How did I wind up in Spain? And where is the Canary Islands? The entire process actually started February of 2017. My friend had completed the same job in Madrid and encouraged me to apply. The Auxiliares de Conversacion position required one to be a  native English speaker from USA or Canada and a have college degree.

The position provided:

  • The ability to obtain a Visa for 8 months (October – May)
  • Up to 16 hours of work/ week for 933 euros a month.

A few months later in June 2017, I accepted a teaching assistant job (Auxiliares de Conversacion) from the Gobierno de Canario. Sounds simple enough. What the requisition didn’t provide was all the details of transitioning into Spanish culture. The struggles and the delights. Would I do it over again? In a heartbeat. Looking back on the 8 months, I realize that I have changed for the better, and hopefully that one would think I am, not only an Asian American, but also a little Canarian now.

 How is Canary Islands Different from Spain?

People say it’s the Hawaii of Europe. Islander life- A slow pace, chill lifestyle. How can one be stressed or angry living on an island with beautiful views everywhere?

I think Canarians like to acknowledge that they are friendly than the Peninsula Spaniards. Hospitality unmatched.  Each Canarian I met welcomed me with open arms and went above and beyond to make sure I enjoyed me time here. At first, I resisted. In America, it’s not normal to say hello to strangers on the street. Go to your coworkers’ parent’s home for dinner. I wasn’t sure how to integrate with everyone.

Immersed in the way of life here, I couldn’t help but be converted. Here, I learned to value my time over work. The importance of relaxation and “me” time. Each day after school, I would take a small siesta and relax until 5pm. During that time, I would “get nothing done.” That’s right. Two full hours of me time.

After that mini-me time, motivation would be renewed. Now that rest is over, I had to get up and be productive again for another 3 hours. Some days, I would work on my internet tasks, other days I would practice my Spanish grammar.

The Wages

Is the monthly allowance from Auxiliares de Conversacion enough?

You can definitely “survive” on the 933 euros a month. The rent for a standard studio was about 400 euros a month (mine was a little less expensive). Although you wouldn’t be able to do anything else. Most other Auxiliares gave English lessons to students or online.  I worked online after school for additional income. The price of a coffee here is 1 euro, a sandwich 2-3 euros. A dinner could be enjoyed for less than 10 euros. All my coworkers were always so generous in treating me to coffee or lunch.

What do you need to teach?

“Teaching is so easy and I definitely am overpaid.” Said NO ONE ever.

Teaching requires a lot of planning, interaction, discipline and organization. What’s more mentally challenging? Designing a plane or getting a teenager to try and apply himself to learn? The teenager. With design, I only needed to know the technical requirements. With a teenager, I need to pray to the gods to give me the strength of patience. It would take every ounce of civility in me to be nice and encouraging to a student who couldn’t care less about their future.  It’s embarrassing to say this, but some days if a difficult student’s chair was empty, I would let out a little sigh of relief. This day would be a little easier.  Examples? Well, one day a student told me “Leslie, Son of a bitch.” I pretend I don’t understand. “Sun at the beach? You want to go to the beach? Why?” Then he would say it again. I would repeat the pronunciation of “BEE-CH”. “Beach.” This would go on until he gave up and other students would laugh at his failure on pronouncing a “bad word.” Afterwards, I would ask him other English phrases we were studying to focus on “clean words.” What’s this? A pencil. What’s this? A desk.

In all, there was in fact, only 3 times, where I had to report a student to the teacher for saying/teasing me inappropriately. Whenever I did have to “tell” on a student, I felt embarrassed that I couldn’t handle the situation on my own. I was failing on being a strong authoritative teaching assistant.

Do I have an authority as a teacher?

One of the rules in the program is that the Auxiliares de Conversacion are not allowed to be left alone with the students. We are aids, not teachers responsible for the students. With that being said, I wasn’t sure if I had any authority to impose penalties for misbehavior. No one ever told me the guidelines or what I should do. I couldn’t figure out if my role should be as a friend to them or as a supervisor. My overall goal was to encourage them to speak English. I decided to kill them with kindness. I would be the one to help them. Let them know I was there as an English aid, not a teacher that would grade them. Whenever I would see the students around town, I would always wave and speak in English. “How are you?!” My heart would fill with joy every time they answered” I’m fine thank you and you?”

The GOOD days

The majority of students want to learn. They want someone to pay attention to them. I always liked kneeling next to a student to help them with their workbook or have a little English chat.  The best feeling, for me, was when a student’s face would light up, I could see they linked the English phrase to the Spanish one.  They understood what I was saying. Yes! I did something!

The Boring Days

Not every day can be a winner. There were the days where the teacher needed to explain the grammar or the terms in Spanish. I would sit in the back of class and try my hardest not to fall asleep. I wasn’t sure if the teachers wanted me to contribute more, or not. I wanted to go with the flow and not create more work for the teachers.  Looking back, I wish I had been more proactive about the lesson plans.

Occasionally, I would try to walk around and assist students, but either they weren’t in the mood, or I couldn’t find the strength to force them to participate. When a student hides their workbook from you and only speaks in Spanish and pretends to go to sleep… what can be done to get them to speak in English? The more I pulled the workbook and spoke English, the more resistance I would get. On these days, I would lose motivation and let the student win. But did he really win?  I think he lost the time and opportunity to learn English. Like English- I had the same resistance to Chinese. Like my parents would say- “One day you will regret not learning more Chinese!” How right they were.

CEO Manuel De Falla

The teachers, the administrative staff, the kitchen staff, and groundskeepers are caring and attentive. Unique amongst all other schools in the North, My school included a ethnography exhibit with an entire historic home replica, including a hayloft, gofio mechanisms, cooking area and clothes washing station. In the back of the school there was a vegetable garden for the kids, Orange trees, Avocado trees, donkeys (Cano and Chiquito), rabbits, and goats. The school even had a coffee shop where the teachers could relax during break. (Though the constant rain destroyed some of the electrical in the coffee shop, but thats another story.)

Comparing with other English teaching assistants, I really felt like I won the lottery in school selection. All of the my English teachers were excellent in both English and teaching.  They taught me what it meant to be a good teacher. Other Auxiliares de Conversacion would tell me horror stories of classes out of control, misogynistic male teachers, prejudiced and ignorant teachers. I couldn’t relate. My school contained none of these negative factors.

My school was both a primary school and a secondary school, in a rural area, up the mountain towards Teide. I was the first ever Auxiliares de Conversacion for the school. We had some sunny days, but overall, the majority of my time at school included a down jacket and a scarf. It was a small price to pay for such an interactive school. Finishing school each day, I would start shedding my layers of jackets as the bus descended down the mountain towards the warmer beach weather.  Here are some of the fun activities we got to do during the school year:

  • Learn how to make Queso Fresco
  • Field trip with 3-5 year olds in Puerto De La Cruz
  • Attend an evening at school with local choir/music groups followed by Canarian Food
  • Roast chestnuts and ride metal sleds
  • Dress up for for Canarian Day (Our School had a Special Boda / Wedding)

Do you need to know Spanish before coming to Spain?

Yes and No. I had about 2 weeks of duolingo Spanish under my belt. The first few months I hammered myself with Spanish TV, Spanish workbooks, Spanish lessons. Each day I would lay down for a siesta and my brain would hurt. I thought I would pick up the language quickly, especially since I would be living in a small town. Nope. Didn’t happen. Learning language through daily life without taking a proper course reminds me of learning to swim. Sure you eventually will swim, but not before you feel like your drowning and swallow a bunch of water. My swimming technique improved 100 times when I joined a swim team. I was foolish to think I could learn Spanish fast. The language takes dedicated time and proper studying. Hindsight, I wish I arrived a month earlier and taken a Spanish immersion course.

Nonw, after 8 months of living here, I can:

  • Understand when someone is mad at me
  • Tell people (in Spanish) that I’m learning Spanish
  • Order food
  • Talk about the weather

That’s pretty much it. I originally thought I would fully immerse myself and find Spanish friends and boom! Spanish would seep into my blood. But since I was so lost in the Spanish language, I could not engage anyone above talking about the weather. I grew tired and frustrated at myself. I grew lonely. Not being able to communicate is tough. The social aspect of attending Spanish events and not being able to communicate was too much for me to handle.

Giving Up and Speaking English

To combat loneliness, I became friends with a few of the other Auxiliares de Conversacion. It was such a reward to spend time with them after a long of day of incomprehension.  We all had similar problems. Culture shock.  Language struggles.  Spanish Bureaucracy. Words would roll off my tongue. I finally realized now why most of the Chinese foreign exchange students in California would always hang out with each other than assimilating. Sometimes you need that in order to find sanity in living in such a different world. I didn’t want to be judged, I only wanted someone to understand what I was experiencing. I could tell them about my struggles and vice versa.

Challenges with Gobierno (Spanish Government)

The process of obtaining a TIE/ Visa in Spain felt like an epic 20 year Odyssey journey. Each time I felt the finish line was within reach, something would happen and I would need more paperwork to complete the process.

The first Visa

In June, upon accepting the Auxiliares de Conversacion position, I gathered all the necessary paperwork and sent it to the Spanish embassy. This included:

  • Multiple Passport Photos
  • Background Check Request
  • Finger Prints from the local police station in Seattle
  • A background Check Letter from the DOJ of California
  • An apostille verification stamp on my Background Report
  • My Auxiliares de Conversacion Employment Offer Letter

All this information and my passport was sent to the Spanish Embassy in San Francisco. Processing time stated on the web was one month, but really it took a week before I got an email of approval.  This first visa is only valid for 3 months. All the paperwork was supposed to be returned to me, but the embassy kept it. The rule for the next visa requires the same paperwork, but depending on the day, you may or may not be requested for it.

Achieving a Visa and a TIE card

In Spain, I had to do the following to get my Auxiliares de Conversacion Estancia Visa:

  • Go to an Estancia Office to get an official letter to document my job as a Auxiliares de Conversacion
  • Get a bank account (that took three attempts at different banks)
  • Request 2 different appointments at the police station (first one to fill the paperwork, and the second to pick up the card)
  • A trip to a bank account to pay for the TIE card
  • A local Spanish SIM card / telephone number
  • Provide an Empadronamiento from the City Hall confirming my new residence and lease
  • Provide the Official Job Offer from the Gobierno for the Auxiliares de Conversacion

All of the above was completed in my most unfortunate state of Spanish.  The struggle was real.

All businesses close by 2pm for Lunch/ Siesta. Even when I went get my SIM card, the phone company would say the lines are down, so come back tomorrow. Nothing was easy. Each day after school it was a rush to try to get things completed in time before the businesses close.

In fact, I didn’t receive my permanent Visa until the end of December. From there, it was only valid until the end of May.

Spanish Bureaucracy

If you first don’t succeed, hang up and call again.  I learned that your day could go fast or slow depending on the person working that day. Need a bus pass? Depends on who is working. Need a rental car? Same answer. Want an arepa from the girl at the bus station? Get ready for the worst service of your life.  The workaround to frustration, for me, was to realize it’s all chance. Be nice. Plead. Beg. Smile. Keep asking for what you want, until someone has mercy on your soul and will help you.

My day could change like the weather… one minute everything would be great. The next, cancelations, missed buses, closed stores. My day would be a catastrophe. The good news is that I learned in Spain – everything has a way of somehow working out.

No pasa nada.  – My favorite phrase in Spanish. Don’t worry about it.

Conclusions

This has been an experience of a lifetime. I wish more people knew about being an Auxiliares de Conversacion -España.  Immersed in a totally different culture than my American and Chinese background. I could never have expected the influence it would have on me. I’ve made life long friends, countless memories and maybe even learned a little Spanish.