Before moving to Spain to be an Auxiliar de Conversación, it’s hard to imagine what life will look like in the classroom.  What will the job entail?  What will your relationship be with the students?  And the teacher? What will the day-to-day look like?  Will you be planning lessons?  There are so many questions and you don’t really know how it will pan out and what to expect as an Auxiliar de Conversación until you’re actually here and in the classroom.  Before I arrived, I pictured myself working in the classroom, planning lessons, the students loving my lessons (lol), having meaningful conversations with students (double lol…sometimes, but definitely not always).  There are expectations and then there is reality.  In this post, I will share what to expect as an Auxiliar de Conversación in Madrid.  Keep in mind, this is based on MY experience and the experience of friends and roommates, but every school and person is different.

Today I will be answering two questions received on my Facebook posts:

• Could you write about how your relationships with students and teachers were while you were an aux? Was it challenging to have them respect you in your role?

• I would have liked to see a post about what to expect.. I thought I would be talking to kids in an organic way in and out of class, but as it turned out I spend every day doing drills and tests. I have never had a worthwhile conversation (outside of break) with any student except the ones who had given up on school or who were rebellious by nature.

What to Expect as an Auxiliar de Conversaciòn in Madrid Q & A

• What should I do to prepare for my first day of school?

Before going to school on your first day (likely October 1st), it’s a good idea to e-mail your school (try to write it in Spanish).  Introduce yourself, tell them you’re excited to start work, ask what time they would like you to be there, and what the best way to get there is.  My school was able to help me figure out how to get there via public transport and they even put me in contact with past year auxiliars. (DON’T be surprised if they never respond #Spain)

Once you e-mail them, even if they don’t ask for it, you should prepare a short PowerPoint presentation with some information and pictures about you.  Imagine if a new teacher came to your school from Spain… you would LOVE to see pictures of their life in Spain.  It’s the same here!  Include pictures of your home town, show them a map with where your state is, what’s famous in your state?, show pictures of friends and family and what you like to do in your free time.

Also, my school had instructions with the best way to get to school on their website.  Maybe yours will to, and this will be better than what Google Maps tells you.  Be sure to allow enough time for figuring out the bus/metro etc.  In my case, the bus only ran every 30 minutes, so you don’t want to miss it… at least not on the first day 🙂

• You mean, I just show up to the first day without having any idea what to expect and no prior orientation to the job?

Yes, exactly.  Welcome to Spain!

• What was the first day of school like?

On my first day of school, I arrived at 8 am with a packed lunch (lol) and a thermos of coffee (double lol).  Don’t do that… HELLO AMERICANS!  Dress nicely (but not too nicely- I will cover this below), be on time, bring your PowerPoint, bring a snack if you will need it.  This is not the first day of a high-power job, so don’t overthink it.  In general, Spaniards are much more relaxed than Americans, so the work place will be no different.  

On my first day, I was given my schedule, sort of given a tour of the school, and was handed books for each class.  All of the teachers were incredibly nice- expect them to give you dos besos!  When you walk into the classes, expect to be greeted with a rancid smell you’ve never encountered before- that, my friend, it the smell of hormonal teenage in a cramped classroom when it’s still 90 degrees outside.  Get used to it and start breathing through your nose.

In each class, I took a deep breath and introduced myself to the students.  Be sure to tell the teacher you want to show the kids a PowerPoint- they will be VERY HAPPY and very open to your ideas.  Having the PowerPoint also takes some pressure off for you to stand there while everyone looks at you.  Go around the room and ask the kids to introduce themselves (in English).

Story time: Like I said, I brought a packed lunch (a salad and an apple) on my first day since I knew there would be a break in the day.  At 11:10 am, I whipped out my salad, opened the countainer, and dug in.  If you’ve never seen rubber-necking, you should eat a salad in the presence of Spaniards at 11 in the morning.  *This is NOT lunch time*.  Bring a sandwich if you will be hungry (more normal) and get yourself a coffee.  Try to talk to the other teachers, not just the auxiliars, as this will set the tone for the whole year!

• What should I wear on my first day of work?

A freshly- pressed pant suit and pumps (for girls), and a suit and tie for guys.

KIDDING!  Spain, in general, is much more relaxed and laid back than in the US.  Actually, if you do wear a suit or get super dressed up, you’re going to look strange and out of place.  Save yourself the embarrassment.  Jeans and a nice (ish shirt) or a plain t-shirt are totally fine!  A dress is fine, too.  I would not wear: shorts, flip flops, leggings, yoga pants, running clothes, your birthday suit, a bathing suit, or any other suit.

In general, the things Spaniards find strange (in public, but especially in the work place are: short shorts and flip flops.  Don’t look like a slob.

^Not my first day, but this is how I usually dressed

• What was your schedule like?

On the first day, I was given my schedule.  I worked Monday- Thursday, from either 9 am-1 pm or 10 am- 2:20 pm (with a 30 minute break each day).  Each day, I had 4 classes.  Some people will have off Monday (the other auxiliar had off Monday) and some will get really unlucky and get a random day off, like Tuesday, but this usually only happens if there are A LOT of auxiliars at your school.  My first year, I was the only auxiliar, so I chose Friday as my day off.  My second year, the other Auxiliar wanted / didn’t mind having off on Monday, so I took Friday again.  (My rationale is that a Monday always feels like a Monday, even if you don’t have work.  A Friday, on the other hand, is wonderful to have off, because even a Thursday feels like a Friday).  You will hear some people tell you to look at what days there are the most ‘puentes’ a.k.a random holidays with no work and then choose your off day based off of that- I say, choose the off day YOU WANT for the whole year, and don’t worry about the puentes.

I will say that I got VERY VERY lucky with my schedule.  I worked in a high school, where it is much more likely to have a schedule that allows you to work straight through.  They don’t tell you this before, but if you work in a primary school, you may have a 1-2 hour break in the middle of the day that doesn’t count towards your 4 hours.

• What was your role in the classroom?

As you know, as an auxiliar, we are assistants.  The amount of actual work you do will vary by school and teacher.  I had some teachers that literally had me do nothing, just sit and watch and occasionally say something, while others asked me to plan complete lessons while THEY sat and watched, to others that had me take half the class and work on exercises in the book while they worked with the other part of the class.

In general, I found that the teachers were very open to any ideas I had about lessons and if I wanted to do a special activity, they were more than open to letting me do it.  For the classes where I took half the students, the teacher would tell me what they were learning (for example: the simple past and past continuous) and I would come up with a lesson (usually a game).  Learn to use Google… never create your own lessons.  Ain’t nobody got time for that.  There were some classes that I really loved, that were full of great, eager students and I could do just about anything and they would enjoy it, and then there were others, that I knew could really only handle structured book work or the class was likely to end with me ripping my hair out.

This is not my own experience, but it sounds like in primary schools, there is a lot of sitting around in the classroom and observing.  There is also a lot of helping students prep for their standardized testing (What is your name? Where are you from? etc. etc)

• What special lessons did you teach?

I taught lessons on Thanksgiving, American Holidays (Memorial Day, Labor Day, 4th of July), the metric system in the US, foods in the US.  Once we made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

• Did you have meaningful conversations with the students?

There are always kids that love to learn and strive to achieve in the classroom, but for the most part, I would say that my experience in the classroom was asking kids if they needed help, they would tell me ‘no’, and I would awkwardly stand there.   Or doing book work and just asking kids to answer questions.  I loved talking to kids who wanted to practice English, or the ones who were eager to get to know me, but they were few and far between.  Before coming to Spain, my mind’s eye painted a picture of interesting conversations with students while they eagerly learned English, but this was (for the most part) very much not the case.

• Was it difficult to get the students and teachers to respect you?

In my experience, no.  I actually thought the students respected me more than some of the other teachers, which was likely due to being close in age.  I found that if you talk to them like peers, and not like children, they were more respectful.  Also, as part of the auxiliar job, we are just trying to get them to practice English, so it gives you some freedom to have fun with them and do activities they might like.  Lastly, the teachers encouraged me to send students back to the main classroom if they were being disrespectful.  A threat or two about being sent back usually worked well.

For the teachers, I always found them to be incredibly nice and supportive and never felt like they had any ‘lack of respect’.  They know we are not TEACHERS and therefore, if you don’t know something, that’s ok!  Just ask.

• Were the other teachers nice to you?

Again, I was very lucky in that YES, they were very nice to me.  Before starting, I had heard that sometimes the teachers can be snarky towards auxiliars (hey, we show up with no credentials and then just teach and earn money…I get it), but that wasn’t my experience.  I would say, do your best to talk to the teachers (in Spanish) and not just the other auxiliars.  Work with your co-teachers to plan lessons and show a bit of an initiative in the classroom.

• What is the best part about being an Auxiliar de Conversación?

By far, the experience as a whole.  You get to be a teacher, but you’re still young and cool (lol), so the kids look up to you and talk (less) about you behind your back.  You get to teach fun lessons, go on field trips, and get to know some pretty cool people.  If nothing else, your life outside of the classroom will also be amazing.