I finish my job with Meddeas next week, and I think now is a good time to review which things I have found good, and which I have found bad, while working as a conversation assistant with Meddeas.
First the pros:
- They find you a job. This makes your life much easier. Basically, if they offer you a job you are pretty much guaranteed that they will find you a place. If you don't like the first place they give you, it is possible to turn it down, but then there is no guarantee that they will be able to find you another place.
- You get decent money for not many hours. I got 840€ for working 20 hours a week (less in September and June because the schools have half days). This is more than enough to live off if you are living outside of Madrid/Barcelona.
- There is a point of contact to help you with problems when you first get there. I had a lot of trouble getting my NIE (like NI number) and Jorge at Meddeas was very helpful in sorting it out.
- You won't have a class larger than 15 kids (says your contract), unless it's an extracurricular class (up to 30 students)
Now the cons:
- The university course that comes with the job. It is apparently worth 20 ECTS credits and is all done online (distance learning). I found it very badly organised, not well explained, completely useless and a waste of time. The course didn't even come online until two months after we were supposed to start, and then essay deadlines were not cleared up. It's awful.
- You can't choose where to go. There are a lot of places in Madrid and Barcelona, so if you want to go to these cities then you will most probably be able to, smaller cities have less jobs available.
- They pay loads less for living with a host family (400€ a month) and then claim that you will be better off because Spain is not as cheap as you think. My rent was 120€ a month, Meddeas claimed that average rent in a shared house is around 400€. This is not even true in Madrid. If you live with a family you have to spend 10 hours a week teaching their kids, not really leaving you much time to do private lessons. Your choice though.
All school are different, and people I know were doing different roles. I had to either assist the teacher in class, or take half the class myself (up to 16 kids), and I also did extra curricular classes of up to 30 children. Some of my friends had all their lessons planned for them, I planned my own (which I preferred). A guy I know just took groups of three or four kids out of class. All schools are organised differently and you have to be prepared for your experience to be different to other people doing the same thing! I personally had a great experience and I think it has given me a good insight into teaching, which I hope to continue with in years to come.
Hannah Z
