Hi Verity,
It doesn't surprise me that there are no language schools offering ESOL courses in Torremolinos. I think that your friend needs to ask herself what sort of pupils she's looking for and what sort of people live in or would want to go to Torremolinos to learn English. For example, business people probably make the best language school customers - they can afford high prices and often want the sort of intensive one-to-one language tuition that pays best. But a business person in the UK wanting to learn Spanish probably wouldn't want to go to Blackpool or Brighton to look for that sort of intensive immersion course. Such pupils are more likely to be found in the big cities with big, busy commercial sectors and quite possibly would prefer to go to Spain for it into the bargain. I'd be surprised if their Spanish equivalents would particularly select Torremolinos as the place they wanted to go and learn English.
Similarly, people wanting to help their kids improve their langauge skills are also likely to want to ensure that their kids have a solid immersion in British culture and not just the English language, hence why Brighton and almost any resort on the south coast is almost over-run with teenagers from mainland Europe studying English at the dozens of language schools that have sprung up in the seaside resorts down there.
I would have thought that the most likely people looking for English tuition would be parents wanting private tutors for kids to get them through their equivalent of GCSEs and A-levels and so they would be looking for more than is offered by most TEFL/ESOL tutors where the emphasis tends to be on spoken fluency rather than reading and writing literacy. Is your friend going to be able to demonstrate that she understands the school exam syllabus? If she is, then such private tutoring might be an option.
Another source of potential pupils would obviously be local people working in the tourist industry and related services in the area but this sort of work could quite likely be something that would be limited to the winter off season - during the summer such people are probably too busy trying to earn a living to find the time to brush up their English.
Paradoxically, if her Spanish is good enough she might it find it much more lucrative to try and find a language school that offers Spanish tuition to British tourists and ex-pats. Language holidays abroad are a growing market - Torremolinos might very well have a language school that offers visitors the opportunity to combine working on their Spanish with a holiday in Spain.
SM
