Barcelona Vs Spanish

hahahaha   Sat Aug 02, 2008 8:38 am GMT
Guest   Sat Aug 02, 2008 3:48 pm GMT
Catalonia's attitude gives credence to the Académie Française's argument that recognising regional languages would threaten France's unity.
Guest   Sat Aug 02, 2008 6:00 pm GMT
Quebec Premier Lucien Bouchard has set up a working group to do something about the decline of French in Montreal.

The group includes several of Bouchard's cabinet heavyweights. And the group says it will beef up Quebec's French-language charter if it has to.

The group was set up last October, after the Parti Quebecois's national council meetings.

Some Parti Quebecois hardliners called on the government to do something to protect French in Montreal. The group includes Language Minister Louise Beaudoin, Joseph Facal, Louise Harel, as well as Health Minister Pauline Marois.

Marois says the PQ was surprised by how many immigrants to Quebec choose English. "When you have new Quebecers, when they arrive, when they decide to live in Quebec, an important amount of these people choose to live in English. And there are more people than we thought."

Marois says the group is studying the state of French in Montreal. She says the group will strengthen the French-language charter if it has to.

But she says any changes will respect Montreal's English-speaking community. "Anything that we will do about the protection or the development of the French language will not be in opposition with the English community," she said.

Marois says the committee will present a report within the next month.

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2000/02/27/french000227.html
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:09 am GMT
LANGUAGE POLICY IN HISPANIC AMERICA

Language policy in Spanish-speaking Latin America deals with challenges to the status of Spanish as the official language, a status inherited from the colonial administration of the New World. These challenges come from several sources: the assertion of the rights of indigenous groups, the ‘danger’ of fragmentation of Spanish into a multitude of local dialects, the growing prestige of English and influence of the United States, and along the southern border of Brazil, contact with Portuguese.

In the initial phase of colonization, the Catholic Monarchs and later Charles V required all of their new subjects to learn Spanish, just as their predecessors had imposed the learning of Castilian on the conquered Arab territories in order to bind them more closely together in the nation governed by Castile. However, it soon became clear that the linguistic diversity of the New World was too great to allow for the immediate implantation of Spanish, and some allowance had to be made for the usage of indigenous languages in teaching and evangelization. In 1570 Phillip II reluctantly authorized a policy of bilingualism in which instruction could be imparted in ‘the’ language of each Viceroyalty: Nahautl and in New Spain and Quechua in Peru, with the consequent extension of these two languages into territories where they were not spoken natively. Even this measure was not enough, however, and in 1596 Phillip II recognized the existent multilingualism: Spanish for administration and access to the elite, and a local indigenous language for evangelization and daily communication in indigenous communities. This policy lead to a separation of colonial society into a minority of Spanish/creole Spanish-speakers governing an indigenous majority speaking one of many indigenous languages. The separation became so great that it all but halted the Hispanization of rural areas and created local indigenous elites with considerable autonomy from the central adminstration. A reassertion of central authority commenced in 1770 when Carlos III declared Spanish to be the only language of the Empire and ordered the administrative, judicial and ecclesiastic authorities to extinguish all others. After Independence, the new nations and their successors maintained the offical status of Spanish as a means of strengthening national unity and pursuing modernization through education. This tendency was reinforced at the turn of the century through the 1940’s with notions of Social Darwinism, in which the vigorous hybrid groups of Latin America would eventually overcome the ‘weaker’ indigenous groups. It is only since World War II that this policy has suffered any substantial change.

Several processes converged in the post-War period to shake the linguistic status quo. One is the growth of industrialization, which requires an educated workforce and thus lends urgency to effective education. Another is agrarian reform, which raises the social status of the farmer while increasing his need for vocational training. These two processes create a growing pressure to learn the language of technology and mechanization, Spanish. As a counterpoint to this pressure, there was an understanding among policy makers of the failure of the pre-War incorporationist policies to acheive their goal of Hispanization. The confluence of these tendencies was a shift towards the usage of indigenous languages in primary schools to ease the transition to Spanish. Moreover, the dynamic of questioning the entire model of development grew, a dynamic that was reinforced by the emergence of indigenous activists educated in the new national schools. These contradictions came to a head during the labor and peasant movements of the 1950’s and 60’s, where calls for the preservation of indigenous languages served as a vehicle for the preservation of entire indigenous societies. The subsequent official response to these movements had diverse outcomes throughout Latin America. In Mexico, the new indigenous consciousness continued to grow unabated, as it did among the Bolivian Aymara and Ecuadorian Quechua, and to a lesser extent among the other Quechua speakers of Bolivia and Peru. Elsewhere, many organizations were driven into marginality or outright armed resistence, with the paradoxical result that often the only officially-tolerated supporters of indigenous languages were foreigners: scholars pursuing linguistic or anthropological fieldwork, linguists trained by the Summer Institute of Linguistics for the translation and dissemination of Christian texts, or members of other non-governmental organizations engaged in aid or relief work.

Only recently have indigenous defensors of indigenous languages found any standing on the national stage. This new tolerance has been said to reflect the neo-liberal reforms required as conditions for loans from the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund since the early 1990’s, with the threat of Communist takeover having receeded. There are now a multitude of protective measures that go from bilingual primary education (Honduras), to constitutional protection (Columbia), to the establishment of indigenous languages as co-official with Spanish (Guatemala).

With respect to the status of Spanish among native speakers, Independence lead to the creation of national educational institutions and a desire to reform Spanish orthography so as to facilitate its learning by American speakers, as well as to foster a literary tradition independent of Spain. Such reforms come to little in the face of the turbulence created by Independence, but a second round of standardization began as part of the modernization process initiated around 1870. Increasing immigration to Latin America and the strengthening of trends towards democratization lead to the fear among the intellectual elite that the linguistic unity of Latin America would collapse into a cacophomy of local variants, much as the Latin of the Roman Empire fragmented into the variety of Romance languages.

The final threat to the official status of Spanish is the growing contact with other European languages: with English throughout Latin America, and with Portuguese along the southern border of Brazil. Contact with English arises through migration to the United States for economic or political reasons or sojourns for business or education. This contact is particularily acute in the case of Puerto Rico, where its adminstrative dependency on the United States has led to an extensive diffusion of English, as well as the threatened imposition of English as the official language should Puerto Rico ever gain statehood. This threat has sparked intellectual debates that echo the Spanish-vs.-indigenous-language debates heard on the mainland: language is an expression of identity, perhaps the fundmental expression of identity, and it should not be given up lightly.

Selected references
Angel Rama (1996) The Lettered City. Duke University Press.
[spelling reform after independence, p. 43ff; foundation of Spanish American Academies, Cuervo, Caro & Bello p. 59ff]
Julio Ramos (1989) Desenceuntros de la modernidad en América Latina. Literatura y política en el siglo XIX. Tierra Firme, México.
[Ch. II sobre Bello]
Julio Ramos (1996) Paradojas de la letra. Ediciones eXcultura, Caracas, Miami, Quito.
[Ch. 1 sobre Bello]

http://www.tulane.edu/~howard/Pubs/LALangPol.html
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:14 am GMT
The Decline of Spanish Languages

Christopher Jones, who live in southern France, says "There is one language that has defended itself admirably against Pop culture: French. I can personally attest to the decline of Spanish and the outright destruction of German, but French sofar is holding up (in my opinion, despite franglais which is disappearing). Spain's Spanish had to contend with regional languages like Catalan and Basque, Francoist political promotion and destructive accents like Andaluz. Gallego is nothing other than Galego Portugu廥 which was once the language of the royal court of Alfonso el Sabio. But has anyone noticed that today's written Spanish syntax is completely obtuse? I wonder what P甐 Baroja would say? His command of Castellano was magnificent and his Basque? German has been confronted with the linguistic consequences of unification and its centrifugal dialects like Bayerisch. All in all, la langue subl螸e will triumph as Europe's first, second language. (I hope that sounds contradictory.)

But the real enemy is TV!!!"

RH: The destructive affect of the cult of regional dialects on Spanish is painfully evident- Did P甐 Baroja have a magnificent command of Castilian? It escaped me. I knew him, and his speech was somewhat uncouth. He did not know Basque. Christopher lives close to the Spanish border, where Catalan is spoken. My impression is that he is generous in his assessment of French. The decline in languages may be due in part to the loss of the habit of learning to recite poetry, which was an essential part of education. How many school children today can recite Goethe, Racine, or Shelley?

Ronald Hilton - 5/9/03
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:18 am GMT
The "SPANISH" LANGUAGE: Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries

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Films for the Humanities and Sciences, based in Princeton, New Jersey, performs an invaluable service in providing us with a vast array of informative films, useful in teaching and fascinating as documentaries. It has issued a six-part series, "Biography of the Spanish Language." It is not aimed at specialists, who might argue with many of the statements, but at the broad public; indeed, it began as a series of programs for Mexican television and possibly schools. To attract a wide public it uses the tricks of the trade: noisy background music, lighting effects, and slapstick humor. The problem is that these effects tend to drown out the speech, the subject of the series.

It treats language as the expression of a culture and its history, with literature, especially poetry, as its elevated form as opposed to the vernacular. It views Spanish from a Mexican perspective, which is understandable, since Mexico has more inhabitants than any other country. However, it mentions only briefly other Latin American forms of Spanish, with not a word about Catalan or Portuguese. The first film deals with the history of Spanish down to its introduction in the Americas. The conquistadores appear as a violent, rather stupid lot, while Indian life is romanticized. There are pictures of beautiful colonial cities, but no credit is given to the Spanish civil authorities who planned them. The Inquisition is condemned, while the missionaries,are praised. The Jesuits are lauded for having promoted the cause of independence in the colonial period. are there any books on that subject?

The section on modern colloquial Spanish, especially that spoken on television, is discouraging. It is often difficult to understand, even for people from other Spanish-speaking countries. The film makes light of this, but it is a pathetic decline from the beautiful Spanish promoted by the Spanish Academy. Even some Latin American students at Stanford use a slang unknown to me and often to other Latin Americans. Some WAISers defend the variants as the expression of a people, but they seem to have a romantic longing for the good old times when the inhabitants of one valley could not understand those of the next. John Wonder complains about this, and about the machine-gun like speech of young people. Indeed, in the Bogota I first knew, the "Athens of America," the intellectual elite spoke a very beautiful Spanish. Now SCOLA rebroadcasts news programs from Cali. The young women announcers on the program rattle off Spanish is high-pitched voices without the intonation indicating comprehension. The decline of Spanish in Colombia is a tragedy, admittedly insignificant in comparison with the major tragedy of life there.

The influence of politics on language may be baneful in many parts of the Spanish-speaking world. In 1932 I went to Barcelona to study Catalan with Pompeu Fabra, revered as the father of contemporary Catalan studies; a university is named after him. The atmosphere was very pleasant. Then came the Civil War and Franco, who suppressed Catalan autonomy and the Catalan language. The backlash has been distressing. I am probably the only surviving pupil of Pompeu Fabra, and I thought that would earn general respect. Nevertheless, a young Catalan has accused me of insulting his language, while others have charged that I am a victim of Spanish propaganda. This mentality is counterproductive, endangering Barcelona's leading place as a publisher of books in Spanish. One WAISer tells me she has an American friend who speaks very good Spanish and is married to a Barcelona businessman. They live in New York, but he does not want his children to learn Spanish. Does he realize that he is closing the door to opportunities which would open to them in the vast Spanish-speaking world?

Ronald Hilton - 4/15/01

http://www.stanford.edu/group/wais/Language/language_mexandothers41501.html
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:25 am GMT
Spain, Mexico, most of Central America, the majority of countries and half the population in South America and in areas of the Caribbean. It is spoken by a large percentage of Andorrans, by 12% of the population of the United States and 0.1% of the people of the Philippines. Its future in Equatorial Guinea is uncertain as large numbers of people are switching to French, though it remains as one of the two official languages.

http://schools-wikipedia.org/wp/s/Spanish_language.htm
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 3:42 am GMT
Argenpress, Argentina

Puerto Rico Must Declare

Independence to Restore

Spanish to its Rightful Place



"Those who wish to remain isolated from the rest of the world, either by extending Puerto Rico's current colonial status or through annexing it as a U.S. state, care little about the fate of the Spanish language, because their worldview has shrunk."



By José R. Bas García



Translated By Halszka Czarnocka



December 28, 2007



Argentina - Argen Press - Original Article (Spanish)

In Puerto Rico, there remains a constant debate about language that has its roots in the inconclusive political status of the island. There are the same divisions on the issue of status as there are on the defense of Spanish or English. Those who favor independence [for Puerto Rico] see Spanish as an integral part and a unifying factor of the Puerto Rican nationality. Those statesman [those in favor of U.S. statehood] have adopted a seemingly pragmatic position, downplaying the importance of the cohesive value of Spanish and extolling the teaching and use of English as an instrument for achieving better economic conditions. “English is a universal language of business,” they insist. Many, following the false notion that if their children don’t learn English they won't be able to succeed in life, make great sacrifices to keep them in exclusive and prohibitively expensive private schools, where the teaching is done in English.



But the myth of English seems to be waning. According to a news article [ - in Spanish] published on a Web site devoted to the Spanish language, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has ordered the teaching of Spanish restored to her nation's public schools. Information has been circulated unofficially that suggests the teaching of Spanish in Philippine schools will begin in January 2008.



“The language of Cervantes will return to where it should never have left, despite its ban by the Americans during the first 40 years of the twentieth century,” states the article.



Like Cuba and Puerto Rico, the Philippines were a colony of the Spanish Empire until 1898, when it became, along with the two Caribbean islands, the possession of the United States . The Spanish language has been banned in the Philippines ever since. But the use of Spanish among Filipinos became a form of resistance to the American presence. The ban on Spanish by the American authorities, and then after independence in 1946 through the actions of two of its presidents to remove Spanish from the public sphere, had the effect of dramatically reducing its use.



But despite the attempt to erase Spanish from the Filipino mind, a total eradication of the language has never been achieved. The truth is that, “the perception of the world, the sensibility and rationality in relating to one’s surroundings, and the management of time and space for Filipinos are anchored in two worlds: Asian on the one hand and Western rationality in its peculiarly Spanish form - on the other. This mentality has never been linked to the Anglo-Saxon view of the world," argues the article, in describing conditions similar to those in Puerto Rico. It adds that anyone who aspires to practice the profession of historian in the Philippines is obliged to be thoroughly familiar with Spanish, since over 80 percent of its historical documents are written in that language.



Beyond the historical and anthropological, there are other reasons for wanting to repair the consequences of the linguistic accident of the Philippines initiated by the United States Empire. The Philippines are not alone in reintroducing the study of Spanish. Brazil, which is a global economic power, made the teaching of Spanish compulsory in its schools in 2005. This raised the global potential of those able to communicate in Spanish to about 700 million people. Brazil was probably motivated for reasons similar to the Philippines: to better understand its trading partners. The Philippines aspires to be part of the Community of Latin American Countries [CIN], which is made up of countries that speak Spanish and Portuguese.



“The chances that the Philippines could become a member of CIN is small … as long as the link with the Spanish language remains broken. That limitation has created obstacles for the Philippines for opening up and gaining access to the market potential of almost 600 million people in over 20 countries on three continents,” points out the article.



Another interesting point is that, “young Philippines are pushing for the use of Spanish alongside English, since it raises their earning potential. For the Philippines, the recovery of the Spanish language means the potential for wealth, while allowing it to die out would be a factor in prolonging poverty.”



English is undoubtedly very important, but dismissing the importance of Spanish as a commercial link with the rest of the world, according to a certain school of thought in Puerto Rico, seems somewhat preposterous and absurd. The use of Spanish in the world, far from being on the decline, is increasing. This means that the global market is increasingly dominated by people who speak our own language. So a pragmatic response to that reality cannot be to give more importance to English at the expense of our own Spanish, but to strengthen the vernacular and educate ourselves in as many languages as possible, so as to be able to reach more people. This would be a different approach to the language issue.



For Spanish to take the place of importance in Puerto Rico as it has in other countries, as a means of communication for global commercial transactions, the island needs to have the authority and powers provided by national sovereignty, which at the moment it does not possess. Sovereignty would empower us to carry out these actions.



Those who wish to remain isolated from the rest of the world, either by extending Puerto Rico's current colonial status or through annexing it as a U.S. state, care little about the fate of the Spanish language, because their worldview has shrunk. They don’t need a language other than English to interact with the North American micro-world.

http://worldmeets.us/argenpress000008.shtml
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:12 am GMT
Bernard Cerquiglini on the decline of French

As the International Organisation for French Speaking Communities (OIF) opens its summit conference in Bucharest this Thursday, September 28th, the linguist Bernard Cerquiglini notes that the French 'no' to the referendum on the European Constitution is in part attributable to the relationship the French maintain with their own language. "Despite their official multilingualism, political Europe seems to have chosen English. Most French people find the idea of an English-speaking Europe revolting, they consider it, not without reason, the allegiance to a certain European policy, with the importation of anglo-saxon judicial and economic concepts. Liberalism begins with lexical Atlantism. The French distress can be measured with the referendum. The oppression of its language's universalism, is a blow to the national identity. And European desire is waning."

http://www.eurotopics.net/en/search/results/archiv_article/ARTICLE10586-Bernard-Cerquiglini-on-the-decline-of-French
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:14 am GMT
English Versus French: Language Rivalry in Tunisia

The Maghreb (Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco) has long been thought of as a francophone bastion. Even after independence in the 1950s and early 1960s, countries in this region continued to use French as a tool for modernization and development. Along with progress in Arabization, however, today English is emerging as another linguistic option. This article considers the competition between English and French in Tunisian educational institutions and programs. Two periods are examined in post-protectorate Tunisia: the introduction of English (1956-80) and the spread of English (1980-present). Recent developments in Tunisia in English language policy and planning suggest that the decline in French linguistic influence may be accompanied by a future decrease in French political and economic status.

http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/bpl/weng/1997/00000016/00000002/art00005
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:15 am GMT
Blame urban sprawl for the decline of French on island

Francophones are moving off island, encouraged by government policies
Henry Aubin
The Gazette (Montreal)
samedi 26 janvier 2008

With the heating up of tensions over the declining place of French on Montreal Island, some nationalists are calling for reducing immigration, others for steering allophones to French CEGEPS, still others for merging franco and anglo CEGEPS so as to shrink the influence of the latter.

Excuse me. A far simpler solution exists.

How about simply ceasing to encourage people to move away from Montreal Island ?

Everyone knows that middle-class francophones make up the great majority of those Montreal island residents who leave for the off-island suburbs. Everyone also knows that this exodus (along with the low birthrate among francophones) is responsible for the chronic erosion of French as the island’s lingua franca. The 2006 census showed that 49.8 per cent of islanders had French as their mother tongue, down 3.4 per cent from five years before.

But I don’t think anyone has grasped how the exodus has accelerated since the start of the century. Figures for the 2006-07 fiscal year, made public by the Institut de la statistique du Québec this week, show that 23,827 people moved off the island to other parts of Quebec (in 92 per cent of cases to off-island suburbs) than moved to the island from elsewhere in Quebec. This is 20 times the net loss in 1998-99, when only 1,172 people more left than came.

To be sure, the late 1990s were an unusually rocky period economically, with Quebec still recovering from the 1995 referendum. A comparison with 1998-99 - the earliest year for which the Institut has figures - therefore has the effect of making the current level appear extra-intense.

Nonetheless, today’s level is remarkably high. A demographer for the Institut says you’d have to go back to a four- or five- year period ending in 1990 to find anything like it. That’s the period of feverish urban sprawl that alarmed provincial politicians as they saw the island’s tax base suffering.

Indeed, one of the reasons the Parti Québécois government gave for merging Montreal Island was to curb sprawl. No one ever said how this was supposed to work, and the graph shows the absurdity of the rationale : Coincidence or not, the exodus began its steep rise shortly after the government launched the merger concept in 2000, and it reached high altitude after the merger took effect in 2002.

What explains the resurgence of the francophone flight to the 450 area code ?

Much of it, of course, has to do with the familiar suburban staples of greenery, low house prices and low municipal taxes. But the Quebec government has helped the trend along in many ways. This, ironically, is especially true of governments of the PQ, whose leaders are loudest in bewailing the island’s de-francization.

That’s why people who want to stabilize the place of French on Montreal Island might wisely turn their attention away from immigration or CEGEPs and instead demand that politicians rein in three Quebec government departments in particular.

The first is the transport department. It has facilitated the current exodus during the PQ years by initiating the commuter-rail line from Blainville in 1997, as well as the line from Delson-Candiac in 2001. Under the PQ, the department also started the Laval métro and planned both the extension of Highway 25 and the enlargement of Notre Dame St., a joint project that the Liberals will carry out and that will spur the exodus to Laval and the North Shore. The Liberals also aim to open a rail line to Mascouche on the North Shore in 2010.

The agriculture department also deserves attention. Its commission on farmland protection has accelerated sprawl by approving zoning changes that give free rein to housing tracts.

Finally, there’s the municipal affairs department, which imposed the merger when its minister was the PQ’s Louise Harel. The merger has brought with it higher taxes, more impersonal local government and deteriorating services. Generally speaking, it’s made the island a less attractive place to live relative to the off-island suburbs.

Politicians can’t have it both ways. They can’t logically rail against the declining place of French on Montreal Island while at the time indirectly promoting that same decline.

http://www.vigile.net/Blame-urban-sprawl-for-the-decline
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:21 am GMT
France's Wine Industry in Decline

The number of European commission documents written in French fell by 10 percentage points to 29% in 2002, against 57% in English.

In the council of ministers, the record was even worse: just 18% of texts originally appeared in French, down from 42% in 1997.

And the trend will only accelerate as the EU enlarges: 69% of officials from the new member states have chosen English as their preferred main working language, against 18% for German and 13% for French.

http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/2-23-2004-50900.asp
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 9:22 am GMT
French and German hit

Schools in the lowest fifth nationally for educational achievement are least likely to have languages as a compulsory subject (7% do) while schools in the top fifth are most likely (63%).

Regionally, 40% of schools in the South East have compulsory languages, with just 18% in the North West and Yorkshire and 21% in Humberside.

Languages tend to be kept on in schools with higher than average numbers of pupils whose first language is not English.

The decline has hit French and German the hardest, but Spanish is increasing in popularity.

Among the sort of new courses and qualifications being offered to make the curriculum more interesting are Applied GCSEs, Vocational A-levels and Asset Languages.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/education/4404998.stm
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:22 am GMT
Teaching English in Panama

Jobs are Plentiful, Pay is Reasonable

By Kevin Revolinski

Living in Panama is not as difficult as the latest “Survivor” series might suggest. Whether you are looking to relocate, retire, or just spend a few months under the tropical sun, you can easily support yourself as an English teacher.

I spent a year in Panama City. A short drive from two oceans, it is ideal for snorkeling, surfing, or just lounging on beaches. Tap water was drinkable, fresh seafood plentiful, and work easy to come by. I lined up a position with La Universidad Tecnológica de Panama by email before I arrived, and within weeks of my arrival, with very little legwork, I found work at two other schools as well.

Some of the teachers held TEFL certificates but many had no credentials other than being a native speaker (a few didn’t even have that).

Spanish is helpful but hardly necessary. Many Panamanians know at least some English, and in the classroom most schools demand that the teacher only speak English with students.

The typical language school offers afternoon, night, and weekend classes. Students range from college age to older business people. Private primary and secondary schools teach English as a language or use English for other subjects. Generally, these schools prefer licensed teachers but it never hurts to investigate; The pay is roughly $800 per month.

Most commonly the 8-week language courses meet twice a week for two to two and half hours each class. Some pay hourly, others by the course. Either way, the going rate is about $15-$16 per hour. A single course works out to around $600. Working five courses (which is still only 25 hours of teaching each week) can make you feel like a king.

Visas to Panama

Many foreigners end up working on the sly. A tourist visa is valid for 90 days and renewable for another 90 at the immigration office for $16. Restarting the clock on a tourist visa is as easy as a weekend in neighboring Costa Rica. Penalties for overstaying a visa start at $20 for the first month and increase $10 per month after that. Enforcement is inconsistent.

To go the legal route can be painstaking. Work visas cost $100 and require a copy of your contract, a criminal background check from your country of origin (in the U.S. these are free and can usually be easily had from your local police before you leave), and a Certificado de Buena Salud, which one can get from a local doctor for a brief consultation that costs around $5-$10 plus an HIV test. Additionally, the work visa applicant must present two letters: one to Immigration (Dirección Nacional de Migración y Naturalización) requesting a work visa for a visiting expert and a second to the Labor Ministry (Ministerio de Trabajo y Desarrollo Laboral) for a work permit (Permiso de Trabajo en Calidad de Tecnico o Experto). Both letters justify the need for a Panamanian company to hire you as a foreigner who provides a service or expertise that could not be provided by a Panamanian citizen. Both these letters must be drawn up by a lawyer, and the fees can be expensive. A majority of the foreign teachers I met never bothered with the whole process, prefering a weekend in Costa Rica or a fine upon their departure from Panama.

Private Lessons

Another option for supplemental income is private lessons. A fair rate is $15-$25 per hour. The downside can be reliability. In the end I found it best to try to get students to commit to two weeks or a month at a time and pay ahead, but this is not always possible since the average Panamanian lives paycheck to paycheck (on the two national paydates each month the traffic and nightlife is explosive).

http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0401/teaching_english_in_panama.shtml
Guest   Sun Aug 03, 2008 11:45 am GMT
Teaching English in Costa Rica
When, Where, and How to Land a Job

By Laura Dulin

I have lived and taught English in Costa Rica for almost three years. Costa Rica is lush, tropical country known for its hospitable people. In Costa Rica you can experience their own unique version of traditional Latino culture, dance to salsa music, and escape to tropical beaches.

For most Costa Ricans, speaking English is a way to get hired or move up the ladder in their jobs or careers. This means that many people need to know English, and there are many ESL jobs available.

If you are considering teaching English in Costa Rica, here are a few tips that might help you along the way:

Search For the Job While in Costa Rica

First of all, there are not many schools that will hire you from overseas. However, many will hire you on the spot if you walk into their office, speak English, have a college degree (in anything), and have an agreeable personality.

Proper Appearance

Costa Ricans place a high value on appearance, and a neat, professional appearance will make a good first impression during an interview. Men should wear slacks and a nice shirt to an interview, and women should wear nice pants, or a skirt. The laid back, “I just got back from the beach” appearance turns Costa Ricans off. They even have a special derogatory name for the way gringos look when they are traveling, “gringos cucinos,” which means “dirty gringos.”

Certification Not Necessary

As for TESOL certification, it is necessary only if you want to land a job from overseas. The majority of schools here do not require certification, but it is a plus, and might result in a slightly higher starting salary. Most language schools in Costa Rica do not provide enough TESOL training to develop a comfortable feel for teaching English to natives. Therefore, getting some sort of TESOL training before you arrive in Costa Rica is recommended.

When hiring, schools usually make no differentiation between a TESOL degree that was earned in two weeks on the Web and cost $200, and a course that cost $4000 and was completed in six months. Having a Master's in TESOL will impress the employer, but you will not be paid extra for your expertise.

Income

On average teachers make about five US dollars per hour. You may be paid a few dollars more per hour to teach private classes to businessmen. Teaching around 20-25 hours per week for a private language school, I usually make about six hundred dollars a month. Although this sounds frighteningly low, I can actually get by on that income just fine. In Costa Rica this represents enough money to live in a basic apartment, go out for beer after work, travel to the ocean a few times a month, and generally enjoy life. It is not enough to save money or pay off big student loans. Most people come here with a few thousand US dollars to spend, which enables them to travel to nearby countries in their free time.

When to Look

It is also important to look for a job at the appropriate time of the year. In Costa Rica, the school year begins at the end of January and ends in early December. The best time to be looking for work is at the beginning of January. It does not hurt to get a resume in at the beginning of December such that they have you in mind when they are hiring. Teachers are often hired at the last minute.

The tendency for last-minute hires is due to the fact that schools do not wish to offer jobs until they know how many students are actually enrolling for the new year. After the beginning of the year, the next big opening for jobs usually comes in April, when some North American teachers quit and head back to the states for the summer. A few jobs become available in September, but after September, it is difficult to get hired until the following January.

Type of School

Other important factors to consider are the type of school that would be the best fit for you, your length of commitment, and where you want to live. Most paid teaching jobs in Costa Rica are located in the Central Valley. San Jose, the capital city, has many schools, but it is noisy, polluted, and can be a little dangerous until you know your way around the city. There are some schools located in smaller surrounding cities such as Heredia, Alajuela, and Cartago. I consider these areas more livable, but it all depends on where you feel most comfortable and what is most important to you.

I have worked for three schools since I arrived in Costa Rica in 2001.

The first school for which I worked, The Sarapiqui Conservation Learning Center, offered a volunteer position teaching English and environmental education to children in the northern, rain-forested region of Costa Rica.

Pro-English in San Jose was the second school for which I worked, and there I was able travel around the city and give private English classes to businessmen. This job was the most lucrative, but it was stressful to travel downtown all day, and the noise and car exhaust could soon drive anyone crazy.

I now work for Intercultura in Heredia. The school is well run, and has a supportive community of teachers to rely upon. It also offers teachers free Spanish classes.

In sum, Costa Rica is a great place to teach. The students are laid back and friendly. Weekends it is easy to jump on a bus, and lay out on a tropical beach with warm water, while drinking the cold, cheap beer. Costa Rica’s most famous saying says it all: “Pura Vida” or "life is good".

http://www.transitionsabroad.com/publications/magazine/0411/teaching_english_in_costa_rica.shtml