LEARNING another language will surely go a long way here in Spain. For example, if you want to learn the other dialects here such as Catalan or Basque, then you can go to as far as Tenerife or Las Palmas next to the African coast or any other island in the Canaries Archipelago. You can explore El Teide National Park and ride the cable car going up there. If you know how to speak French, then you can organize a road trip with your friends and go all the way to the Spanish-French border. On the way, there will be no language barriers with the French locals so you already know how to speak French. Just be sure though that you have prepared yourself for a road trip. Do not attempt a road trip alone so someone can assist you when you are dozing off driving. Also, make sure that your car is filled with gas. Anyway, that’s just one aspect why there is wealth in learning another language. It’s not just money that I’m talking about here. The wealth of learning and accumulating another culture is more important.

But one cannot deny that material wealth is also needed during a lifetime. Well, you can actually make money just by studying another language. Consider this, if you only are diligent to study English for three academic semesters, you can in turn teach English. There is a course called Teaching of English as a Foreign Language for that. Called TOEFL in short, this course consists of three stages – basic, intermediate and advanced. Each is equivalent to three academic semesters or six calendar months each. This may be an intensive training all week long but reaping its benefits is definitely worth it. During the first day of school, a student must write an essay about anything. Then he or she must read it in front. The essay gets longer as the class progresses. A student is also assigned a language exchange student through chat. The student may be someone from Great Britain who is also interested to learn Spanish. So that the student on the other end will tutor you what a typical British English conversation sounds like, then you must teach him or her a few Spanish words of your own. Of course, the British student also pays tuition to the language school just like you. After graduating from the advanced TOEFL course, you are now a full-fledged person to teach English.

You can either be a private tutor or establish yourself an English language school in Spain. Plan strategically so you can recoup your investment if you’re planning to establish an English language school. Know what’s the fastest growing tourist destination in Spain because the locals here too who want to work in the hospitality industry are eager to learn English. Right now, the fastest growing destinations are Valencia in mainland Spain in the Iberian Peninsula and Palma del Mallorca which is in the Balearic Archipelago smacked right in the middle of the Mediterranean. You needn’t be limited though, options such as Malaga Car hire mean you can be based in one place (this beautiful Spanish city, perfect for language learning) and escape at the weekends to other cities – not missing out on anything!

THE road to richness when acquiring a second language starts when one turns 21. At 21, one has graduated from college. You don’t need to have a bachelor’s degree in English to enroll in TEFL or Teaching English as a Foreign Language. All you’ll need to do is simply enroll. TEFL institutions are specialized ones and they don’t have any admissions staff that has to screen your qualifications and stuff. Once they’ve known that you have graduated from college, they will let you in no questions asked.

TEFL institutions are either offered traditionally or online. Those offered online has a relatively lower tuition as the school doesn’t need revolving funds to maintain the day to day operations of the physical facility. The only hardware that the school operates is its computers which act as servers and the most vital assets of an online school are in gigabytes or terabytes. Another advantage of enrolling in a TEFL online school is the economy of time. You don’t have to attend the grueling eight-hour classes online.

Instead, all you’ll need to do is check in to your student’s account daily and get the language lesson of the day. One must have to submit the answers of the corresponding quizzes of the day. Just like with the traditional TEFL institution, you will be awarded certificates at the end of the six-month course.

A traditional TEFL course usually has three stages – the beginner’s, the intermediate and the advanced. In the beginner’s course, the student learns the basics of the language. As the student advances in the module, essays passed tend to be lengthier and recitations tend to be long too. To help the student cope with the course, he or she will be assisted with video presentations. In the case of online courses, there will also be video conferencing with the other students and a guest resource person involved.

Students are also encouraged to form study buddies. These study buddies are usually housed in the same dormitory where they will complement each other by exploring their weaknesses in acquiring English as a second language and trying to mend them. Another strategy that language schools implement is for the student to be enrolled in an exchange program. In an exchange program, the student will be introduced to a person whose first language is English. This person will assist the student on how to cope with the grammars and nuances of English. In return, the student must also impart to his partner the basics in his own language.

Other students taking the TEFL course will go into immersion. They will be staying with a native family in the country and the native family will assist you in your English acquisition skills. The same rationale is applied when one has a language partner but being immersed with a family transcends into a more personal level. A language partnership is usually achievable only online when both the student and his or her partner are in video conferencing mode. After graduating from the advanced TEFL stage, you can now go into the world and embark on a promising career.

IT’S so easy being a language teacher. You just enroll in three language classes – basic, intermediate and advanced. They are all worth one academic semester each. That means you will be in school for a total of 18 months. That’s not bad if you are studying online. There are also online language classes and they are all accredited by the proper bodies. In English, there’s the so-called IELTS and TOEFL. IELTS stands for International English Language Testing System while TOEFL stands for Teaching of English as a Foreign Language.

After you’ve graduated from the advanced classes, you can now embark on your own as a language teacher. There are abundant opportunities of being a linguist whether you become a language teacher or not. For example, there are lots of call centers in the Philippines that are catering to clients from other countries. Majority of the people here speak English and so there’s a lot of supply of English-speaking employees here. What’s a rarity here is the existence of Mandarin and Spanish-speaking employees. These people who are linguists are the ones who are paid high.

When you are a Hispanic in the United States, you can make yourself a successful business by launching your own Spanish language school. The most prolific Spanish language schools in the United States are located in El Paso, Texas because of its proximity to Ciudad Juarez in Mexico. The students in El Paso are usually Caucasian businessmen who have stakes in Ciudad Juarez thanks to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Other successful Spanish language schools in the United States are located in Florida. They are mostly manned by Cuban refugees.

In Canada, there’s an influx of French and English language schools. In French speaking regions such as Quebec, there are lots of English language schools there while in English speaking provinces such as Ontario, there are also lots of English language schools. This has created the culture of ingenuity in a Babel-like world. Take for example, Europe. Even if it is the smallest continent in the world, Europe is made up of countries speaking different languages.

But the people there have used it to their advantage. Anywhere in Europe, there are language schools set up which look like a one-stop shop for all language studies. If you are in Spain for example, you may find a language school that has an offering for Portuguese, English, Italian, German and French language studies. Whether you’re an entrepreneur setting up your own language school or whether you’re a teacher here, money surely flows for you.

In Dubai which is a largely-English speaking city yet peopled with diverse foreigners, English language schools are sprouting up. Their students are people from Azerbaijan, Russia, Israel and Pakistan who don’t know any English word or two. These students are usually sent in by their employers to enroll in language courses to prepare them for white-collar tasks ahead. So wherever you are in the world, being a linguist can be a fun opportunity not just for learning purposes but also for excursions in the places where you are assigned.