Emily's ExperienceI asked my friends a few weeks ago if they'd answer a few questions I had about their experience this year as English teaching assistants so that they could offer up their perspective and advice to anyone interested in joining this program in Spain. I'll be sharing their answers on my blog because I frequently get contacted by people who are interested in teaching English in Spain and I thought it would be great to offer up the experiences of different people!
In this post you'll read about the experience of my roommate Emily from Australia. 1. What program did you come with? How did you find out about this program? The auxiliaries de conversacion program, found out about it through my uni! 2. Did you choose to be in region you are in? Were you hoping to be in a different region/city? Yes, I was hoping to be placed in Madrid but this was my second option. I applied pretty late which is probably why I didn’t get Madrid. 3. Did you come to Spain speaking Spanish? No, but I had taken a very last minute Spanish course so I knew some basics like numbers, greetings and so on. 4. What about your time abroad was different from what you had originally expected? I thought that the structure/guidelines about how we were supposed to be working with the teachers would have been more clearly defined. It felt like some of the teachers hadn’t worked with an assistant before and didn’t know how to incorporate me into their lessons effectively. 5. Was finding housing tough? How much did you end up paying for your place (rent, wifi and gastos etc.) The apartments were going very quickly, sometimes as soon as I got in touch with someone the place was already taken, ended up viewing around 3-4 places before settling. I’m paying 190 for rent, and around 20-30 on top of that for the bills. More in winter depending on how much heating you are using. 6. Did you think your monthly stipend was enough to live on? 700 a month was just enough for living expenses and travelling. I hardly made any savings but didn’t mind so much as I preferred to use my money on travelling. 7. What school did you work at and what was your schedule like? I was working at IES Vega Del Prado. I had around 16 hours at the school (because of the breaks) and 12 working hours. I had an alternating weekly schedule, where one week I would work with the English department and the other I would work with teachers from other subjects (all within the bilingual stream). It was generally 9-1 or 9-2 and I lived a 30 minute walk away from the school which was nice. 8. Did you do anything on the side to earn extra money? Towards the latter half of the program I started tutoring two adults. I charged 10 euros for just conversation and 15 euros for a more structured lesson. 9. Looking back is there anything you would have done differently? I wish I’d travelled more before the lockdown! 10. What was the biggest challenge you faced while abroad? At first the language barrier was pretty tough as hardly anyone in the city speaks English. Things got a lot easier after I took up Spanish classes. 11. What was the best experience you had? Over the Christmas break I got to see some old friends in France and Germany which was really lovely. I also went to Poland with some auxiliar friends! (Polish food is veggie-friendly, yummy and cheap!!). 12. Were you homesick during your time abroad? Ever since we’ve been in quarantine, yes very much so!!! 13. How did you overcome or work with those feelings? I try to keep in touch with family and friends as much as possible. Skyping, messaging, etc. 14. What will you miss the most about Valladolid? The people :) 15. What will you miss the least about Valladolid? The food in Valladolid – not the best place to be a vegan, the diversity of the food is also pretty grim. Being a weak Australian, I also found the winter to be very cold. 16. What advice do you have for someone who is planning on joining the auxiliary program? Learn as much Spanish as you can before you get here! Especially if you are not being placed in a major city. You can get around with pretty basic sentences but it can be tricky to navigate house hunting because most landlords prefer to speak over the phone (and it is probably one of the first things you are going to do when you get here). 17. Please choose your favorite photo from your time abroad and explain what makes it so special to you (doesn’t have to be in Valladolid) This was in El Escorial (near Madrid) – was a really fun hike and I also really like cows (and goats).
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