Recent years have seen unprecedented economic growth in Spain as business and industry forged ahead in the wake of European economic unification, a few job interviews would have omitted the question, “Can you speak English?” and it seems now the market has peaked and the boom in English is over.  

Work permit applications must be lodged in the applicant’s country of residence and collected there as well, sometimes months later; although teachers from outside the E.U. are occasionally hired on the spot by “storefront” schools and paid cash, the wage will normally be below the going rate. Teaching of children is the area in the market which continues to grow, beginning with the pre school children group. You should have a good command of Spanish to be able to teach young Spanish children (with whom the total immersion method is not really suitable).

The most spread scenario for the new arrivals is that he or she will attract only slight interest from few schools and will be told to apply for job again at the beginning of term. Only then a few hours of teaching may be proposed. As a rule, Spanish students sign up for English classes during September and early October. That's why the academies do not know the number of classes they will propose and the number of teachers they will need until quite late. It may become a war of nerves. So, if you can afford staying you have an increasingly good probability of becoming established in one of the schools.

Madrid jobseekers mostly bet on the Madrid Blue Pages and the Yellow Pages (that is a special directory organized by street address). It is also possible to pick out language schools in neglected neighborhoods this way, i.e., near the place where you are staying. It is as well worth checking advertisements in the press, like El Pais in Madrid and La Vanguardia in Barcelona (especially the Sunday editions). As an alternative you can simply wander the streets looking for some schools in the city. Their density is so high that you will come across them for sure. Whenever and wherever you are looking for some job, you can freely consult the Yellow Pages online at http://www.paginas-amarillas.es/

Several independent TEFL training organizations train large numbers of North Americans and acquiring an English language teaching certificate through one of these would be a good way of getting to know the local scene in Madrid or Barcelona (though the work permit problem persists), so  consider Via Lingua, http://www.vialingua.org/, that is available in Madrid, also Barcelona and Malaga; ITC English http://www.itc-training.com/ and Passport TEFL, http://www.passporttefl.com/.
All methods of job search can be successful to some extent as the schools deal with all scales of employment for students. There are special organizations and even chains of corporations that offer the related service. The example of such organization may be Berlitz.  A person who took the Berliz training course will get a week of free course service.

 Similarly the Wall Street Institutes with scores of academies in Spain and a head office in Barcelona (Rambla de Catalunya 2-4, 2a Planta, 08007 Barcelona; http://www.wsi.es/) are always looking for teachers whom they train in their own method and one of the few organizations to favor U.S. nationals over Europeans is the IEN Institute Nord-America (Via Augusta 123, 08006 Barcelona; http://www.ien.es/) but to work for them you need at least two years of experience in teaching both adults and children and you must be prepared to wait 6-8 months for the work permit to be processed.