I am a self-employed ESL teacher in Spain! I have previously worked both as a contract employee at a language academy (€10/hour gross, about €8.00 net) and as a freelancer in association with a language academy (€10/hour gross, €8.50 net, so slightly more favorable than contract work). I’ve been in the industry for 5 years, and chose to answer the survey.
I had the same experience here re: unpaid prep time and admin tasks, which was ultimately the push for me to leave the academy world and do fully freelance classes. That and the fact they wanted me there and available 3:30pm-10:30pm Monday to Friday, but with no guarantee that the hours would be filled!
I now teach classes in the students’ home or online, and charge between €18-25/hour. I have been able to maintain a school year schedule of 20-22 class hours per week, plus about 5 hours’ prep time and a few hours of admin (highly variable — lots of billing at end of month!). I am much happier this way, and being able to set my own price has allowed me to pay myself for prep/admin time that I would have been doing anyways.
I generally make about €13,500 gross annually (€12,000-12,500 net, my deductions vary), which–while horrifying for a US reader–is not bad at all for my low COL, especially since I close all of August and only have about 5 hours/week in July. Nevertheless, I will be leaving the industry at the end of this school year to go back to school and get a job with a normal schedule and paid vacation days. Despite my schedule being much better than when I was in the language academies, I still work until 8:30-9:00 most days, and miss out on a lot of things I’d like to do (chief among them, seeing my husband haha).
I chose to answer the survey because despite not fitting neatly into a category, I think it’s important to account for and make visible workers in strange situations. We are often isolated from others in similar positions, and unions or other professional associations are few and far between.