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taliatalia818
Joined: 23 Aug 2011
Posts: 16
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 Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:53 am Post subject: Feedback about a program... |
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Hello! I was wondering if anybody could provide some feedback about the Language and Culture Assistants Program in Spain. Also known as the Auxiliares de conversation en Espana.
Thanks!
Talia |
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Grimace420
Joined: 24 Sep 2011
Posts: 88
Location: Madriz
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| Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 12:40 pm Post subject: |
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Sure, I could spew off a bunch of things having done it myself for 2 years, but is there anything you want to know specifically?
A lot depends on where you end up teaching if you get into the program. I did it in Madrid. Here you work 16 hours per week in "bilingual" schools with teachers who may or may not speak English well and who may or may not actually want you in their classroom. You may or may not be treated like a subservient classroom helper/gopher rather than an equal to the teacher you are working with. You may or may not enjoy the program. I didn't, but I must admit the money we got was pretty good (around 1000 euros in Madrid) for the effort it required. |
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taliatalia818
Joined: 23 Aug 2011
Posts: 16
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| Posted: Wed Jan 25, 2012 6:35 pm Post subject: |
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| but is there anything you want to know specifically? |
Yes there are a few things I'm curious about...
-Housing: Was it difficult finding your own apartment?
-Cons: Anything I need to be warned about? Why weren't you happy with the program??
-People: Is it easy to meet people through the program? I am most likely going over there alone so it would be nice to meet others doing the same thing.
-Spanish: My spanish is a little rusty, I'm conversational but definitely not fluent in the language. Are most people in the program fluent in the language?
*Any other "Need to Know" or facts you can share would be really helpful!
Thanks!
Talia |
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Grimace420
Joined: 24 Sep 2011
Posts: 88
Location: Madriz
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| Posted: Thu Jan 26, 2012 7:50 pm Post subject: |
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| taliatalia818 wrote: |
| Quote: |
| but is there anything you want to know specifically? |
Yes there are a few things I'm curious about...
-Housing: Was it difficult finding your own apartment?
-Cons: Anything I need to be warned about? Why weren't you happy with the program??
-People: Is it easy to meet people through the program? I am most likely going over there alone so it would be nice to meet others doing the same thing.
-Spanish: My spanish is a little rusty, I'm conversational but definitely not fluent in the language. Are most people in the program fluent in the language?
*Any other "Need to Know" or facts you can share would be really helpful!
Thanks!
Talia |
Housing: it depends on where you end up. If you're in a big city, you'll find it hard to rent your own apartment due to the cost. Most people just rent a room. However, in smaller places with a lower cost of living it's possible. Finding housing is no problem with adverts on many different sites (loquo, easypiso.com, segundamano.es), but finding something that suits you and that you like is the challenge. I personally asked a friend in the Canary Islands to organize a room for me in Madrid before I went over, but most people just stay in a hostel and spend the first few days looking.
I've actually worked for a total of 4 years as a language assistant in various programs. One year I worked in a public high school and loved every minute of it. For two years I was in a bilingual elementary school (which I think is the North American Language and Cultural Assistants one -- I'm not 100% sure as I'm not American) and while it wasn't absolutely the worst job I've had, I got burned out doing it. There's just a big difference in the Spanish educational system to most other countries which may take some getting used to. Things are taught by rote and learned by heart (in science, for example, 8-year-old kids would just have to learn and regurgitate "air is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gases") and since public school teachers are assigned to schools through a complicated points system rather than choosing which ones they want to work at, they can be moved from school to school for years until they find a long-term position. This means they can be kind of standoffish and don't really bother making friends with each other. Plus, Spain has a major lack of qualified English teachers and so their English can be pretty bad in some cases, but they still have to pretend to know English and speak it the whole day because that's the idea of bilingual schools. I doubt many of the teachers actually do anything to practice their English in their free time. It just makes you cringe. They'd usually just send me out of their classes, especially from February onwards to practice for the Trinity exam in late May, so I'd get a list of about 40 questions and be told to go out of the classroom and practice the whole list with each student individually. Then when I'd done that I had to begin it all over again . . . and so on for months. I really despised that. In other classes the teacher would just say "go to the library and practice the present perfect. I will send you the first kid in one minute." Or they'd tell me to go and prepare worksheets from scratch even though we're not supposed to do that. Or I'd just spend the whole hour standing there and not really able to contribute much as the teachers didn't feel like using me. I went on my own private strike for a term and actually stopped showing up to some of my classes to see if anyone would notice or complain about my absence, but no one did. I did have one or two teachers I worked with who used me well and appreciated my efforts, but generally I felt ignored and exploited.
Anyway, I could rant for hours about what went on in my school. I made a couple of long nasty posts on another forum about the program and my school after finishing which I'm not proud of, but I was just so negative after the whole experience that I needed to vent at the time. I wish I'd kept a diary of the second year as some of the stuff that went on was pretty crazy. Some people were happy at their schools, but a lot of others had similar experiences to me.
Don't worry about your Spanish. You can take classes here at nights in an official language school or academy or just study on your own by talking to people and living surrounded by the language. |
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taliatalia818
Joined: 23 Aug 2011
Posts: 16
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| Posted: Fri Jan 27, 2012 2:36 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: |
| Anyway, I could rant for hours about what went on in my school. I made a couple of long nasty posts on another forum about the program and my school after finishing which I'm not proud of, but I was just so negative after the whole experience that I needed to vent at the time. I wish I'd kept a diary of the second year as some of the stuff that went on was pretty crazy. Some people were happy at their schools, but a lot of others had similar experiences to me. |
Thank you for all of your honest feedback! |
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