I decided to do a placement as I wanted to emerge myself in the Spanish language more before returning to university to complete my final year of my modern languages degree. I wanted work experience and also the opportunity to gain something to put on my C.V. to make myself more employable when I finish university.
Through family or friends
It was an extremely simple application process as I knew the owners of the summer school through a family friend. I emailed them, they accepted and then the most complicated bit was acquiring the Spanish NIE number which you must have in order to work in Spain.
My main responsibility throughout my time there was to teach and monitor my own group of children. Day to day this meant that I would teach an English lesson which I planned before hand, then we would play games to put the English we had learnt to practise and then at the end of the day we would all go in the swimming pool and do recreational activities.
A typical day involved me arriving at 9am and spending half an hour greeting the children and talking to their parents in Spanish. The first part of the day was then spent teaching English which as I said before I previously planned. Then we played games to consolidate the English they children has just learned, followed by a snack and then recreational activities.
What I enjoyed most about the placement was that I learnt a lot of Spanish vocabulary that I would not have learned otherwise. For example I had spent the second semester of my year abroad studying in Seville, so I learned a lot of vocabulary but mainly to do with what I was studying or through conversation with my friends, however with the kids I learned more general, day to day vocabulary which is just as essential.
The most challenging aspect of this placement was that it was a very small organisation with just two other teachers other than myself (who owned it), this meant that I didn't really have the chance to make friends whilst I was there.
I definitely got to use my knowledge of Spanish as although we try to teach the summer school in English, my group of children were between the ages of three to five so obviously did not speak English hardly at all. Therefore a lot of the time I did get to speak Spanish which was very beneficial.
It was really good experience and I found it extremely worthwhile however I think it has made me realise that I don't particularly want to be a teacher.
I would strongly advise other students to participate in a summer placement. It adds so much to your C.V. and allows you to gain an insight into what you may or may not want to do when you finish university.
Form completed: 10 Sep 2017