Starting is Simpler Than You Think!

A few years ago, a friend of mine planned on emigrating to Spain with the dream of opening her own language school and starting a new life in the sun.  She had never taught children before and her two options were to open her own school or buy into a franchise, but once she researched more in-depth, she soon realised that neither option was practical or affordable on the budget she had available.

On one hand, opening a school meant high over-head costs (rent, heating, bathroom facilities, furniture etc). And teaching children in after school programmes meant she would pay for a space that, for the majority of the day, would be unused.

The other problem with opening a school meant she would be restricted to teaching in one facility in town.  Her fear was, if another language school opened nearby, she would have direct competition for an already reduced client market.

Her other option was to buy into an established franchise, but she would need a substantial bank loan to pay for the training, rent a school, hire extra teachers, and above all, she would have to pay costly royalty fees each month.  The financial responsibility of running this business was too much. And unfortunately, she eventually gave up on the whole idea and never moved.

So, based on the difficulties my friend faced I chose a different way when I started teaching children English in Italy.

At the time, I had a young child and no extra finances available to open my own school or franchise, but I knew there was a high demand for English teachers, and I was determined to create a new teaching method that children would love but I could also adapt to fit around my personal and financial circumstances.

So, I came up with the idea of renting out spaces by the hour (dance studios, nursey schools, theatre halls etc) in different parts of town that attracted large numbers of children and kept my expenses to a minimum.  My fear of buying into an expensive franchise and being chained financially for life brought me to research, and I devised my own teaching method based on my theatre and music background, which had immediate excellent response and quickly grew from strength to strength.

Since then, I have taught thousands of children, and feel lucky doing something I love. If only back then there had been someone who could have shown me all the ins and outs of get started teaching and saving time and money. With the right training course, maybe even my friend might be in Spain, living her dream.

This has convinced me to want to help others in difficulty by sharing my experience and teaching method with people passionate about teaching children but don’t know where to begin.

Find out more about my teacher workshops.