Spain! Moving to Spain can offer you the immersive lifestyle change you’re looking for at an affordable price without concerns over degree requirements. That’s right – unlike locations in Asia – Spanish language schools are hiring with only a TEFL certificate required! Depending on the location you choose within the country, you can enjoy highly-affordable living whilst working either in-person as a private language tutor or in a language school, or go remote and make a living online on tutoring platforms or your own personal business. The options are limitless when it comes to teaching English in Spain, and are tailorable to your needs and preferences.

“Why should I move to Spain?”

In combination with the job opportunities available, the laidback lifestyle of the Spanish might be just what you’re looking for to escape the hustle and bustle of a city, or the mundane life of a desk-job. Spend your days enjoying morning walks in the sun on the way to your clients, tapas and siestas before your afternoon sessions, and a vibrant nightlife at the end of the day to immerse yourself in the social culture of Spanish communities. If going out isn’t your thing, Spanish communities often value fitness and health if you’re looking to join a sports or yoga club! Whatever your interest, Spain has it covered.

“How can I move to Spain?”

The visa processes are different depending on your home country, so make sure to contact your designated Spanish embassy to learn more about the visa process for your specific area. To aid your paperwork, sign up for our Spanish language courses, business courses, or – if you’re not yet certified – our TEFL courses at TEFLBarcelona.net to be eligible for a student visa whilst you get your foot in the door at language schools or build a personal client base.

“Where do I sign up?”

Once you’re over and settled, the world is your oyster! Build your career path in a country full of potential students. Your TEFL certificate alone is enough to get hired or set up for teaching in your new favourite country. The only catch is, once you’ve lived in Spain, it’s impossible to go back (well, not literally). You’ll fall in love with the fiestas, food and freedom this place has to offer, you’ll never want to leave! Are you ready to start your new life in Spain, no degree required? Sign up with TEFLBarcelona.net to jumpstart your career!

The post Can I Teach English In Spain Without A Degree? appeared first on TEFL Barcelona - TEFL Spain.

Six major celebrations are landing in the city between September and the end of December, and if you show up without knowing what they’re about, you could walk straight past human towers, fire runs and a 300-year-old national commemoration without ever realising the cultural history behind what you’re looking at.

Let’s be real, these aren’t quiet local formalities you can skip past. Some of them are genuinely some of the best days to be in Barcelona all year. Here’s what’s actually happening, and why you’ll want to be there for it.

11th September — La Diada

This is Catalonia’s National Day, but it doesn’t celebrate a victory. It marks the fall of Barcelona in 1714, the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, and the moment Catalonia lost its historic institutions and laws. That’s exactly why the date still carries so much weight today: it became the anchor point for Catalan identity, and 2026 is a particularly loaded year to witness it, marking 50 years since the first legal Diada was held after the Franco dictatorship ended.

This isn’t a party atmosphere, it’s something rarer: a chance to feel a nation’s identity out in the open, senyeres (Catalan flags) hanging from balconies, floral tributes laid with real solemnity, and an entire city pausing to remember who it is.

What’s on:

• 9am floral tribute at the Monument to Rafael Casanova, the figure most associated with the 1714 defence of the city, and one of the most photographed, symbolic moments of the day.
• Palau de la Generalitat Open Day — the seat of Catalan government opens its doors from 11am to 5pm, giving you access to historic rooms you don’t normally get anywhere near. Registration required.
• Free entry at several museums and monuments across the city, a rare chance to explore Barcelona’s history for nothing.

24th September — La Mercè

This is the one to build your whole trip around if you can.

La Mercè is Barcelona’s Festa Major, its biggest annual celebration, honouring the city’s patron saint. The main date falls on Thursday 24th September, but the festival runs 23rd–27th September, and for those five days the entire city turns into one enormous free festival: giants, human towers, fire runs, light projections, and well over a hundred concerts across every corner of Barcelona.

2026 isn’t a repeat of previous years, either. Shanghai is the guest city, the first from Asia in La Mercè’s history, marking 25 years of the two cities being twinned, so expect Chinese dragons and street culture woven through the programme. The festival is reaching all ten districts for the first time, Parc Güell is staging something special to mark 100 years since Gaudí’s death, and the closing fireworks spectacular has moved to Bogatell beach for a big finale on Sunday 27th September.

What’s on:

• Correfocs (fire runs) through the old town – thrilling, loud, and best watched from a safe distance with your camera ready.
• Castellers – the human towers, recognised by UNESCO since 2010 as genuinely world-class cultural heritage, not just a tourist photo op.
• The Bogatell Piromusical – the festival’s grand finale, now lighting up the beach for 2026.

12th October — Spain’s National Day

Spain’s National Day traces back to 12 October 1492, the day Columbus’s ships reached the Americas, and it’s still marked with a level of national ceremony you’ll feel in the air across the city.

In Barcelona, though, the real reward is at neighbourhood level. Local festa majors often land on or around this date, meaning you can wander into a barri and stumble straight into a genuine local street party: food stalls, live music, families out celebrating together, with none of the crowds of La Mercè.

What’s on:

• Neighbourhood festivals pop up around the city on this date, each with its own food, music and character.
• A quieter, more contemplative feel in the centre compared to La Mercè, perfect for pairing with a proper wander through Gràcia, El Born or Poblenou.
• One of the best chances all year to see how Barcelona truly celebrates away from the postcard streets.

8th December — Immaculate Conception & the Start of Christmas

This is the day Barcelona properly tips over into Christmas mode, and it’s worth timing a visit around. Head straight for the Fira de Santa Llúcia, the historic Christmas market that sets up beside the Cathedral, packed with handmade ornaments, traditional crafts and festive stalls that have been part of the city’s Christmas since the 18th century. It’s also your best introduction to a few Catalan Christmas traditions that will genuinely surprise anyone who didn’t grow up with them.

What’s on:

• Caga Tió – a log that children “feed” for weeks and then hit with sticks so it produces presents. Yes, really, and yes, you’ll see him everywhere.
• Caganers – the small squatting figures tucked into traditional nativity scenes, a uniquely Catalan piece of dark humour.
• An evening walk through central Barcelona to catch the Christmas lights going up along the main shopping streets – Passeig de Gracia is the place to be!

25th December — Christmas Day (Nadal)

A Barcelona Christmas is a completely different sensory experience to a British or American one, built around food and family rather than public spectacle.

The traditional Catalan Christmas lunch is escudella i carn d’olla: a rich broth with galets, oversized pasta shells, followed by the meat and vegetables used to make it, alongside cava, torró and neules. If you want to try it, book a table well ahead, as the best spots fill up fast for the day.

What’s on:

• Barcelona Cathedral and the Gothic Quarter’s historic churches’ ceremonies – especially atmospheric if you want the more traditional, reflective side of the day.
• Restaurants throughout the city serving traditional Catalan Christmas dinner.

26th December — Sant Esteve

Leftover meat from the Christmas Day feast is traditionally repurposed into canelons, rolled, covered in béchamel and baked for Sant Esteve lunch, with many Catalan families still cooking recipes passed down for generations. Look out for restaurants serving this traditional dish!

Wish you could see it all? Well, you can!

As a tourist, you’ll get to experience snippets of these events, but if you’re interested in the full itinerary, make yourself a local! Sign up for our language courses, TEFL courses, or business courses in Barcelona and experience the city’s biggest celebrations from the inside, not just as a spectator.

The post You Don’t Want to Miss These 6 Upcoming Festivals in Barcelona appeared first on TEFL Barcelona - TEFL Spain.

I’m going to rip the band-aid off for you, short and sweet: you’re never going to reach your language goals with Duolingo alone.

I learnt this so you don’t have to…

I began my Spanish language learning journey over 10 years ago in secondary school in the UK. I was lucky to make significant progress in the language from just one or two hours of Spanish lessons a week, squeezed in alongside all my other subjects. I finished school with a grade 9 (A* equivalent) in Spanish, went on to achieve an A at sixth-form college, and that momentum carried me into studying modern languages as my degree at university.

You’d think that after a decade of formal education, I’d have nothing left to learn about how to learn a language. I was wrong. During my gap year, I had the privilege of attending a private language school for Spanish lessons in Barcelona, and it catapulted my language learning further, and faster, than anything that came before it.

In comparison to the slow progress of years of school in the UK, and the even slower progress I’d watched friends make on language apps, my time at the language school was the fastest, most immersive, and most educational experience of my language learning life. It took me from solid-but-shaky to genuinely fluent within a single year.

The quality of teaching far outweighed even university-standard lessons back home. Instead of drilling disconnected vocabulary or chasing a gamified streak that resets your motivation but never your ability, the course walked me through the real foundations of the language, in order, until I could actually use them, in real conversations, with real people, under real pressure. Not just tap the right icon on a screen.

So why doesn’t an app get you there?

It’s not that Duolingo is useless. It’s that it was never built to make you fluent, it was built to make you come back tomorrow. Every streak, badge, and cheerful little chime is designed around one metric: daily engagement, not language proficiency. That’s a completely different goal to yours.

Here’s what apps quietly leave out, the parts that actually build fluency:

• Real speaking practice. Tapping a translation on a screen is not the same as thinking on your feet in a live conversation, where no one waits for you to type.
• Correction and feedback. An app can’t hear the mistake you don’t know you’re making. A teacher can, and will, catch it before it becomes a habit.
• A structured path. Bite-sized lessons feel productive, but without a clear grammatical foundation underneath them, you end up with a pile of vocabulary and no framework to hang it on.
• Immersion and context. Language doesn’t live in isolated sentences about owls and apples. It lives in culture, tone, humour, and the thousand small decisions native speakers make without thinking.

That’s the gap between a 500-day streak and an actual conversation, and it’s a gap no app, however clever its algorithm, is designed to close.

What’s the real solution?

Four hours of focused learning and practice a day, paired with the immersion of living within the language, is a formula for absolute fluency and accuracy. That’s not a slogan, it’s what happened to me. It’s the difference between knowing about a language and knowing it.

And no, that doesn’t mean you need to move to Barcelona for years to see results. It means learning the way that actually works, structured, guided, and immersive, instead of the way that’s simply easiest to fit into a five-minute coffee break.

If you’re ready to ditch the Duo and make real progress on your language goals, sign up for our Spanish language courses in Barcelona today. Your streak got you started. Let’s get you fluent.

The post Why Duolingo Alone Won’t Get You Fluent appeared first on TEFL Barcelona - TEFL Spain.

With the 90 days ticking down, I scrolled endlessly online, searching for a solution. Everyone told me it was impossible. There was no way to get a visa without enrolling in university or landing a work visa, and work visas are notoriously hard to come by when employers face high fees for hiring and sponsoring foreigners. But I was determined to make it work, one way or another.

Then, one day, I stumbled across TEFLBarcelona — and it had visa options that suited my exact situation. I could enrol in a 6-month Spanish course alongside a one-month, 190-hour TEFL course in Barcelona, giving me 7 months in the city I’d already fallen in love with.

Finding this option felt like a lifeline. Not only would it get me a visa, but I’d also walk away with a qualification that could open new career doors. On top of that, the language classes meant real immersion in the city and a built-in friendship circle — people I’d actually stay in touch with, rather than the usual night-out acquaintances you meet once and never hear from again.

Security, Structure, and a Real Path Forward

What I appreciated most about the courses at TEFLBarcelona was the security they offered. They turned what felt like an impossible dream into something achievable, giving me a solid foundation and legal residency in the process. If you’re wondering how to get a visa in Spain and feeling stuck, a TEFL course in Spain might be the answer you’ve been searching for.

Where I Am Now

After completing my TEFL course and Spanish course, I reached a C1 level of Spanish — essentially fluent — and started working as an online English tutor. That career shift has opened doors for me to live anywhere in the world while setting my own hours, my own rates, and enjoying a level of freedom I hadn’t had before.

Why TEFL Still Matters in the Age of AI

As we move further into a new era of work, TEFL continues to hold its ground in an industry increasingly disrupted by AI. It offers something apps and algorithms can’t replicate: creativity, community, and genuine human connection — the things that keep students actually learning, rather than downloading an app and abandoning it a few months later.

TEFL has also adapted well to the demand for remote work. You can teach fully online, or if you’d rather be hands-on, there are plenty of opportunities at schools, universities, and institutions around the world looking to hire English teachers — many of which come with a guaranteed visa for wherever your teaching journey takes you.

And even if you take the course and later decide teaching isn’t for you, it’s still one of the quickest, most effective ways to qualify for a visa in Spain, and it gives you a solid base to explore other options once you’ve arrived.

Final Thoughts

So if you’re looking to travel, feel lost trying to figure out how to get a visa in Spain, or have a passion for teaching English or wanting to learn Spanish in Spain, TEFLBarcelona has the answers you’re looking for.

The post How to Get A Visa in Spain With A TEFL And Spanish Course appeared first on TEFL Barcelona - TEFL Spain.

Finding My Niche

I started small, teaching English to Spanish friends in Barcelona. This early experience did wonders for my confidence and helped me build out my skillset. One of these friends needed English for a job opportunity, which pushed me into the niche of business English.

To develop personalised lessons for his needs, I drew on free online resources like the Market Leader and Business Result workbooks (both easy to find as PDFs), focusing especially on sales language and pitching. This friend became my first loyal student, and the six-month deadline he set for himself kept me motivated to deliver real results.

Moving to Online Tutoring Platforms

With this experience under my belt, I applied to online tutoring platforms like Preply and iTalki, using business English as my selling point while still teaching general English to students who wanted it. Students came from all over the world, and as I built up reviews, my profile gained more visibility – creating a kind of snowball effect toward steady bookings.

Don’t Undervalue Yourself Early On

If there’s one piece of advice I’d give anyone starting out, it’s this: don’t work for less than you’re worth.

Platforms like Preply already take a significant cut when you’re starting (commission begins at 33%). So if you’re charging their recommended $10/hour, you’re really only earning around $7/hour. Depending on where you live, that might be workable. But after moving back to the UK, that translated to roughly £5/hour — a fraction of the UK’s minimum wage of just under £13/hour.

Your progress may feel slower than other tutors’ at first, but I’d strongly recommend setting your prices at a rate you’re actually comfortable with from day one, rather than underselling yourself to rack up reviews. If you don’t make this change early, you risk resenting your first students – their rate stays locked in at whatever you originally charged (say, $10), even as your listed price rises, unless you renegotiate. And renegotiating comes with its own risk: losing students who can’t afford the new rate.

Going Independent

Once you’ve built a solid client base and developed real relationships with your students, it’s worth considering a shift to private tutoring outside these platforms. Technically, this isn’t allowed under sites like Preply’s terms – but in practice, as long as you have a way of contacting your students directly, you won’t run into trouble for going independent.

Making this move myself was the best decision I made for my financial success. It let me escape the high commission rates and build a client base made up entirely of loyal, direct students.

Building Toward Freedom

From there, the path is about growth – branching into new markets and niches until you’re earning enough to work as a full-time, self-employed tutor, on your own terms, at your own rates, and on your own schedule.

This kind of freedom is something more people are chasing every day, as digital nomad living and remote work become increasingly suited to modern life. If that’s the kind of freedom you’ve been looking for, it all starts with a TEFL course.

The post How To Start Your Online TEFL Business appeared first on TEFL Barcelona - TEFL Spain.

That’s the real reason so many students choose to learn Spanish in Spain. Instead of squeezing in a few hours of practice a week, you start hearing and using Spanish constantly. It stops being a subject and becomes part of your daily life. So if you’ve ever asked yourself is it actually better to study Spanish in Spain? – for most people, yes, and by a noticeable margin.

A Spanish language course in Spain gives you the structure: proper teaching, correction, and a clear sense of progress. Living in Spain gives you everything around it, from daily exposure to real conversations and a feel for the culture. Put those two together and fluency comes a lot faster than it does from home.

Constant Exposure Helps Spanish Become Natural

The single biggest benefit of studying Spanish in Spain is constant exposure. When you live here, Spanish is simply everywhere: on menus, shop signs, transport apps, posters, and official forms. You hear it in cafés, supermarkets, metro stations, and in the conversations happening at the next table.

This kind of Spanish immersion in Spain is what makes the language start to feel familiar. In the first week, you might only catch a word or two. But your brain is quietly doing the work, picking up on rhythm, pronunciation, and the phrases that come up again and again. Before long, you stop translating everything in your head and just start understanding what people mean.

That’s exactly why people search for how to learn Spanish in Spain rather than only studying at home. A classroom gives you the foundations, but immersion brings them to life. Something you learn in your morning lesson might pop up that same afternoon when you order a coffee, ask for directions, or read a sign on the metro, and that’s when it really sticks.

Real Conversations Build Real Confidence

Many learners know more Spanish than they think, but they lack confidence when it comes to speaking. This is where learning Spanish in Spain can make a real difference.

Living in Spain gives you daily chances to use the language in real situations. You may speak to a barista, chat with classmates, ask a question in a shop, or have a simple conversation with a neighbour. These small interactions build confidence much faster than classroom exercises alone.

Why is this so effective? Because real conversations teach you how Spanish is actually spoken. You hear natural rhythm, everyday expressions, and the kind of informal language that does not always appear in textbooks. You also learn that communication does not need to be perfect. Even if you make mistakes, you can still be understood.

For students looking at a Spanish language school in Barcelona, this balance is especially helpful. You get structured lessons during the day and plenty of opportunities to practise Spanish in Barcelona outside the classroom. That mix of support and real-life use is one of the best ways to improve quickly.

Cultural Understanding Deepens Language Learning

Learning Spanish isn’t only about grammar and vocabulary. A huge part of it is understanding the culture the language lives in.

When you study Spanish in Spain, you pick up far more than words. You absorb the local habits, the humour, the social customs, the way people greet each other and the rhythm of a typical day. That context helps you understand not just whatpeople say, but why they say it the way they do.

A Spanish language course in Barcelona is especially rewarding for this reason. The city gives you a strong place to learn alongside a genuinely rich cultural backdrop. Neighbourhoods, food, history, festivals, and everyday life all feed into your learning, which makes the language easier to remember and a lot more enjoyable to use.

A Gateway to Life in Spain

For a lot of students, studying Spanish in Spain ends up being about more than the language. It’s often the first real step towards building a life here.

A Spanish course in Spain can leave you feeling more confident, more independent, and more at home in everyday situations. If moving abroad is on your mind, learning Spanish in the country itself makes that whole transition feel far less daunting. You arrive with skills, cultural understanding, and a real connection to the place.

And if you’re thinking longer term, it’s worth knowing that pairing a Spanish course with a TEFL qualification opens even more doors. While your Spanish helps you settle in, a TEFL certificate can lead to teaching English abroad or teaching English in Spain, a practical route to staying for good.

So, what’s the best way to learn Spanish in Spain? For most people, it’s a blend of structured lessons, daily practice, and full immersion. That’s the combination that turns what you know into what you can actually do.

Because by living in Spain while you learn, you build more than just better Spanish. You build confidence, cultural awareness, and real communication skills, the kind that stay with you long after the course is over.

The post Why Studying Spanish in Spain Helps You Learn Faster appeared first on TEFL Barcelona - TEFL Spain.

Moving to Spain to train as an English teacher isn’t just a career move. It’s a full-scale rewiring of how you see yourself and what you think you’re capable of. The classroom techniques matter, sure. But the real education happens in the gaps – on the metro at rush hour, in a tapas bar where your Spanish falters mid-order, in the small victory of finally understanding your landlord’s rapid-fire Catalan.

1. Increased Resilience

Let me be honest: the first few weeks of moving to Spain can be humbling. You’ll get lost. You’ll misunderstand something important. You’ll probably overpay for a SIM card because you nodded along to terms you didn’t fully grasp.

But here’s what happens next. You figure it out. You navigate Spanish bureaucracy — an achievement worthy of its own certificate. You learn which metro line takes you home and which one deposits you somewhere entirely unexpected. You open a bank account in a language you’re still learning. Small wins stack up, and quickly.

Barcelona, in particular, has a way of demanding your participation. It’s not a city that lets you stay passive. The noise, the energy, the packed streets of the Gothic Quarter at midday, the late dinners that don’t start until 10pm — all of it pulls you out of whatever comfort zone you arrived with. This is one of the most underrated parts of taking a TEFL course in Barcelona. You are not only learning how to teach English. You are learning how to trust yourself in a completely unfamiliar environment. There’s a particular kind of confidence that comes from solving real problems in a foreign country, and it doesn’t come from any textbook.

By the end of the course, you’ve built something that doesn’t show up on your CV: a quiet, durable resilience. That feeling doesn’t fade when you leave Spain. It follows you into job interviews, new cities, and difficult conversations. You’ve already proven to yourself that you can adapt. Future challenges start to look more manageable because you have evidence – real, lived evidence – that you’ve navigated harder things.

2. Expanding Empathy and Understanding

There’s a moment that happens to almost everyone who moves abroad. You’re trying to explain something simple, and the words just won’t come. Maybe you’re at a pharmacy trying to describe a headache, or you’re in a café and you’ve blanked on a basic word. You feel exposed. A little foolish. Suddenly, you are the beginner in the room.

That feeling is the most useful teaching tool you’ll ever acquire when it comes to teaching English abroad.

Living in Spain means you experience first-hand what it feels like to communicate across a language barrier. That experience makes you a more empathetic, patient, and perceptive English teacher. You understand that language learning isn’t purely cognitive — it’s emotional. Your future students aren’t just memorising grammar rules. They’re risking embarrassment every time they open their mouths.

Taking a TEFL course in Barcelona places you at a genuine crossroads of cultures and perspectives. The city draws people from everywhere: South America, Northern Europe, Asia, other parts of Spain. Your classmates might include a graphic designer from Berlin, a nurse from Colombia, a recent graduate from Seoul. Conversations tend to go further than you’d expect. If you decide to study Spanish while you’re there (and you really should, because it transforms the whole experience) you’ll know exactly what it feels like to be a beginner again. That vulnerability is uncomfortable and valuable in equal measure. It will shape the kind of English teacher you become.

3. A Fresh Start and a New Sense of Possibility

This one is harder to explain, but it might be the most important shift that comes from moving to Spain for a TEFL course.

When you change your surroundings completely, you start to question assumptions you didn’t even know you were holding. The way you’ve always structured your days. The career path that felt inevitable. The version of your life that seemed fixed.

For many people, a TEFL course abroad represents exactly that: a fresh start. Not in a clichéd, wipe-the-slate-clean way, but in a genuinely practical sense. Teaching English in Spain can lead to a job you love, a language you speak, friendships that span continents, and a more expansive understanding of what your life can actually look like.

Some people finish their TEFL course in Barcelona and stay, picking up teaching work in local language schools or through private tutoring. Others use it as a launchpad, moving on to teach English in Asia, Latin America, or the Middle East. And for plenty of people, it’s simply the experience that proved they could take a leap when it mattered.

If you’ve been feeling stuck, uninspired, or quietly fed up with the same routine, moving to Spain might be less of a risk than staying put. The course gives you a qualification, but the experience gives you perspective – and perspective has a way of changing everything.

Why TEFL Provides The Structure You Need Whilst Moving Abroad

Here’s the practical reality: moving abroad alone can feel chaotic. No routine, no familiar faces, no one expecting you anywhere. A TEFL course in Barcelona changes that equation from the moment you arrive. You land with a purpose — a clear schedule, a cohort of people in the same slightly-overwhelmed boat, and trainers who’ve guided hundreds of people through this exact transition. You have somewhere to be every morning. You have people to eat lunch with, debrief alongside, and explore the city with on weekends.

This structure doesn’t limit the adventure, instead it makes it sustainable. Joining a TEFL course means you step into a supportive learning environment instead of landing in a new country without direction. Someone helps you understand the visa process. The paperwork gets streamlined. You’re not navigating it all alone.

That combination of genuine freedom with a solid foundation is what makes taking a TEFL course in Spain one of the smartest ways to make the move abroad for the first time. You get the independence, the exploration, and the sense of possibility, without the paralysing uncertainty of having no structure around you.

Written by Hannah Welsh

The post 3 Ways a TEFL Course in Spain Can Change You Forever (For The Better) appeared first on TEFL Barcelona - TEFL Spain.

The post Is TEFL Worth It in Spain? appeared first on TEFL Barcelona - TEFL Spain.

I didn’t know how that would translate into a career, but I had a quiet intuition that languages would play a role somehow. So I leaned into that. I started learning English young, then Spanish, not because someone told me it was a smart move, but because it felt right. There was something incredibly empowering about understanding more of the world simply by understanding more words.

For a long time, that was enough. I studied, worked, lived a fairly normal life. But the feeling that something else was waiting for me never really went away. It just sat there in the background, patiently.

Everything started to shift when I began seeing stories online from people who had completely changed their lives by teaching English abroad. They weren’t describing perfect lives, but they were describing lives that felt intentional, full of movement, growth, and unexpected turns. I found myself reading those stories late at night, imagining what it would feel like to wake up in a different country, walk into a classroom, and build a life that wasn’t pre-written.

Slowly, that idea stopped being a daydream and became a focus. Teaching English felt like a practical way to combine everything I cared about: languages, people, travel, and meaningful work.

Why I Chose an In-Person TEFL Course in Barcelona

Once I decided to pursue teaching English, I became surprisingly picky. I didn’t want to rush through an online course on my laptop while multitasking and half-paying attention. I wanted to feel prepared when I walked into a classroom. I wanted to know what it actually feels like to manage students, plan lessons, and deal with real situations, not just theoretical ones.

That immediately narrowed my options. I was specifically looking for an in-person TEFL course with observed teaching practice, real students, and proper feedback. Something that would push me, not just reassure me.

Spain had always been in the back of my mind as a place I could see myself living in one day. I loved the language, the culture, the pace of life, and the way daily routines seemed to revolve around people rather than productivity. After a lot of searching and recommendations, I came across TEFL Barcelona, and something clicked almost immediately.

From the moment the course started, it felt serious in the right way. The days were full, the expectations were clear, and the teaching practice was real. Planning lessons, teaching actual students, being observed, receiving feedback, adjusting, and trying again. It wasn’t always comfortable, but it was incredibly rewarding. You could feel yourself improving week by week, and that built a kind of confidence that doesn’t come from reading materials alone.

Outside the classroom, Barcelona quickly became part of the experience. It was impossible not to fall into a rhythm there. Morning coffees, walking everywhere, late dinners, conversations that stretched longer than planned. It didn’t feel like a temporary student phase. It felt like real life.

On weekends, I took full advantage of being in Spain. I travelled as much as I could, mostly by train, hopping from city to city, letting myself get lost, observe, and absorb. Each place felt different, and I loved that Spain allowed for so many versions of life within the same country.

The Train Ride That Changed Everything

One of those trips ended up changing the direction of my life entirely, although I obviously didn’t know it at the time.

I was travelling by train from Málaga to Madrid, sitting next to a Spanish man. We started talking in that natural, unforced way that sometimes happens when two people share a few hours and no expectations. We talked about where we were from, what we were doing, and where we thought we were going next.

I told him about Norway, about moving to Barcelona for the TEFL course, and about my plans for after. At that point, I was convinced Asia was my next destination. Malaysia was high on my list, along with a few other places in Southeast Asia. In my head, that chapter was already written. Finish the course, move to Asia, teach English, and start a completely new life there.

We exchanged details, stayed in touch, and life carried on. Later, I visited the Basque Country, partly out of curiosity and partly because of that connection. That visit quietly changed everything. The Basque Country felt different from anywhere else I had been in Spain. Calmer, grounded, and deeply connected to local culture. It wasn’t flashy or overwhelming. It felt like a place where routines mattered, where teaching could be part of a long-term life, not just a temporary adventure.

Meanwhile, the TEFL course was coming to an end, and suddenly the practical side of things became very real. I had the qualification, the classroom experience, and the confidence to apply for teaching jobs abroad. Opportunities in Asia were there, exactly as I had planned months earlier. But something had shifted.

The idea of leaving Spain no longer felt exciting in the same way. My life had started to grow roots, almost without me noticing. I was falling in love, not just with a person, but with a way of living that felt sustainable and deeply human.

In the end, I stayed.

Today, I teach English at a school in the Basque Country. I live here, I work here, and I built a life that I couldn’t have designed on paper if I had tried. I’m married, settled, and still deeply connected to the reasons I started this journey in the first place: curiosity, growth, and connection.

Looking back, doing a TEFL course in Barcelona didn’t just give me a new career path. It gave me options. It gave me confidence. It placed me in the middle of experiences that allowed life to unfold naturally rather than forcing it into a rigid plan.

I arrived in Barcelona thinking it was a stepping stone toward somewhere else. It turned out to be the place where everything quietly began.

And honestly, I wouldn’t change a thing.

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When I moved to Barcelona to begin my TEFL course, I had already committed to an experience that went far beyond teacher training. I had enrolled in a package that combined a TEFL qualification with a Spanish language course at the connected language school, meaning that from the very start, my time in Barcelona was designed around studying Spanish whilst living in Spain.

Rather than learning the language in isolation, I was fully immersed in it — in the classroom, on the streets, and in everyday life. So when the intensive TEFL training came to an end, continuing straight on to the Spanish language school felt like a natural progression and the beginning of a deeper cultural and linguistic immersion.

Starting My Spanish Journey at B2.1 (Intermediate)

When I began the Spanish course, my level was B2.1. I could communicate reasonably well, but I lacked the confidence and fluency to feel truly at ease. Conversations often required conscious effort, and expressing more complex ideas still felt frustratingly out of reach.

My goal wasn’t just to “get by” in Spanish. I wanted to live in the language — to think, connect, and express myself naturally.

An Immersive Language Learning Experience

From the outset, the language school offered a deeply immersive approach to learning Spanish. Classes focused not only on grammar and vocabulary, but on real-life communication. We debated topics, shared opinions, learned idiomatic expressions, and practised the kind of Spanish people actually use in everyday situations.

Slowly but surely, the mental barrier I had around speaking began to dissolve. The more I spoke, the less I overthought, and the more confident I became.

Learning Spanish Through Culture and History

One of the most memorable aspects of the course was the cultural immersion built into the learning experience. The guided history tours around Barcelona were far more than sightseeing. They were interactive lessons in Spanish, culture, and identity.

Walking through the Gothic Quarter while learning about Catalan history, architecture, and traditions in Spanish brought the language to life in a way no textbook ever could. Spanish stopped being something I was studying and became something I was actively participating in.

Living in Barcelona While Studying Spanish

Living in Barcelona while studying Spanish accelerated my progress in ways that felt almost effortless over time. Every interaction became practice — ordering coffee, chatting with neighbours, asking for directions, and making friends.

Mistakes were inevitable, but they stopped feeling embarrassing and instead became part of the learning process. Being surrounded by the language daily helped me build resilience, adaptability, and confidence — not just linguistically, but personally as well.

Building Friendships That Last a Lifetime

The people I met during those six months were another defining part of the experience. Students from all over the world came together with a shared goal: to learn Spanish, connect with others, and immerse themselves in a new culture.

Many of those connections quickly turned into friendships that extended far beyond the classroom. We studied together, explored the city together, and supported each other through the ups and downs of living abroad. These are friendships I know will last a lifetime.

Reaching C1 Level Spanish (Advanced)

By the end of the course, I had reached a C1 level of Spanish. More importantly, I felt genuinely comfortable in the language. I could express myself clearly, understand nuance, hold deeper conversations, and move through daily life with confidence.

Spanish no longer felt like something I had to translate in my head — it flowed naturally.

A Complete TEFL and Language Learning Experience

Looking back, continuing on to the language school after my TEFL course was one of the most valuable parts of my experience in Barcelona. It allowed me to fully integrate into life in the city rather than remain a visitor passing through.

The combination of TEFL training, Spanish language learning, and cultural immersion created a strong foundation that continues to support me today. If the TEFL course gave me the tools to teach abroad, the language course gave me the confidence to belong abroad.

Together, they transformed my time in Barcelona into a chapter of growth, connection, and self-discovery — one I’ll always be grateful for.

By Hannah Welsh

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