Hello Miss Brown !

I really want to pick your brains about your Vaughan experience.  I have been put on the week voluntary experience this Dec !  Help !

Justin

Hi MissBrown, good to see what you've written about VaughanTown, I've been thinking about going out there...sounds like you had a good time. Did you ever consider getting a more permanent job with them? Are you still working in Spain? Lara x

South America would be cool. I was in Peru for two months by myself and I had the best experience ever and Ive made friends for life.

Yea Spain would be cool, I love that place so much and your not too far from home and its a developed country :)

The experience you have depends on yourself, how well do you know the country or its culture and how open minded you are. I didnt research Indonesia at all. I didnt realise that the chinese are richest in the country and the natives are the poorest and dont get a decent education. I didnt realise that most food available is either Chinese (which I dont really like) or Indonesian (which is based on chinese food) and most food is cooked with peanuts and Im a vegetarian, so having fried rice gets a bit boring having it almost every night. AND dont get me started on the mice and cockroaches. Those issues are so little compared to what I gain from being there.

I think anywhere you go in the end, whether you enjoy it or not depends on you

hey!! Indonesia is really good, just glad to escape from England. its like your always on holiday its a good experience. where are  thinking of teaching?

In my opinion the accent in Andalusia is a little worse because the people speak MUCH faster and drop letters off of the end of words. (Mainly the "s") The best place I think would be to try to pursue a job in Castilla y León because there the language is pure because it is the cradle of where Castallano was born. (Mainly in the cities of of Salamanca and Valladolid) The cities are smaller but there is beautiful scenery, lovely and polite people, and they are very FUN cities, especially Salamanca. Madrileños (people of Madrid) speak very well too but I would recommend against going there because it is very easy to speak English if you are in a situation you are having a little difficulty expressing yourself in Spanish. However, there are most likely more opportunites in Madrid, but for me, I wanted total immersion. I think you should consider looking for teaching jobs in Castilla y León.

Hope this helps. Let me know if you have any more questions!

Hey MissBrown... first off, my life style is not very difficult to obtain! hahaha When I first went to Spain in 2007, I started out as a student and then everything fell into place from there. I studied at two exceptional universities, then I did teaching on the side. I taught English in language institutes and also did in house tutoring with young kids who were in grammar school. Spain is a great country to go to, however, it is tough to get a work visa if you are an American (due to bs beauracratic reasons). I would suggest going there on a tourist or student visa so that you will have some time to scout out opportunities while you are over there. Spain is a fantastic country. There are mountains virtually everywhere so you can go hiking, skiing, rock climbing, etc (if you like that kind of stuff). I am not in Ecuador yet. I have to finish my TEFL course then I should be off in September. I´m choosing to go to South America because I want to experience hispanic culture which is quite different in many respects to Spanish culture. I also would like to learn a different Spanish dialect where as in Spain they speak mainly Castallano. There are pockets in the country where there are other dialects such as Gallego which is spoken in Galicia and Catalán which is spoken in Barcelona and down as far south as Valencia, however Valencia´s Catalán varies a little from the Catalán spoken in Cataluña (Barcelona). In northeast (Aragon, Navarro), central (Castilla y León, Madrid) and in Andalusia it´s all Castallano. Andalucia accent is a little different.

Thanks! 15 mins to go and I'm v. nervous.  I'm booked for Vaugn Town, May 14 - 21st at La Albaerca.  Looks lovely.  Go for it!  I'll be back really soon with either good news or bad.

Hi,

There must be a few people on here who are doing Vaughn Town after Robert's advice, including me.  It'll probably cost about £110 for flights and 2 nights in a cheap hostel in Madrid, and you get a week in a 3 star resort in a beautiful place, something for your CV and a chance to check out the Spanish TEFL scene.  Just don't speak any Spanish!

Yeah for sure! Check out my pics (the ones of Barco De Avilla, that's Vaughan. PI is Cazorla) It was a really fantastic week and you meet some great people and have wicked fun! I will go again maybe next year when I take a break back to Europe again!

Thanks Robert. That's real encouraging to hear. I was actually thinking about Vaughantown so now you have mentioned that I am definitely going to check that out. Thanks for the help!