Part One: 3 Things I Wasn’t Prepared for Teaching Abroad

Just When I thought I Was Ready for the Experience of a Lifetime

In my post How to Know You’ll Be a Successful Teacher Without Prior Experience, it may have sounded like I came into teaching in Spain fully ready for anything and everything.

While in some ways that was true, there were still some things that caught me by surprise.

Now that I’ve completed a full year of teaching in Madrid, I can look back and say there were definitely things I could’ve – or couldn’t have – prepared for.

Take it from me. Here are three things you can think about now to get ready for your move abroad.

Número Uno: Learning Spanish Was Harder Than I Thought

I had studied Spanish in school and even at a local community center. I never reached full fluency but had a good enough understanding of the basics to hold a casual conversation. 

I only saw my Spanish skills skyrocket when I lived with a host family in León through the CIEE Teach in Spain Volunteer Program. Being in an area away from major cities and living with locals forced me to practice my Spanish, as mostly everyone around me did not speak English. When my program ended and I came back home to the States, my Spanish stuck with me for a while but gradually got lost over time.

I was sure that returning to Spain would wake my brain back up and my level of Spanish would return to what it was.

I was wrong.

Madrid is full of English-speakers and it wasn’t the same immersive experience I had in León. I found that most people would respond to me in English even when I was speaking to them in Spanish. I had gone to language exchanges, but the environments were too loud for my learning needs and were often attended by so many English speakers that there weren’t enough Spanish speakers to converse with. And because the teachers I worked with wanted to practice their English with a native speaker, we typically defaulted to just speaking in English.

My Resolution and What I’d Do Differently:

I was pretty discouraged my first few months of being in Spain. I thought I had signed up for something I had high expectations for only to be disappointed. The hardest part was admitting to myself I was wrong about getting back to my strongest Spanish. But once I did, I was able to move in the right direction.

I forced myself to respond in Spanish even when people spoke to me in English, and I told my teachers how much I’d appreciate us balancing the language we spoke in with each other. I also made it a point to talk more with the non-English speaking teachers at my school. 

Early on, I researched Spanish classes but they were out of my budget and I insisted to myself that conversational practice was enough for me. Looking back, the price would have been worth it as a long-term investment. I highly encourage you to take advantage of taking language classes for continued learning outside the classroom.

Are you ready to learn a new language? Let me know! Find me on Instagram @travelwithmiv.

So what else was I surprised to find out when I moved to Spain? Continue here for Part Two: 3 Things I Wasn’t Prepared for Teaching Abroad.