bologna, it seems always to have been standard practice to check out competitors' prices at the start of the year. Friends or acquaintances may be sent around to check out rival schools, or someone can simply call them up and ask their prices for the new year. Monitoring the opposition's websites is also widespread, so web content (meaning course types, promotions, social activities, facilities) is always going to be vulnerable to being copied. That is, of course, a known risk that you take when deciding to publish anything in the public domain (this blog included), but if your competitors can't see what you're doing, neither can your customers.

Even though we copy, and expect to be copied as a matter of routine, our jaws did drop this year when one of our competitors came up with a new website which seemed to have been modelled almost entirely on ours (not the look, but the content, sales mechanisms, etc.). This is not, of course, illegal, not even in Italy: ideas are free, only things you create can be copy-righted or patented. If someone, for example, starts a rickshaw taxi service in your city, there's nothing to stop you doing the same.

How to react? Actually, it was hard not to be flattered: "Guys, you've been in this business 30 years, I've been doing it for 4. I am so pleased and proud that you like my business model so much and that it has inspired you in this way! And I wish you every success with it, I really do."

Bitter? No, though it's had to convey tone of voice in a blog, I really AM pleased, even delighted. And it's a really nice site! Nice pictures, nice design, nice text. A "proper job", as we say in Cornwall. I might even buy a course there myself (no, actually, I wouldn't. That's a joke!)

Why am I so pleased, other than the ego thing, and the fact that they will have spent loads of money during a major economic recession, which shows they must be desperate?

The reason is because of what didn't happen. What really would have worried me, would have been if they had come up with a load of ideas that I HADN'T thought of first, something new, earth-shatteringly innovative, and effective at winning over clients (in that case, of course, I would have allowed myself to be inspired by THEIR ideas).

So, looking on the bright side, how much better to be the one innovating and being copied, than the one who follows on after! If for no other reason than that you have the advantage of time, of being the "first to market", like the I-phone, for example.

Not that any of us are the Steve Jobs of the language teaching world, but still it is recognisable that the sector does change and evolve through this sort of competition, just as the high-end cellphone market has changed since the I-phone. What's more, price competition certainly exists, just like the theory says, and really does benefit the client (for example, one school introduces a discount to increase the price differential with a competitor, then the competitor then offers the same discount: both therefore lose revenue, but the client wins). And it is not only the customer who is a winner: schools compete for teachers too, offering better packages to get or keep the staff they (and their customers) value.

Where will competition lead in the future? Are bankruptcy or riches looming for the language school owners of Bologna? Theory has it that the school which best understands the needs of the market, offers the best solutions to those needs at a price which offers appropriate value, and communicates all this effectively to the market, will likely be the most commercially successful, even in a depressed economy. The others, those who fail to invest in knowledge, to generate ideas, or to innovate, should be condemned to stagnate with low profit-margins or go out of business. In reality, though, the human factor is relevant. As none of us are mega-capitalists like Bill Gates, it's most likely we'll all still be here in 5 or 10 years time. Watching each-other.

Running a business makes your beard go grey, but...

2008-05-23T09:38:00.000-07:00

While teaching business courses in the last month or so, I've spent a lot of time working with employees of a local company. And, as tends to happen in full-immersion courses, many of the lessons revolved around conversations, which in turn involved students and teachers getting to know each other by talking about their jobs, the things they do every day, what they like or dislike about their work, and so on.

Funnily enough, it took a little time before I recognised one of my new students as a (formerly) young guy who I had taught in the years when I was new in Italy, at the end of the nineties. He looks as fit and healthy now as he did then (he's an enthusiastic cyclist) but is no longer a youngster and now boasts a middle-management position and a head of grey hair. The years have changed me too, but more of that later.

Our relative career progress in the last decade, and the collateral damage in terms of hair colour, got us both thinking about the merits and demerits of being an employee as compared to self-employment. For him, the security offered by his job was the most important thing, along with the fact that his job was stimulating but still left him time for his family and his beloved cycling. He'd already paid off his mortage, and was buying a flat for his children. Life was sweet, or at least would be for as long as his company remained solid. He made it sound great, but for me, after a less-than-satisfactory spell as a small cog in the large machine that is the British Council, the idea of filling a similar role fails to inspire one little bit.

No, from my point of view, organisations seem more restrictive than attractive. No doubt about it, being your own boss is infinitely better! Yes, OK, you have to work 12 hours a day, or more. And it's true that if the money's tight your own salary is the first to be cut. And yes, bank loans for the business do often have to be guaranteed with your personal assets. However, the benefits undoubtedly outweigh the disadvantages!

First of all, there's the sheer animal satisfaction of continuing to exist. Getting a year older was never more enjoyable than when I was able to count the months and note that my nascent enterprise had survived its first 12 months, then its second year, and now its third, especially considering the statistics showing that a large percentage of new enterprises are destined to fail in a similar period.

Next, and perhaps most importantly, there is the immense value and interest deriving from the self-employment learning curve. Perhaps other small business people are different from me, but my first three years running a company has involved a series of things which I didn't initially know how to do, but which I had to master quickly. There were, and are, mistakes. But also the satisfaction of making good decisions, and doing things well. Learning new skills brings new perspectives and new opportunities now at a rate which I never experienced when an employee.

In fact, after talking round the subject for a while, the conclusion which we came to was just about this: working for yourself brings a higher level of risk, and a commensurately higher level of opportunity too. "But what about the money?" is the obvious question. Good point. As a freelance teacher, money was a way I had of keeping score, of getting through long, tiring days. I'd think to myself, at least today I earned €150, or whatever the sum was, and I would feel satisfaction. It seems terrible, thinking back on it! But my wife wasn't working and we had a new baby, so perhaps it was understandable.

Now however, money in terms of my own salary, is something I hardly think about at all. It just doens't seem relevant. Not to say I don't think about money, the opposite in fact. Income, costs, taxes, salaries, and all the other numbers occupy a lot of my waking thoughts, it's just that the money has become just a way of measuring the pulse and state of health of the business, rather than being stuff I could buy things with. What's great is when sales are up, we're hiring teachers or we've got a new client, rather than that my bank account contains or doesn't contain a certain sum.

Which brings me to a nice metaphor for running a company. Think, I said to my student, if you had a couple of hundred thousand euros extra to spend, what would you buy, and why? Maybe a house? A boat? A fast car? Something with a degree of novelty, which would interest you, and make you feel good about yourself, with all probability. Like a great new Christmas present that you wouldn't get bored with. Well, in a certain sense, that's what running a business can be like: the ultimate executive toy, complicated and interesting, with buttons you can push to get new actions and reactions. And when you get bored of playing with it, it can change and do something new to entertain you, at least if you've got the energy to keep playing with it.

All that said though, unlike a boat or an executive toy, running a business can make your beard go grey!

A whole year has gone by!!

2007-08-03T02:47:00.000-07:00

Incredible that a whole academic year has gone by since I last had nothing more important to do than post on this blog! And now, in the final two hours before I go off for my summer holidays, I finally have time.

A busy year, yes, but not a bad year. Thinking back, what have been the highlights? Well, as always in this job, it's all about the people - the students, the colleagues, and all the people I've worked with in one way or another.
There have been a whole range of classes - lots of exam classes: TOEFL, IELTS, CAE, CPE, FCE - as well as general English classes at various levels. I've met a variety of interesting people through teaching one-to-one lessons, many of whom I've come to think of as friends, as we've spent so much time together.

During the year Madrelingua has also hosted students from all over the world who have come to Bologna to study Italian. This is always an intersting part of school life, and again after a few weeks of seeing the same faces, our guests come to seem like friends too. This year we've had several Russians, lots of Americans, a sprinkling of Australians, Swiss, French, Germans, Belgians, and even a girl from Bosnia. Oh, and a very bright group of young people from Cambridge university, who made me feel very old. The Italian side of our business is still small, but the teachers have learnt a lot in a very short time, and it's great to see students leaving with a much greater command of the language than they had when they arrived.

As regards English-teaching staff, the teachers we started off with in 2005 have "matured" nicely, gaining lots of experience and becoming increasingly able and professional. I'd like to think our training efforts have paid off, but in reality it's probably more likely to be mostly the effect of time and experience. Still, whatever the cause, the longer a teacher is with us, the more valuable they become to us because of the level of trust and competence which we come to rely on.

Not to say that we're not also willing to give people at the very beginning of their careers a start. We've been very happy to meet two young teachers who had had no experience whatsoever, but who worked extremely hard and in a very professional way to do their very best, to the satisfaction of our clients and myself. Experience is vital, but the right attitude is necessary too.

So what else is new? Well, I've been having a lot of fun developing our various web-sites. For examples, there's www.imparareinglese.co.uk which I've been using partly as an experiment to put up exercises and other useful information (such as a list of schools in Bologna) for our students and for anyone out there who might be interested. The exercises get lots of visits from students in countries all over the world, but especially in Eastern-Europe and in South America, for example. There's a nice synergy, I've found, between teaching a class and noticing what their needs are, and creating and publishing material on the web. When it's up, I can use it with my students first, which also serves as a test of the material - does it actually work, are there any errors (there are always errors!). There's also my personal guide to what resources are good on the internet. You can find it here:
www.imparareinglese.co.uk/risorsi_per_studenti_di_inglese.htm.

For the technically minded, the exercises on imparareinglese.co.uk run on javascript, which looks horrible the first time you see it, but is actually very straightforward. If you're interested in creating your own web-based material, you'll find a tutorial on it here:
CALL tutorial
I prepared this material for a training session with some of our regular staff at Madrelingua school of English, but sadly there wasn't much interest.. many teachers, in my experience, seem to be rather technophobic, at least if you judge by the number of them who can't operate a DVD player!

Anyway, going back to websites, since the start of the summer, with the consequent reduced teaching load, I've been working on revamping our two main sites too.
Madrelingua Corsi di inglese a Bologna
Madrelingua Italian courses in Bologna, Italy
Both of them have grown rather large, averaging thirty or forty pages or more, so it can be quite time consuming making changes. However, I view this sort of work more as training than as drudgery, because I enjoy developing new skills, especially practical ones, which can save me time and money!

Incidentally, I notice that some of Madrelingua's competitors have raised their game when it comes to Internet marketing, although often it's the most "established" of the schools which are the most static, in the sense of being unwilling or unable to invest and innovate. There are one or two little schools which as educational institutions I wouldn't rate at all but which have attractive, innovative and cost-effective marketing strategies. Equally, there are the so-called "market-leaders", the schools which would see themselves as being at the top-of-pile, so to speak, which present a very amateurish public face through their websites. For example, when you click on a link entitled "New Courses!!", you aren't really looking to read about courses which started and finished months previously.

Oh well, their loss is our gain, I suppose. Still, my prediction for 2008 is that some of the littler, "marketing-savvy", schools will be making money, and some of the larger, "dinosaurs", will not.

Well, at this point, it's time to switch everything off, pull out all the plugs, and take myself off on holiday. See you in the new (academic) year!!

October again!

2006-10-15T01:52:00.000-07:00

As I write, slumped in exhaustion over my kitchen table on a Sunday morning, I am at the end of my first full week of teaching, and facing the second with trepidation! What a shock to return to full-time teaching again after the lazy summer months! Though I should say that it really is exciting and interesting too.

Meeting so many new people, new classes, new course-books, new colleagues, in such a short time always makes my head spin. Students are enthusiastic, teachers aprehensive, administrative staff rushed, and everyone is stressed in their own unique way. Still, experience tells me that the second week is easier, and that soon we'll be counting the weeks to the Christmas break.

Madrelingua has been fortunate enough to attract some talented young teachers this year, young people who approach their work with professionalism, enthusiasm and a willingness to learn. We're very fortunate also that some of those we worked with last year have remained in Bologna and are with us again now. However, despite the 50 or so CVs we received, there was not a single one where the applicant could boast of a professional qualification equal to or higher than Diploma (i.e. RSA DTEFLA) level.
Where have all the professionals gone?? Is it that Italy is no longer the destination of choice for older, more qualified EFL teachers, or could it be simply that as the UK and US economies have been going well for some years people are leaving the profession after just a few years and before becoming "truly" qualified.

In the past a TEFL certificate was considered an entry level qualification, good enough to get your first job but not for much more. "Qualified" meant more, and "experienced" meant years, not months or days. I guess I must be getting old to start bemoaning the state of the world. When I was a young man, it was different!

Seriously though, and for the benefit of any passing reader who may be interested, I'll repeat a point I often make at our monthly teacher-training sessions (for details of the next one, see: Madrelingua Teachers' Pages
). And that is this: Bologna, Italy and the World are full of cheap schools with lots of students, lots of teachers, and a high turnover in both. If you're happy earning about the same as the cleaning lady (or man), then no real experience and few qualifications are required. Whatever your talents, whatever your enthusiasm, whatever you learn, you'll still be easily replacable. This is not a matter of not caring, it's simply the business model of this type of school. And in the same way that there are a few well-off people as well as lots of poorer people in the world (myself included!), so too are there a few better schools, and even some excellent ones, as well as lots about which the less said the better.

I recently employed a promising young lady (certificate, experience, presentable, nice personality) who arrived for the first 2 hour lesson of a 60 hour course with a new class of "difficult" teenagers, 5 MINUTES BEFORE THE CLASS, and KNOWING NOTHING ABOUT THEM, not even the book, the level, the class objectives, etc. I had prepared a briefing pack for her hours before, and was not best pleased that she had not bothered to come and look at it. Needless to say, I refused to let her take the class (the kids would have eaten her alive, and their parents would have eaten me alive!) and ended up teaching the class myself, with her observing and participating. After the lesson, she was apologetic, but explained that it had been a misunderstanding: at the other school where she worked, she was only expected to show up on time and to stay for the required period in the class with the client or clients. The door would be closed throughout her lesson, and nobody would enquire as to what went on within.

Hoping this WAS a genuine misunderstanding, she will have another chance, but at Madrelingua we expect professionalism, and of course are prepared to pay for it. Our hourly rate is 33% more than that of the "other school", so it's fair to expect more effort. However, the point is this: we would happily pay MUCH more for staff who REALLY know what they are doing, and have qualifications to prove it.

To illustrate this, our school is now offering courses to prepare for exams like CAE, IELTS, TOEFL, and certain university exams, but we have no applications from staff with experience with these exams, or with the level of experience which would indicate that they could be trusted to develop such courses. I'll therefore be teaching them myself, with the longer-term aim of "training up" others to do these courses, but it's far from ideal.

So,dear reader, if you are just teaching English for the experience of living abroad for a year or two, all well and good. But if you hope to stay in Bologna or in TEFL long-term, follow my advice: get yourself a couple of years of experience and then do a diploma and/or a masters. Even just signing up for the course will distinguish your CV from the other 50 or so in the same pile, and you can reasonably expect to earn at least 50% more per hour and work in an environment in which you will be respected as a professional, not just another "replacable" native speaker. Who knows, you may even find a school who will subsidise your course for you - in fact, why not come and ask me? Who knows, for the right person, I may be prepared to put my money where my mouth is!

Best wishes for the new academic year!

Summertime, and the living is easy..

2006-08-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

My last post in May talked about the end of the academic year and the prospects for the summer, so it seems that a good place to start this post would be an update on what I've been doing since then.

May seems like such a long time ago now but, thinking back, there was all the ususal bits and pieces to finish off the year - end of course exams, certificates for students, catch-up lessons, and the like. Some classes finished earlier than others, so there wasn't a day when I could say, "I've finally finished teaching!". In fact, by early June there were people signing up for intensive courses.

At Madrelingua we tried to run as many courses as possible, even if that meant only breaking even, or even taking a small loss on a group. The rationale is that every client we teach is a potential future client too, and a source of positive word of mouth for the school. So we had lots of small-ish groups starting and stopping over a period of about 5 weeks, right up until the middle of July.

I must say I enjoyed the intensive courses - they were a nice break from the grind of teaching the long annual courses. The idea that you've got a group for only a week or so, then the prospect of them renewing if they're happy, was somehow quite liberating. I felt free to address my students' immediate needs, without worrying too much about the long term - after all, if your client has only signed up for a week or two, you don't really have responsibility for their long-term learning.

I also met some nice people - there was a young architect, a couple of vegan, animal-rights enthusiasts, one of my neighbours, who did just a week but swore that those few lessons had "unblocked" his English, and of course others, though they spring less easily to mind right now.

A more challenging experience was teaching a group of middle-school kids, four of them, as I recall. The 2.5 hour lessons seemed long when I was trying to work out what I would teach, and at first I really felt the absence of a good text book (I couldn't find anything suitable for such a short course). However, once I got going, the lessons really flew by, and I was very satisfied with what was achieved. In each lesson we did some new language, with lots of games and activities to practice and recycle it, then worked with the computers - this was a good opportunity to try out new software that the publishers reps had brought around - before finally doing some work with video. With the media group, over the 5 day course, I got through about half of the first Star Wars film, and we all enjoyed it a lot.

As the video was such a success, I tried something similar with my high-school group the week after, this time using the film "Top Gun", which brought back memories for me because it was one of the first films I ever used as a teacher when I started my career back in Turkey in 1991 (the others were: Mad Max 2 & The Return of the Living Dead). It was hard work developing material for both films from scratch, and I ended up spending a lot more time lesson-planning than I usually do, but the end result in terms of student involvement and personal satisfaction was definitely worth it. If you're interested, you can find the teaching material for both films on the school's website, here:
http://www.madrelinguabologna.com/resources.html

Once most of the intensive courses were over, I found myself with time to spend on marketing... As a teacher, it can be tempting to think that what happens in class is the be all and end all of a language school, and of course from the client's point of view it is. However, the bit before that, the whole process of designing the "offer" and communicating it to potential clients is of course just as important, if not more so. With no one to teach, it matters little how good the teachers are. With no paying clients, there is no school, and no job!

At the British Council, where I worked before starting up Madrelingua, they were kind enough to fund some of us to do an online marketing course - the course was really interesting, though much of the content seemed like just common sense at the time. For example, "marketing" involves researching what your competitors are doing, deciding who your potential customers are, designing your products/services to appeal specifically to them, etc. All seemingly straightforward and uncomplicated.

However, and it is a big however, in real life when you are starting with a blank sheet of paper and a pile of your own money, the task seems much more daunting. It's not always clear what your potential clients want (they may not know themselves) or what your competitors will do. What's more, communicating with potential clients by advertising is expensive and uncertain. One of the first business magnates apparently said something along the lines of "Half of all the money I spend on advertising is wasted. The trouble is, I don't know which half." Very true!

Spending money on advertising is very easy! People are falling over themselves, and each other, in the effort to sell us advertising. If we bought every form of advertising we were offered we would easily spend two or three times our budget. And yet, how to choose? Posters, buses, radio, TV, newspapers, leaflets, the list is endless!

The Internet is clearly becoming ever more important in many areas of business, and language schools are no exception. All schools have websites nowadays, though they often aren't much good. Which brings me back to what I've been doing over the summer - without a doubt, the majority of my time has been spent working on Madrelingua's websites - tidying up pages, adding new content - and on trying to make the sites more visible in the search engine rankings.

If you go along to Google and type in Madrelingua, on the first page you'll get a German translation business, then our school, then lots of other stuff. That's a situation that I'm quite happy with, as it makes us easy to find if a client or potential client already knows the name of the school. However, if you type in keywords such as "corsi di inglese Bologna" or "Italian courses Bologna", you'll find that more established competitors are much more visible than us. Working out why, and what to do about it has occupied most of my summer!

If you'd like to see how the sites have changed, follow these links:

The English school - http://www.madrelinguabologna.com

The Italian courses - http://www.madrelinguaitaliano.com

We started off a year ago with one site which had about 12-15 pages, and by now we have two main sites and two other undeveloped domains totalling over 50 pages. The initial site was done by a professional web designer, and a good job he did too, but subsequently we have tried to do the work ourselves. The idea is that this way the site will be more flexible, as well as being cheaper to run.

One thing I'm particularly proud of is the photo gallery I finished recently. You can see it here:

http://www.madrelinguabologna.com/gallery3.html

It shows photos of kids who studied with us during the last academic year, and is intended to give parents an idea of what to expect from a course.

Web marketing has been fun, but now I'm looking forward to the new academic year and to the start of intensive courses. We'll be running courses for adults and for kids in September, then the usual annual courses from October. It'll also be fun to see all our colleagues again, and perhaps to meet new people too!

Well, other than ten days in France with Stefi and the kids, that's been my summer. Hope you enjoyed yours too!

End of the academic year looming..

2006-05-06T13:07:00.000-07:00

At this time of the year, thoughts inevitably turn to the end of the "annual" courses in early June and, in the absence of an "intensive course" or two, to the long, long, summer break ahead, perhaps with little or no work until September or even October.

It's unfortunately true that the rhythym of language school activity in Italy does tend to mean working as hard as possible for eight months of the year so as to be able to scrape by for the other four. Keeping a portfoglio of private clients can help, but they also tend to dry up in the summer, at least for August when everyone goes to the beach, and often longer. Translations may bring in a little cash for those who've got the contacts, but with so many unemployed graduates around, the pay can be terrible (especially translating books - try NEVER
to work for a publishing company!!).

For single teachers who have the necessary documents to work in the UK, there are lots of summer schools around for a month or two. A job on a residential summer school for 4 or 6 weeks can solve the rent problem, and be a lot of fun too. There is of course the disadvantage that it means working, when everyone else is on holiday. Maybe for a year or two, but no great prospect in the longer term. It's also an unpalatable option for teachers with families, which can't just be abandoned to fend for themselves for months at a time.

Conclusion? EFL in Italy is not going to be a great career in the longer term unless you're lucky enough to work for a school which will a.) guarantee you work all year round, or b.) pay you in the holidays. The British Council might be one such option: last I heard they were giving out "local" (meaning "conforming to Italian law") contracts. Another option for the qualified and the lucky is a job in a university, which is nice work if you can get it. Finally, there's the possibility of going self-employed, building up your own client base (which may include work during at least some of the summer), and being your own boss. This was my own preferred option: though I remember swearing on many occasions that anyone opening a language school these days must be completely mad, the loss of my job with the closure of the British Council in Bologna in 2005 lead me to do just that!

The new business might not have solved the summer income crunch problem, but has given me no shortage of things to do. If nothing else, I can always work on improving our web presence (see http://www.madrelinguabologna.com & http://www.madrelinguaitaliano.com). Marketing has to be fitted in around teaching from October to June, but in the summer there's time to devote to understanding the mysteries of html, Google, and the rest.

Which brings me to my final comment: the best solution to the terrible working conditions in EFL might just be to quit the business and do something which pays all year round. Have a nice summer!

Welcome to my blog!

2006-04-14T14:16:00.000-07:00

Hi!

I'm an English teacher living and working in Italy and I'm going to write on subjects which I hope will be of interest to other teachers of English: discussions on things which I'm doing in class, ideas on how students learn, how best to teach.
I'm currently working in an English school in Bologna, in the north of Italy. I teach classes of adults and children at various levels, and I also manage the teaching team and do some teacher training.
Soon I'll be posting materials and ideas for teachers and students to use.
In the meantime, why not check out my school's website? www.madrelinguabologna.com
I am also working on a site specifically for students of English: www.imparareinglese.co.uk
Comments and contributions are welcome..
Watch this space for updates!

Daniel