Life as an English Teacher in Chile

The Chilean language institute schedule

Chile’s language institute schedule follows the Latin American pattern: morning corporate sessions (7:30am–12pm) and evening adult classes (6pm–9pm), with a free afternoon from midday to 6pm. In Santiago, this free afternoon means access to one of South America’s most liveable capitals in comfortable Mediterranean weather for most of the year. The completo (Chilean hot dog) at a street stand for CLP 1,500; cortado at a Barrio Italia café; a walk up Cerro Santa Lucía for the Santiago and Andes view.

Chilean culture: warmth, reserve, and the longest country on earth

Chileans are frequently described as the most reserved people in Latin America — slower to warm than Colombians or Argentines, more private, less physically demonstrative in professional settings. This is relative rather than absolute: Chileans are genuinely warm and hospitable once past the initial reserve, and the same asado (barbecue) culture that defines Argentine social life operates in Chile with equal intensity. But the initial approach is more formal.

Chilean identity is shaped profoundly by the country’s extraordinary geography. The sense of being at the world’s end — a long, thin strip between the Andes and the Pacific, stretching from the subtropics to the sub-Antarctic — gives Chileans a specific relationship with landscape and with the planet that is unlike any other Latin American culture. The Chilean outdoors culture (hiking, skiing, wine tasting in spectacular settings) is not a tourist activity but a primary social practice for the middle class.

Fiestas Patrias (September 18-19, Chile’s independence celebrations) is the national highlight of the cultural calendar. Cueca — Chile’s national dance — fills plazas across the country; fondas (traditional celebration venues) serve chicha (fermented grape juice) and anticuchos (grilled beef hearts on skewers); the country gives itself over to celebration for an entire week. For English teachers who time their Chile posting to include September, Fiestas Patrias is one of the most culturally immersive experiences in the Latin American build.

Chilean food, pisco, and wine

Chilean food is not as internationally celebrated as Peruvian cuisine or Argentine beef — but it has genuine traditions worth knowing. The completo — Chile’s national hot dog, loaded with avocado, tomato, and mayonnaise (and variations across the country) — is available at every street corner for CLP 1,500–2,500 and is a genuinely good snack. Empanadas de pino (baked pastries filled with spiced minced beef, onion, egg, and olive) are Chile’s most beloved snack food. The cazuela de vacuno (hearty beef and vegetable stew) and pastel de choclo (corn and meat casserole) are classic Chilean home cooking.

Chilean seafood is extraordinary and underappreciated internationally. Mercado Central in Santiago — one of South America’s great indoor markets — serves ceviche, machas (razor clams with parmesan), reineta (Pacific fish), and centolla (Chilean king crab) at prices far below their quality equivalent in Western countries. Valparaíso’s port markets are even more direct in their seafood quality.

Pisco is the native spirit — a grape brandy produced in Chile’s Norte Chico wine region and also in Peru (the pisco sour’s national ownership is a genuine and ongoing dispute between the two countries that it is strongly advised not to adjudicate in Chilean company). Chilean pisco sour — pisco, lime juice, sugar syrup, egg white, and bitters — is one of the world’s great cocktails. Chilean wine: Carménère is Chile’s signature grape — a variety that disappeared from France after the 1860s phylloxera plague and survived unknowingly in Chilean vineyards. A good Colchagua Valley Carménère at CLP 5,000–8,000 ($5.70–$9.10) competes with wines that cost 10 times as much in Europe.

Travel from Chile: the world’s most geographically extreme country

Chile runs 4,300km from north to south — the equivalent of travelling from Oslo to Dakar. The geographic diversity within this extraordinary country is without parallel:

• Atacama Desert (2 hrs by flight from Santiago to Calama/San Pedro): The world’s driest non-polar desert. Valle de la Luna. Salt flats. Geyser del Tatio at sunrise. Some of the world’s clearest skies — major international observatories (ALMA, VLT) are located here. One of Chile’s most extraordinary experiences.
• Andes skiing (1 hr from Santiago): Valle Nevado, Portillo, La Parva, El Colorado. World-class snow reliability. June–September season.
• Wine country (1–2 hrs from Santiago): Maipo Valley (closest; good Cabernet), Colchagua Valley (3.5 hrs; best Carménère), Casablanca (1.5 hrs; Sauvignon Blanc; between Santiago and Valparaíso).
• Easter Island (5 hrs by flight): Polynesians’ most remote settlement; the moai statues; one of the world’s great mysteries. Accessible from Santiago in a way no other destination on earth makes this possible.
• Torres del Paine (3 hrs by flight to Punta Arenas + transfer): One of the world’s great hiking landscapes. The W trek or O circuit. The granite towers rising 2,000m from Patagonian steppe.
• Argentina / Mendoza (2.5 hrs by road through the Andes): The most accessible international trip — Mendoza’s wine country is right across the Andes.

What teachers actually experience in Chile