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Ganarse la vida dando clases de español en el extranjero

Hace tiempo que quería escribir un artículo sobre una actividad a la que le he dedicado bastante tiempo en estos últimos dos años: La enseñanza de español. El país donde lo he estado haciendo es Inglaterra, a donde emigré hace algo más de cuatro años. Pero no es algo nuevo, ya lo hice antes en otros países, incluso en España, aunque de forma ocasional. Sin embargo ahora se ha convertido en mi trabajo complementario que ejerzo de forma regular semana a semana. Para mi se ha convertido en una manera fantástica de ganarme la vida mientras desarrollo mi empresa de viajes y antes mientras viajaba. La verdad que ser profesor de español es un trabajo estupendo para todos los que nos gusta viajar y vivir en el extranjero.

Las clases que he estado dando han sido siempre clases privadas individuales o a veces a dos personas que estudian juntas. Empecé dando clases en persona pero más adelante empezaron a surgirme estudiantes online, algo que al principio resultó un reto pero ahora disfruto cada vez más. Si sabes cómo organizar bien tu clase por Skype puedes disfrutar de la posibilidad de trabajar desde la comodidad de tu casa. Sin embargo, no basta ser nativo para dar buenas clases de español, y a veces podemos encontrarnos que la falta de recursos y herramientas pueden jugarnos malas pasadas. Además si quieres plantearte enseñar a grupos en una escuela es muy probable que no sea suficiente ser nativo y necesites tener un certificado.

Por eso llegó un momento en que me planteé estudiar un curso de enseñanza de español y así tener más posibilidades de conseguir un trabajo con mejores condiciones. Dar clases privadas de español está bien por la libertad que tienes pero el inconveniente es la falta de seguridad pues los estudiantes van y vienen, y nunca tienes un número de horas de clase aseguradas a la semana. Estaba claro que si quería acceder a un trabajo mejor y con un contrato iba a necesitar formación y un certificado oficial.

En un primer momento pensé en los cursos del Instituto Cervantes pero ninguno de ellos ofrecía el curso básico de profesor de español online. Entonces buscando otras posibilidades encontré los cursos de Cálamo y Cran. Entre ellos estaba el Curso de Profesor de español y decidí leer el contenido del curso para ver si me convencía. Me gustó lo que leí pero también lo bien que me atendieron cada vez que les preguntaba cuando tenía alguna duda y consulta, tanto por su amabilidad como por su rapidez en la respuesta. Finalmente me decidí a reservar mi plaza para el curso.

La verdad que me sorprendió lo bien preparada que está la plataforma donde se imparte el curso y el sistema que utilizan para la enseñanza de los distintos contenidos y la evaluación. El curso está diseñado de forma secuencial, de modo que no podrás acceder al contenido siguiente hasta que no hayas completado el visionado de la unidad anterior y superado el test de evaluación con éxito. Por supuesto, te puedes descargar los contenidos de cada tema en pdf y guardarlos en tu ordenador. También hay prácticas opcionales que puedes hacer para practicar lo que vas aprendiendo. Y muy importante, en todo momento cuentas con el apoyo de un tutor al que le puedes consultar cada vez que lo necesites. Antes de empezar el curso te explican muy bien cómo funciona la plataforma con documentos y videos, así que no te resultará difícil utilizarla.

Si estás en España tienes la posibilidad de hacer un curso presencial con ellos que imagino será aún mejor. Pero si no tienes otra opción que hacerlo online creo que este curso está muy bien diseñado y te ayudará a adquirir los conocimientos que necesitas. La evaluación final me pareció muy adecuada y consistió en la preparación de una unidad didáctica. La verdad que aprendí mucho preparándola y los comentarios del tutor cuando me la entregó corregida fue de gran ayuda. Además al finalizar el curso puedes solicitar un certificado oficial de la Universidad Europea de Madrid.

Para terminar, no olvides que aparte de los cursos de profesor de español, Cálamo y Cran también ofrece otros cursos presenciales y online que te pueden ayudar a conseguir un trabajo en el extranjero. Tal vez te puedan interesar los cursos de traducción, de creación de contenidos o de corrección, entre otros muchos. Creo que estos cursos pueden ayudarnos mucho para mejorar nuestra formación a todos aquellos que hemos decidido irnos a vivir al extranjero y así tener más oportunidades de conseguir un empleo.

Gracias a Ricardo Hougham Guerrero por las fotografias.

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Entrance of Petit Palais

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Little Potala Palace, west wing. #china #travel #palace #temple #tibetan #tibet #amazing #speechless #wentsworld

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5 Indications You Might Be in Financial Trouble

It can be hard, sometimes, to identify when you might be headed for financial trouble. You might think you are doing fine for now, but what happens if you run into an unexpected expense? And are your finances sustainable as they are?

Before you become complacent about your situation, it s important to take a step back and consider what is really going on with your finances. Look at your spending and saving habits, and then watch for these red flags that indicate that you could be headed for financial trouble:

1. You Only Make Minimum Payments

Do you only make minimum payments each month? If you find yourself only able to make the minimum required payment, that could be a sign of trouble. That normally means that you have maxed out your credit cards, and that you don t have the money to pay off your balance.

If you find yourself only making minimum payments, and not putting more toward debt reduction, and not paying off your balance each month, that s indication that things aren t going well. You don t have enough money to support your current habits if you are struggling to pay the minimum on your debts.

2. You Regularly Dip Into Other Accounts to Make Ends Meet

It seems like you are doing fine when you occasionally move money from your savings account into your checking account. It often doesn t register that you are struggling financially when you have to dip into other accounts to make things work. After all, you do have the money.

However, this is a sign that you aren t living within your means. If you have to draw from your TFSA, or from some other account, that is an indication that you aren t managing your resources effectively. Look at where your money is coming from. If you seem to have an emergency every month that results in you drawing on extra funds, that s in indication that you could be headed for financial trouble.

3. You Can t Find Any Room for Saving in Your Budget

When you are living below your means, you should have some room for saving in your budget. If you look at your situation, and you insist that you don t have any money at all for savings, that s a very real indication that your finances could be in trouble. Not only do you not have enough money to set aside for the future, but it also means that your dwindling emergency fund won t be as helpful in the event that a real financial emergency strikes.

If you don t think that you can afford to set aside money for savings, you need to double check your financial situation and habits and possible make some serious changes to the way you are doing things.

4. You Find Yourself Paying Bills Late

Are you trying to shuffle your bills around? Are you holding that check for the electricity until the last minute? Have you taken your car payment off automatic debit? If you are trying to move your bills around, and especially if you find yourself paying late, or trying to figure out which bills you can let slide, it might be an indication that you are in financial trouble.

It s not easy to budget when you re broke, and if you find that you are struggling with your bills, and trying to move them around so that the due dates work out better for you, it might be time to try to figure out how you can get your finances back on track.

5. The Thought of Money is Stressing You Out

Most of us worry about money sometimes. However, if just the thought of money is stressing you out, it could be a very real indicator that you are in financial trouble. If you don t like to see the bills, and if you are on edge about money, it could be a red flag that you really are headed for financial trouble. This kind of stress about money is very telling.

When money is causing strain in your personal life, including your relationships with your friends and family, you are probably in trouble. That s not a good place to be.

If you are experiencing the signs that you might be in financial trouble, it s a good idea to take a step back and consider your situation. Why are you in this position? And what can you start doing, right now, to get on the right track?

The post 5 Indications You Might Be in Financial Trouble appeared first on Financial Highway.

To get the best credit card, first determine which card works best for your lifestyle. Do you revolve balances or pay in full? Are you establishing or re-establishing credit? Do you need to make benefits? making use of the best credit card will cut prices on fees and interest. Our Ask Bankrate calculator will ask pertinent questions about your investing and billing habits to assist you find the most useful card Source: http://economy4you.tumblr.com/post/37397302113/5-indications-you-might-be-in-financial-trouble

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The High Cost of Clutter

My husband and I just finished moving from a house we d lived in for 26 years. It took a move to really drive home the fact that we had collected too much stuff over the years, much of it junk. For weeks before the move, we dropped off loads of stuff at Good Will, put furniture and unwanted garden tools out to the side of the road for whoever wanted them and put out several bags of garbage for pick-up. But it wasn t enough. Not nearly enough. On moving day, we were overwhelmed by the amount of stuff we had left to move.

Things that have outgrown their usefulness will, more than likely, end up shoved into a corner in the garage, the back of a closet or in the basement. In our case, the trouble zones were two home offices and a basement furnace room.

Many of us are guilty of saving things because someday we might need it. But really, a heater for a water bed we haven t had for years? Water beds went out of fashion years ago. And that was just one of the things we found as we waded through the junk in the basement on moving day. Maybe you think that something is too valuable to throw away but, take it from me, if it s of no use to you now and isn t likely to be ever again, it s time to get rid of it because, at some point whatever it is that you re holding onto, compounded with other useless gear, will cost you dearly in time and energy.

Clutter is a Waste of Time - My husband and I had hired movers to transport the furniture but had decided to move most of the boxes ourselves. But it took us several hours, spread over three days and the help of two family members, to empty our former home of all the little things. Now that we re in the new place, I m still finding stuff that should have been either thrown out or given away before the move and the time I spend sorting through boxes of unneeded things could be spent in more pleasurable pursuits like decorating my new space.

Clutter is a Waste of Space - Storage is big business. There are stores that specialize only in storage and organizing and, while 50 years ago storage units were practically unheard of, they now flourish thanks to the fact our homes are overflowing and people don t know what else to do with the things they ve collected over the years. We re always looking for extra space to store the things we need because we have too much of what we don t need.

Clutter is Demoralizing - Living in a perpetually cluttered state drains you of ambition. Just looking at a roomful of clutter makes you throw up your hands in despair and procrastinate about doing anything about it. It s depressing knowing you have all of this useless stuff to sort through but no will to deal with it.

Clutter Makes it Hard to Think - Researchers at the Princeton University Neuroscience Institute published the results of a study they conducted in The Journal of Neuroscience that relates directly to the effects of clutter on our brains. They found that when your environment is cluttered, the disorder blocks your ability to focus. It also limits your brain s ability to process information. Clutter makes you distracted and unable to think as well as you do in an uncluttered and organized environment.

Clutter battles for your attention the same way a small child might who s standing next to you crying, mommy! mommy! mommy! You won t be able to concentrate the same way you could if there wasn t a screaming toddler competing for your attention. Clutter wears you down mentally so that you re more likely to become frustrated and stressed.

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Clutter Can be Dangerous - The more stuff you have lying around, the greater the risk for falls and the proliferation of germs, not to mention losing important things like prescriptions, car keys or the file you need for work.

When we shut our clutter behind doors, we can forget about it for a while but, sooner or later it will be necessary to deal with all of our unwanted, unneeded stuff. It s better dealt with sooner a little at a time rather than later when you may be pressed for time.

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Obama's jobs record: Better than Bush's

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- Mitt Romney is accusing President Obama of overseeing the worst jobs recovery since the Great Depression.

And months of disappointing jobs growth means the president could face Election Day with fewer workers than on the day he took office. Obama battles job crisisThe U.S. lost 4.3 million jobs in President Obama's first 13 months in office. Track his progress since then.

But Romney's accusation is wrong -- President Obama's job gap isn't the worst. In fact, it isn't nearly as big as the one President George Bush faced eight years ago.

Here are the numbers:

There are 261,000 fewer employees on payrolls today than when Obama took office. But at the same point of the Bush administration, the jobs deficit stood at 856,000 jobs, according to current estimates of the same period.

The data that was reported eight years ago was somewhat different, compared with current figures looking at that period, since revisions have taken place in the months and years that followed. But on Election Day 2004, the readings at the time showed the economy with 585,000 fewer jobs than when Bush took office. As Election Day approached, then-challenger John Kerry was highlighting Bush's job gap, just as the Romney campaign is attacking Obama today.

Related: Are you better off than four years ago?

Private sector jobs: If looking at hiring by businesses, the gap is actually much wider -- the private sector has actually added 415,000 jobs since Obama took office. But it had cut 1.6 million jobs during a comparable period of Bush's first term. The difference is that budget-strapped state and local governments have slashed their staffs over the last four years while they were adding workers when Bush was in office.

Of course the unemployment rate, which is of greater interest to the average worker -- and voter -- than the payroll reading, was far better -- standing at 5.4% eight years ago rather than the current 8.1% reading.

Related: Check unemployment in your state

But 2004's 5.4% jobless rate was up from a 4.2% reading when Bush took office. By comparison, the unemployment rate today is only slightly higher than the 7.8% rate on the day Obama was sworn in, and slightly better than the 8.3% reading a few weeks later.

The Romney campaign did not respond to a request for comment on the comparison between Obama's job gap and that of his Republican predecessor. First Published: September 18, 2012: 5:14 AM ET

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Bottles and Cans

When I was in middle school, I spent a lot of my free time collecting aluminum cans. I would store them up and then eventually sell them to earn some pocket money.

We lived in Illinois at the time, which didn t have a refund system, so one s method of earning a return on the cans was to sell them as scrap aluminum by the pound. The local buyer paid a nickel more per pound if you crushed them, too, so I would go out in the garage with a manual can crusher and listen to a baseball game on the radio while crushing hundreds of cans.

I would earn $0.40 to $0.60 per pound of aluminum that I had to sell. I usually had an arrangement with my father that I would reimburse him $5 for transporting a pickup truck load of cans (which was another motivation to crush the cans before selling them, so I could get more cans into a truckload). So, about twice a year, I d take those cans to the scrap aluminum buyer who would pay me about $200 or so for the cans I delivered.

Not bad for a twelve year old, but not particularly good, either. I would estimate my hourly rate for collecting and crushing the cans to be far below minimum wage.

Today, we still save aluminum cans, but we now live in Iowa, where there s a nickel refund system in effect.

For those unfamiliar with how a nickel refund system works, you essentially pay an extra nickel each time you buy a beverage in a can or bottle. Then, when the beverage has been consumed, you can return the empty can or bottle to get your nickel back.

Most of the time, we collect our cans in a basket and give them to charities. There are several charities in our town that collect empty bottles and cans for their causes.

Recently, however, our oldest son came to the realization that you could actually earn five cents for every can you returned. If you return twenty, that s a whole dollar. He was intrigued.

I told him that if he wanted to start managing the cans, he could return them himself for the money. I told him that he would have to bag them all up and, from here on out, he d be responsible for moving empty cans from the sink into the bin or his bags.

He was really excited at first. He dove into the project, doing all kinds of things with the cans and bottles. We had some guests, so he collected several soda bottles from them.

One afternoon when he got home from school, he wanted me to help him figure out how much his collection of cans and bottles was worth. We sat down and counted them all out. There were 88 cans and bottles.

He was imagining untold wealth. When I told him that the entire collection was worth $4.40, he became a lot more solemn.

He s still involved with the project, but he s a lot less enthusiastic than he once was.

The lesson that my son learned is one that I still struggle with, though. There are many tasks that simply aren t worth the time investment purely in terms of the savings that I earn from doing those things.

Sure, there are some things that are well worth it, like caulking a window where there s air leaking through it (I ll save a lot of money for just a few minutes of work) or airing up the tires on my car before a long road trip (I ll save $5 or so for about three minutes of work).

On the other hand, other things aren t really worth it for the time investment. Cleaning out freezer Ziploc bags for reuse, for instance, earns me far less than minimum wage for the time spent doing it. Hand-washing dishes? Not worth it.

(There s a third group, filled with things that I enjoy doing that also save me money. Going to the library for reading and entertainment materials? Check. Mixing up homemade cleaners in my kitchen? Check. Prepping meals in advance so they can be frozen? Check.)

Frugality is a wonderful thing. Taking on tasks at home that save you money can really make the difference when it comes to rapidly paying off debts or simply making ends meet.

Just make sure that the time you re putting into the project really pays off. Figure out how much you re actually saving for each hour of work you put into the project. If you re not earning much from something that takes a long time, make sure that you re getting additional enjoyment out of it. If not, there s probably something more effective you can be doing with your time.

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6 Frugal Exercise Tips

Whether you re caught in a fitness rut, bored with your current workout routine or have simply been out of the loop for a while, gathering fresh exercise tips is a great way to motivate yourself for success. Here are a handful of frugal ways to sweat it out, minus the financial stress.

Biking

One way to combine exercise with cost saving measures is to bike to work. The money you save on fuel will provide an ROI for your purchased cycle relatively quickly. You can also purchase a hitch for your vehicle and transport your bike to free public trails in order to grab some great scenery during your workout and possibly the opportunity to connect with other cyclists.

Stairs

I m not just talking about the ones in your home, hotel fire exits and workplace. There are challenging staircases built into the steps of publicly accessible monuments throughout the world, making for a great free travel workout that doesn t require you to be stuck in your hotel room. The Spanish Steps in Rome are one classic example, but there are others as well. One simply has to watch a variety of movies and television to see this workout technique implemented.

Inclines

If your idea of exercise tips include those you can implement anywhere from your gym to a public walking trail, consider the concept of inclines. I learned this simple tip years ago from one of the trainers at the gym I used to belong to on Guam. By anyone s definition, this guy was in phenomenal physical condition. My assumption was that he must run the equivalent of a marathon every day. I was wrong. He told me that with some knee injuries he d had, running was out for him. So he put the treadmill at the highest incline possible and did a slow walk for whatever time he had available each day. I always remembered that lesson that you don t have to embrace an extreme sport to stay in shape. If you don t want to dish out for a gym membership, try walking up the biggest hill in your neighborhood to build up your leg muscles.

Activities

It s tempting to think that every exercise session you attempt while on vacation has to involve walking, hiking, jogging, or the hotel gym. The fact is, you can embrace other activities that provide just as intense a workout with a similarly-affordable price. One example is snorkeling. You get a great leg workout along with some good cardio, and pay a fraction of what it would cost to go on a scuba diving adventure. That makes snorkel gear something you can add to your list of cheap fitness gear solutions.

Videos

If you already have a Netflix account, chances are you re familiar with the streaming fitness options available to you there. However, for those who are still debating the necessity of signing up for such a service, free options are available. Two basic ones are Hulu and YouTube, with exercise tips and instructional videos available for everything from Yoga to power band workouts.

Municipal Tracks

More on Frugal Excercise

Get Your Exercise Without Going to the Gym

While I haven t had access to them every place I ve lived, I ve always found municipal tracks to be a great community perk. Sometimes accessible at city parks, and other times via publicly-accessible school grounds, tracks let you (literally) track your mileage in quarter-mile increments. They are also typically located in a central place that s readily available to most of the town, making them a great place to meet up and exercise with friends who have the same fitness goals.

They are also great for couples who are at different points on the fitness continuum. For example, my husband is Mr. Mac Daddy runner and I am absolutely not. A quarter-mile track with multiple lanes let him do his thing while I do mine, yet still be in the same general place with the opportunity to chat for a minute or two whenever our paths sync up. What s more, we re both in the same departure spot when we re ready to go, making it a convenient and fuel-efficient option for us.

These are some of my favorite simple exercise tips for singles, couples and families alike. They provide fun alternatives while not boxing anyone into constrictive parameters that don t suit their personal fitness style.

What are some of your motivational exercise tips?