A year of decadent, dangerous Costa Rica hostel management is over. I ungraciously return to a quiet life of English Teaching to support my traveling/drinking addiction. I had already spent two strange years teaching in Thailand and Slovakia before, so it had the feeling of accidentally bumping into an old ex. The familiarity feels good at first, but after a few moments you remember why you broke up in the first place.
Teaching English abroad is an exercise in humility. You realize how little you know about the very language you've been speaking since you were a child. You pathetically try to correct students' grammar errors and questions without screaming out: "Dammit, because I speak English, that's why!!!!" You have to keep a straight face when students pronounce "beaches" as "bitches." Your local coworkers quietly resent you because they had to put in years of education to get the same job you got simply by being a... dah dah dahdah: NATIVE SPEAKER!!!! (cue applause, shouts of, USA! USA! 'Murica! 'Murica!)If you don't take students' errors too seriously; however, it can be a very funny job. And I do mean funny...not fun. The ESL teachers know what I'm talking about.
My interview with Berlitz, which coincidentally happened the same day I got robbed, went well and I started training the day after I left Castle Tam Hostel. Ever the cynic, by the time I'm one day into training I already see problems with teaching in Costa Rica, as compared to Thailand and Slovakia. My salary is lower than it was in both of these countries. Given that Costa Rica has the highest cost-of-living for Central America, this means I'm sitting above the poverty line, but still sitting at home for two weeks doing nothing until payday to make rent. Remember that alcohol factors importantly into my budget.
My awkward work schedule means 4 hours of teaching at 6 in the morning, followed by a 6 hour empty gap, then 4 hours of teaching until 9 at night...Saturday mornings included. Even though Berlitz is an international language school, none of the administrative staff speaks English, and it's only by virtue of speaking Spanish that I'm able to wade through the paperwork involved with getting hired. Fortunately, I am part of the government healthcare system, but that is not exceptional since Costa Rica has a social healthcare system anyway.
Berlitz is a giant, global American-based company, which is its justification for charging students an arm and a leg for 'professional language services.' Unfortunately it's encumbered by local, self-serving Costa Rica-based labor practices, so all of this money is rarely used in a professional way. My teacher training was a perfect example of this; two weeks of American-style corporate jargon, pretty colored pamplates, fancy, scientific-based teaching theories and the official Berlitz Method©®℗ - which did nothing to prepare me for the real classroom. I've had 2 years of teaching experience previous to Costa Rica, so I spent most of the training catching up on sleep and spitting out funny anecdotes from my previous jobs. The new teachers thought I was a genius. I felt like Bill Clinton at a grand testimony defining the meaning of the word "is". Bullshit taken to an art form (he was a teacher too.)
The training did have free pizza and soda.
At the end of two weeks, Berlitz assigned me a 40-hour work week at their San Pedro Equus center then promptly forgot about me. I was disconcerted to find out that my manager was from England -since everyone thinks British English is better than American English- but when I saw his blue scorpion tattoo, missing teeth and bottle of Wild Turkey whiskey prominently displayed on the shelf, I felt strangely comforted. When I walked into the teacher's office, I was surprised to hear only the sounds of Spanish. Isn't this an English language center? The next year became a mire of forced Berlitz Method©®℗ lesson planning, 5am workdays, bad grammar mistakes and intravenous coffee injections. Classes were full of nervous, awkward long silences and freakish, blank stares followed by bursts of incomprehensible sentences with comical Hispanic accents. It felt like watching the old Cheech & Chong sketches, but the students weren't stoned. I wished I was.
The first 3 months sucked horribly. After that the wounds healed, leaving just a dull, numb feeling that only hurt when it rained. It rains a lot in Costa Rica.
I won't write much about the year I worked at Berlitz. I'll leave that to the studious ESL teachers who take their jobs seriously. Teaching paid the bills (barely), and I made some really good friends from working there who frequently shared the same hangovers with me.
And now I know the most beautiful bitches in Costa Rica are in Guanacaste.
Some People Came Here Because They Thought There Would Be Practical Advice For Teaching In Costa Rica. HaHaHa. If You Want To Work On The Beach, Don't Expect To Get Paid. Here's Some Links For Schools (With Salaries) In Beautiful San Jose:
Berlitz: http://berlitz.co.cr/
Prolanguage: http://www.prolanguage.org/
Centro Cultural Costarriccense: http://www.centrocultural.cr/
Idioma Internacional: http://www.idiomacr.com/
Intensa: http://www.intensa.com/
Universal de Idiomas: http://www.ingles.co.cr/
Universidad Latina: http://www.ulatina.ac.cr/
Believe it or not, if you have any questions about teaching in Costa Rica, I will be happy to answer them.
