This post is part 2 of an email conversation between Lindsey, a girl who was applying to the language assistant program in Spain, begun here.Part two of our conversation...Lindsey: Thank you so much for your help in answering all my questions! I'll be honest, I'm getting really excited about the idea of all this, it sounds like its exactly what I'm looking for. I do have a couple more questions, and I hope I'm not being a nuisance!
You said you were doing this to support your husband and yourself over there . . . is 888 Euros a month enough to do that?! I've been trying to think about it (and I'm sure its different for two - and married - than a single person who can live with roommates) and without a car payment or gas expenses (I'd just get an abono) it sounds pretty doable. Do you find that it covers most of your needs?
I've been looking at the boards on the
[Madrid Auxiliares] Yahoo group and it looks like different housing opportunities come up fairly often. Did you and your husband find a place before going over or did you do a hostel or hotel until you found somewhere? If you did find one previously, how did you go about looking for it?
From your last email it sounds like you come up with some of the teaching activities yourself. I, like you, have no plans to become a teacher of any sort in the future, this is really an excuse to get back into Spain/Europe for awhile. It doesn't sound like you NEED any teaching experience but have you found that its pretty guided and easy to fulfill their expectations of you or do you feel that you've been at a disadvantage not having taught before? (Or maybe you have taught before!)
As I said, I will be graduating this year, so my next question is how early do I need to apply? From one of the blogs you gave me (and those ARE great resources, so thank you SO much) it sounded like the job itself is from October to May or so, but I'm assuming you need to have applied and been accepted long before that. I checked out the official website (again, thanks for that link, I'll be watching that closely) and as soon as I see that I CAN apply I will. Did you apply early and do you think that the earlier you apply the greater chance you have, or does it not really work like that?
Also, I read on the official website that you cannot get a second type of job because you're on a student visa. Do you HAVE to come over on a student visa in order to be an auxiliary? Or could I try to get another type in case I did want to find another part time job?(This kind of ties in with my earlier question about the money being enough . . . I'm concerned I may need another bit of income) If I'm asking questions that you don't know, I apologize!
I think I'm finally out of questions. Again, I so appreciate your being willing to answer all of my questions and give me a first hand perspective of this. You're a life saver! I'm sorry if I'm driving you nuts with all these questions.
Me: Heh. I think I'd be living like a queen over here if I were only supporting one person. 888 euros seems like quite enough to me, considering the avg. rental price for a single room in a shared apt. is 300 a month. Add to that the cheap 45-or-so cost for an
abono [in] Madrid (including metro, bus and
cercanías). If you're outside of Madrid, your pay is slightly less but then again housing is less too. So you're still left with a good chunk for food, going out, whatever else you need (I, for one, find a home internet connection to be essential) and even some moderate traveling. Granted, it isn't too hard to get supplementary income from private tutoring which helps to pad the budget. And these are all prices in euros, which isn't good when your income is in dollars but which is perfectly manageable when you are paid in euros.
I would always recommend having enough savings for when you initially come over though, because you'll arrive sometime in Sept. and won't get your first paycheck until the end of Oct.
As for encountering housing, it is really hit and miss and all in all pretty stressful. We were lucky to find a place after 4
days of dogged searching, during which time we stayed in a hostel, but I know people who have spent much more time searching. Madrid is a very competitive market in the landlords' favor. In the end, we got into a place that is geographically convenient but that we share with two flatmates (keeps it affordable). I wouldn't be comfortable deciding on a place before I got here and had a chance to actually check it out.
For helpful hints you may want to look at the discussion board on these the
Auxiliares en Madrid facebook group, especially "Memoirs of a Piso Hunter". It has some good general tips. Also, there are some good tips [from other auxiliars]
here.
If you want to waste a lot of time reading our chronicled piso hunt, you can check out my blog, but I haven't boiled it down to specific tips there. If I were to codify the rules, I'd say
- use segundamano and loquo and idealista and whatever other sites are commonly used for piso listings
- do your best to sell yourself to future roommates/landlords as a cool, tidy, financially secure person (be prepared with your program acceptance letter, bank statements, etc. as evidence)
- check out all your transport possibilities with the online map or pick up a "plano de transportes de la comunidad de madrid"; don't get boxed into thinking about only metro comunicación and above all
- be persistent and follow up on every single lead.
I had some prior teaching experience, [including TESOL and other adult teaching experiences,] but not anything dealing with small children, which made me nervous at first. But I found that the ministry has been good with offering ideas through training seminars and beyond that I've looked up teaching resources online occasionally. From my experience, I don't think you need to bring anything specifically for the kids like books, since you won't know their specific ages in advance. (The only thing that's really come in handy are photos and postcards, etc. from back home for you to make a poster of some sort about yourself at the school.)
And at my school, we stick pretty closely to the textbooks, so anything I come up with that dovetails with the material is something that I can put together just by reading a unit ahead. There are no guarantees because of the number of schools involved, but my fellow teachers were helpful in making sure I got a teacher's copy of the textbook for myself. I think enthusiasm and charisma is the most important asset you can bring. And your job mostly comes down to creatively and simply explaining information to the kids (with miming and props as necessary). And I have a bunch of random TESOL site bookmarks listed here:
http://del.icio.us/unrulyjulie/tesol. Oh, and definitely talk up your [previous teaching] experience--that will be very positive for the application reviewers.
Apparently applications are reviewed at the end rather than ongoing so theoretically it shouldn't matter when you apply. I applied right before the deadline (April 15th, right along with taxes) and I was officially graduating in August and I was accepted. You can apply early on if you want to and simply note that you are on track to be graduated before the program would begin. You probably still won't get a response until a month after the final deadline.
As to the visas, you will be given all the paperwork and instructions for obtaining a student visa which will be a single-entry good-for-90-days visa. It allows you to be an auxiliar but does not allow for any work authorization. Within the first month that you arrive you have to "renew" the visa in a sense by applying for a NIE (
número de identificación de extranjero) and a
tarjeta de estudiante. These will make your stay legal for the duration of the program.
To legally be allowed to work outside the program, you must either come on a worker visa (which requires as a precondition a work contract from a Spanish company) or you would need to apply for a work permit when you are here (separate from your student card and also contingent upon a formal contract of work from a Spanish company). These are very difficult to obtain, so the best recommendation is to rely on the stipend and give some private lessons if you are comfortable with being paid in cash (technically not legal, but it's a widespread practice). Some people also seek employment from private academies to supplement their income (10-20 hours teaching English to groups through the academy). The topic of finding private students yourself is another on that I won't delve into here but it's not hard.
I do hope this program works out for you and at any rate, I will probably post excerpts of this on my blog for other interested persons to read, that is, if that's OK with you.
This is a three-part posting of our conversation. It continues here...If you are interested in applying for the program Lindsey and I discussed, here is the online application. Best of luck to all applicants!
Kneading the dough to a perfect consistency and then rolling it through the press.
It goes through many, many passes before it's just right.
Added a two-cheese filling.
Closing up the giant raviolis (nigh unto empanada size).
Served with a fresh tomato and asparagus sauce. Yum!
