Interview With an Expat: Ella, Spain

Meet Ella!

We met in high school, but she’s come a long way since then!
Last year she graduated from WWU with a degree in Spanish & Linguistics. Now, as a step towards her dream job, Ella’s committed to a year in Priego de Córdoba in the Andalucía region of Spain, teaching English through the
Cultural Ambassadors program. This one of the most popular and accessible programs for those who want to teach English in Spain (it has low requirements and quite a few perks), so I’m SO EXCITED for y’all to get her firsthand scoop! Read on to feed your Spanish dreams!
*All photos were generously provided by Ella
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

1. Why Spain? Can you tell us about your program?
My program is called Cultural Ambassadors, and it’s an eight-month program which takes place from October through May and is run by the Spanish Ministry of Education. It’s basically a way to dip your feet into the world of teaching while also having a chance to immerse yourself in the culture.
Responsibilities: My official title is “auxiliar de conversación,” or conversational assistant, and my job mainly consists of helping students with English conversation in order to gain fluency and work on pronunciation. However, I sometimes present entire lessons in subjects that range from philosophy to biology to art, which is probably my favorite part of this job. I love being up in front of a class of students (even when they’re 17 years old and stare at me like a bunch of zombies).

Placement: When applying for this program, you select the top three regions that you want to get placed in and the levels of education that you want to teach. I selected Andalucía as my top region and secondary as my top level of education, and ended up getting my first choice in both of those categories (I teach students aged 12-18)! Not everybody is as lucky, but I think that the people who run the program and review applications do their best to give all applicants one of their top choices.

Oh yeah, the program also gives you 12 hour work weeks, 3 day weekends every weekend, health insurance, and a 700 euro/month salary. Not bad for my first job straight out of college. 

Eligibility: The only requirements are to hold a US or Canadian passport, speak English or French as your native language, and to have either graduated college or be in your last year or two. There’s no requirement to be fluent in Spanish, although it definitely helps.

As for the question of “why Spain?”, I really wanted to improve my fluency in Spanish and also just get a chance to experience a new culture. Professionally, my ultimate goal is to teach high school or middle school Spanish, and in order to do that, I’ll have to pass the ACTFL (American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages) language fluency test, which is virtually impossible to pass if you haven’t spent at least six months in a country where your target language is spoken. I live in a tiny town in the mountains where most people only speak Spanish, so I definitely get some more practice.

2. What was your greatest fear/hesitation before moving?
Oh boy. I was scared out of my mind. The night before I left, I remember coming into my parents’ room and curling up in their bed and crying, because I was so nervous about what to expect; what if I can’t do it, what if the homesickness is too much, what if, what if, what if. I had studied Spanish for seven years, but no textbooks tell you how to set up a bank account or sign an apartment lease. I also grew up in a super tight-knit family, so moving 5,000 miles away, to the other side of the world, was a huge deal. I knew that I was going to miss Thanksgiving and Christmas, I was going to miss my little brother leaving for boot camp, I was going to miss hundreds of other moments during these eight months. And my dog. I especially miss my dog. But I also knew that the experience would be worth it and that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I didn’t take advantage of this opportunity.

3. What things do you look forward to most during the week?
Classes with my 12 year olds. Without a doubt. They’re such a fun and energetic group! They’re crazy and wild and are constantly telling me I’m their best friend (which, when they say it, sounds more like “free-end” and makes my heart so happy).
Apart from work, a group of us Americans in my town have started getting together on Tuesday nights to drink wine and watch The Bachelor. I was never really into reality TV until we started this tradition, but it’s a great way to unwind mid-week, talk to friends my own age, and laugh at how absurdly unrealistic trash TV is. Then there’s THE FOOD. Spain has so many great foods to try, which makes it easy to spend my entire paycheck on croquetas and churros. I’ve made it my Saturday morning tradition to go to a cafe around the corner from my apartment and get a tostada con tomate and a cortado (translation: toast with olive oil, pureed fresh tomato, and salt; and a shot of espresso with a tiny bit of milk). The whole thing only costs two euros, and it’s something to look forward to at the end of every week.

• 

• 

4. Where do you hope this experience will take you? Well, even though it’s so much fun being able to live abroad and travel around, I did primarily apply to this program for professional reasons. In order to get the career that I want when I move back to the States, I need to immerse myself in a country where Spanish is the main language spoken, and so far this program has helped immensely with my fluency. I also want to gain as much experience in the classroom as I can before applying to grad school and big-girl teaching jobs when I move back to Washington. This program has helped me to gain experience with lesson planning, classroom management, teaching styles, working with diverse students, and perhaps most importantly from a linguistic standpoint, how to effectively teach a foreign language.

This experience has also made me more confident as an adult and a functioning human member of society. Being 21 and fresh out of college, I had never done things like setting up my own bank account or signing a lease independently, much less in my second language! This is also my first time ever living completely alone, which was terrifying at first but I’ve come to absolutely love it.

Now, I know that once I get back to the states, I’ll have no problem navigating the world of adulthood – and if I do run into any problems, I’ll be confident enough to figure it out or at least fake it till I make it. 

5. Any advice for those looking to move abroad? So much advice
Firstly, moving costs money. I had a couple thousand dollars saved up before coming here, and all but about $300 was gone before I got my first paycheck at the end of October. Down payments on apartments, transportation, grocery staples, household products, and just generally adjusting to your new surroundings will drain your bank account. In short, plan ahead and save up way more than you think you’ll need. It’s hard to travel and fully enjoy yourself if you’re deep in debt.

• 

• 

Secondly, expect to have fun, but not too much fun. Sure, Europe is fairly easy to travel around, but realistically I’ve only traveled to one other country since being here. I don’t have a car, and living in a small town, I’m at the mercy of the irregular and often unreliable bus schedules to get around.

Take advantage of the local “staycations” rather than stretching your budget thin with international trips every other weekend.

I’m within two hours of the cities of Granada, Córdoba, and Málaga, which have all made for some awesome spontaneous weekend trips that have allowed me to enjoy the city much more freely than if I had spent 200 euros on a two-day trip to, say, Italy. That being said, definitely make plans to travel every so often. If you plan far enough ahead and save enough money, bigger trips are definitely feasible. In December, my dad and brother were on vacation in Ireland, so I took a long weekend to visit them there. That’s easily one of my best memories here so far, even though I had to scrape together cash from the private English lessons that I teach in order to pay for groceries for the rest of the month when I got back. Was it a little difficult to live off of eggs for three weeks? Yeah, a little. But was it worth it to spend five days with two of my favorite people in one of my favorite countries? Absolutely it was.

Another piece of advice is to say “yes” more! Right before Christmas break, a teacher that I work with was going to a gathering where a bunch of community members in a nearby town would be cooking and serving micas, which is pretty much the Spanish equivalent of Thanksgiving stuffing. It was definitely a spur-of-the-moment decision, but I’m so glad that I went because it was a much-needed evening spent practicing my Spanish, eating until I thought I’d burst, drinking homemade wine, and listening to generations of voices singing Spanish Christmas carols. I got to experience so many different sides of a culture that you just can’t really get to know during the day-to-day routine.

The nitty gritty: You’ll likely have to apply for a visa to move abroad. It’s scary and daunting with lots of steps, but if you just take it one step at a time and take a deep breath every so often, you’ll make it. I had to travel from Washington to San Francisco in order to apply in person (each state has its own rules on whether you need to apply in person/online/through the mail/etc). After a minor paperwork snaffoo on my application, I was off on a super stressful, several-hour race around San Francisco with my mom, trying to find someone who could set it right. In the end we made it back to the consulate before they closed, I got my visa back in the mail more than a month before I left the US, and am now living happily ever after. These things will happen but you just need to take it all in stride.

This one is important: Get familiar with the language and cultural etiquette. Like I mentioned before, I majored in Spanish. But Spanish from Andalucía is not Spanish from Madrid is not Spanish from Costa Rica is not Spanish from Ecuador is not Spanish from Cuba is not Spanish from Chile. There are so many dialectal differences, and it’s important to take note of what to say and what not to say in any given country. On the cultural side of things, I came here fully aware of the double-cheek air-kiss that’s so common when you meet someone new, and I’m so glad I did. Coming from a country where kisses are so often reserved for mostly our families or significant others, I could have easily been taken aback when complete strangers leaned in to greet me like that, but having done my research beforehand, I knew what to expect.
Finally, and this is probably redundant, but: let it scare the shit out of you, and do it anyway. This is a lesson that my dad has taught me and my brothers for our entire lives, and I’m so thankful for it. Saying the final goodbyes to my family at the SeaTac airport and going ahead through the security line without looking back was probably one of the hardest things I’ve done so far. However, I knew that this was an opportunity that I had worked so hard to get, and I would regret it every second of my life if I didn’t take advantage of it. Leaving home “for real” is scary and surreal and I don’t think I’d ever be fully ready for it, no matter how long I waited. But life goes on and you’ve gotta take the leap and do things that terrify you, and I don’t regret this leap for a single second.

♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦♦

Interested in teaching in Spain as a cultural ambassador? Check out their website for more info here!