(upbeat music)
- Good morning, buenos dias from Sevilla, Spain.
My name is Michelle.
I'm really glad to be doing the Instagram takeover
for you guys on the International TEFL Academy Instagram.
I remember this time last year,
I was watching these stories on Instagram,
and imagining that I might be able
to do one of these programs.
So I'm super excited to share with you guys
a little bit about my life here in Spain today.
So before we get started for the day,
a little bit about what I'm doing here,
I currently work as an English teacher
at a public secondary school, and I teach ages 12 to 15.
I'm actually getting ready to go to work as we speak.
So I'm gonna take you guys today to the Pueblo where I work
and then I'll show you around the city of Seville
later this afternoon.
Today, I wanna share with you my program,
the NALCAP program, the visa process, income, budget,
apartment tour, I'm gonna show you my town,
and the city that live in,
as well as a little bit about public transportation,
and feel free to ask me any questions today as well.
We are walking to the bus.
This is my roommate, Alexa.
- Ola.
(both laugh)
- Alexa's doing the NALCAP program with me as well,
we live together with two other ladies
who are also doing NALCAP.
And Lex, what's your favorite thing about living abroad?
- Never knowing what anyone is saying.
- (laughs) It's true.
So I would say yes, it was easy
for me to find English-speaking American roommates,
and the reason is because there are so many
of us doing the program on social media platforms,
and you can just do a shout out and find roommates that way.
If you're looking to live
with locals and practice your language skills,
then I would recommend looking to rent a single room,
rather than searching for roommates,
because then if you rent a room,
you're guaranteed to live with local.
Okay, we made it to school,
and I'm gonna give you a quick tour,
for starters, this is the beautiful orange trees
in front, we're entering in.
(indistinct chatter)
Okay, you guys, I made it to the English department,
and disclaimer, no one is in here with me,
so I took my mask off,
but you can see here we have some British flags,
because the English that they learn
in Spain is English from England rather than from America.
So as an English-American teacher coming in,
I've definitely had some like grammar discrepancies
between American and British English,
which I can get into if you're curious,
but I think it's funny.
So this program is called NALCAP,
and it stands for
the North American Language and Cultural Assistance Program.
It's a government-sponsored program,
which from my research is a bit unique
compared to some of the other teach abroad opportunities.
And the reason I chose NALCAP is
because it was super straightforward
for me to apply, get my visa, get my paycheck,
and have health insurance, all in one program.
I also did use a third party company
to do the NALCAP program because I was just nervous
about all the little details.
So I hired a third party company called RVF International,
and they basically charged me a fee of $1,300,
and they guaranteed me a spot in the program,
they helped me with my visa process,
they helped me just with the whole transition,
and I was really grateful for RVF for that,
and I would recommend them.
So technically my job is a language assistant,
which means that I'll go into a biology class,
or a PE class, or a technology class, for example,
and I will teach English alongside another teacher.
So I might translate vocabulary and do different language
and English activities that are related
to the topic already being taught.
So I do not technically have my own classroom,
I facilitate English learning
with an already existing class.
So you can tell by my work schedule
that my job is not very demanding
in terms of number of hours that I work per week,
my contract requires a minimum of 12 hours,
and then each teacher will use their language assistant
in a different way, for example,
in my PE class, I'm expected to deliver content,
and English lessons in a very different way
than how my biology teacher wants me
to teach English in her classroom.
So it does depend on the teacher, as well as the class,
as well as the school of where you get placed
in Spain for what exactly your job will look like.
This is a great question.
I would say that the visa process was very tricky,
the nice thing about this program is
that they almost guarantee a visa,
but the part that's difficult is the application.
So first you'll be accepted into the program,
and then you can start your visa process,
I believe that I started last year in May,
and that was in order to get my visa by October.
I will add that if the visa process intimidates you
in any way, I was grateful to have the help
of RVF International to apply for the visa,
there's also a ton of online resources,
and if I can do it, you can do it,
so don't be afraid.
Thank you to Marilo for your--
- Hello, (Michelle laughs) ola.
(both laugh)
(speaking in foreign language)
My name is Marilo.
- [Michelle] Marilo, (speaking in foreign language)
- Hi, guys, I'm here with some teachers,
and we're gonna do a quick introduction.
So, Zoe, go.
- [Zoeya] Hi, I'm Zoeya,
I'm an (indistinct) as well at the school.
- [Diego] I am Diego, the caretaker.
- [Michelle] Yes.
- [Jose] Jose Pere Noel, (speaking in foreign language)
(Michelle laughs)
(speaking in foreign language)
- Hi guys, I just got back
to my apartment and I'm ready to do a quick tour.
So this is the front door,
I think this handle's really cool.
(door shuts close)
We step into the foyer and down the hallway here,
we've got the kitchen that is enclosed
with a door, it's pretty large kitchen,
we've got a fridge, oops, that's not closed.
The washing machine is connected to our kitchen,
and as you can see, we have plenty of counter space.
And then through here,
we have one of my favorite parts of the apartment,
a bright sunny living room,
and beautiful little dining area.
Two of my roommates do have bikes,
and they love the convenience of having a bike,
so that is highly recommended if you move to a city.
And this is another part that I absolutely love
(car engine roaring)
about where we live.
(car engine roaring)
We have a beautiful view,
I've got a bridge that connects
to a gorgeous, huge park as well as a river out there,
and then you can see the Spanish flag
is always waving right in front of us in full view,
so that's a fun reminder of the vision.
Down here, we've got some Spanish people
getting their tapas as they love to do,
and right around the corner is my room.
So if you couldn't tell from my budget,
I do have a rent of 175 Euros per month,
that is because I have the smallest room in the house,
but for the most part,
since our apartment is pretty far
from the city center,
it doesn't cost a lot of money
for any of us to pay rent.
So we love that.
I came over here with supplementary income,
I worked about three jobs last summer
to pay for moving expenses,
as well as some different travel that I knew I wanted to do.
A lot of people get second jobs online,
so you can work for companies
like Magic Ears or Tutor Online.
You can also tutor a lot of your students
from your school if they want English help.
(car engine roaring)
(indistinct chatter) (speaking in foreign language)
(dog barking)
(upbeat music)
So I chose Seville because I wanted to live
in a city that was social and easy to navigate.
So this is a medium-sized city,
and it's sunny year-round
which also solidified that.
I was just curious about culture and language,
and just wanted to get outside
of my comfort zone and see how much I could grow from it.
And it's been different than what I expected,
but really wonderful.
So I do not believe
that ITA assists with the NALCAP program.
I do know a lot of people who have successfully
done the NALCAP program on their own,
and there's a number of different third parties
that could help you if you don't wanna try out.
Hey guys, this is my roommate, Heather.
- Hi.
- And I wanted to get her input on this question
'cause I think it's really valid.
- Okay, how did you know you wanted to teach abroad?
I think I knew because I just graduated,
and I wasn't ready to take on a full career yet,
I wanted to grow, and just be super independent,
and the main reason was to improve my language skills,
I just really wanted to get better at Spanish,
and to travel, like I just knew I wanted to--
- You guys, this is my other roommate, Lex.
- Ta-Dah.
- And you remember her from this morning (both laugh)
- This morning--
- Like--
- 12 hours ago.
- Did you have any previous teaching experience?
- No, okay, so I really want
to encourage the people that may not
necessarily have any teaching experience,
you can definitely apply.
I encourage you to just have the confidence,
highlight the areas of your life.
Okay, as I was saying, highlight the areas
of your life that are similar to teaching.
So for me, I'm a volleyball coach,
so I work with kids year-round.
And then also I worked in a third grade classroom.
- All right, you guys,
thank you so much for watching today.
I'm signing off for the evening.
Give me a follow, hasta astaloego and good luck.
You can make your dreams come true.
(upbeat music)