I have been living and working abroad for eights months. I can definitely say that it has been one of the most exciting times of my life. Of course, it has also been very challenging. When reflecting about my decision to come to Spain and teach young children, I can tell you that it was a scary decision to make. I, myself, am a very indecisive person. On a daily basis I have a hard time deciding what to wear and what to eat. So you can imagine the struggle I had deciding to go to another country for an entire year and try something new. So how did I decide?
I would compare this decision to deciding what college to attend. I really had to think about every aspect of the country I was going to and the job I would be doing. What would it be like to live in Spain? Would I be able to find an apartment? Where would be school be located? Would I like the food? What about the people? How would I do speaking in Spanish? Would I be able to teach English effectively? Would I be able to handle the children? Among many other questions that flooded my mind. Additionally, I would be thousands of miles from my home, my family, and my friends. I also realized that there would be negative aspects. No matter what you do in life or where you are, there will always be things you don´t like. That´s a given. Ultimately, it came down to my desire to try something new and pull myself out of the comfort zone that I had built for myself. I talked amongst my friends and received advice from people who had done similar things. I eventually decided to take a big leap and accept the position. I accepted my position in April and was able to spend the following four or so months preparing. How did I prepare? In my opinion, the most important thing I needed to do to prepare was take a TEFL course. This allowed me to become much more comfortable with my abilities and develop ideas and lesson plans for my upcoming year as an English language assistant. Besides becoming confident in my abilities, I also needed to prepare to live in another country. Of course, the most important and most time consuming is applying for a visa (fortunately if you plan to be an auxiliar in Spain, you can apply for a student visa and then when you arrive you will receive a form of identification valid for the duration of your stay). The visa can take a while so I would recommend starting that process as soon as possible. There is an abundance of information on the internet if you have no idea where to start. I applied with a program called CIEE so they helped me through each and every step before leaving and when I arrived in the country. I also had to think about what clothes and miscellaneous items I wanted to bring along with me. How many suitcases did I want to take with me? Would I buy stuff there or should I bring everything? It was a lot of back and forth with clothing. Then there was the items such as shampoo and conditioner and all the other toiletrees
0 Comments
|