¡Saludos Desde Barcelona! Teaching English in Barcelona - By Jemeala Tarbah

Moving abroad is hard. Teaching is hard. It’s not sitting in a grey office cubicle staring at a coffee cup stain on your desk and making small talk with your elderly coworkers hard, but it’s a different kind of hard.

Teaching English as foreign language can be both stressful and draining, yet I also think that it is without a doubt one of the most rewarding things a person can do. Realising you have to impart information and inspire a room full of people everyday can initially feel daunting, but over time it makes you feel pride, in both your students and yourself.

In this job there’s no hiding behind a computer screen scrolling mindlessly through Instagram and counting down the hours until 6pm.

It’s constant. I live my life on every intertwining line of the metro and some days leave the house early morning and don’t close my apartment door behind me until 12 hours later. However, despite this, I love it and at this moment could not imagine doing anything else.

If you are restless within your surroundings and ready to try something completely challenging and, in actual fact, completely foreign, then this is the experience for you. There is absolutely no way a person can have a bad day when you walk into a school and are immediately bombarded by 15 little humans shouting your name and trying to hug you and tell you about their day in a language they barely speak. Being faced with a small child clutching for English words, throwing their arms around and frantically scribbling in order to explain a concept to you is so endearing.

The moment everything clicks, everyone understands each other and you know they have learnt something is the one of the greatest feelings ever.

¡Saludos Desde Barcelona! Teaching English in Barcelona - By Jemeala Tarbah

Of course as happy as teaching here can make you, it has to be said that it’s not always sunny in Barcelona. As soon as the safety net of TEFL was broken and I was propelled into the real world, life proceeded to throw out some challenges. The weekend after the course finished both me and my two American course mates (now two of my best friends) were officially homeless, helpless and skint. I can tell you first hand that going to work everyday from a hostel is not the most glamorous of situations.

¡Saludos Desde Barcelona! Teaching English in Barcelona - By Jemeala Tarbah

However every little problem that is thrown at you during your time away from home is nothing but another chance to learn. Yes, sitting at home staring at the same four walls will definitely be less risky than packing a bag and escaping, but it won’t be as beneficial. I know that everything that has happened in such a short space of time, whether it be good or bad, has completely helped me to grow as an individual and each new hurdle I come across is continuing that process.

In terms of the learning side of things, the course itself is unbelievably realistic for what you will face when you are thrown in the big, wide of teaching. Having a multitude of material thrust upon you with very little information other than the level of your students and knowing you have 45 minutes in which to impart your knowledge upon said students was absolutely crucial for me to get used to stress and get out of my comfort zone. This kind of thing will definitely happen as soon as you start working. I sometimes get a text at 9am asking if I can cover a class in an hour with very little information but the location and age of the students and I now feel completely able to work well with that kind of pressure.

I completed my TEFL course in September just as many schools and companies were hiring in October, which may have made the search easier. However I really do believe that if you fully take the career advice that is offered to you and show initiative and enthusiasm, then a teaching job that suits you will surely follow. One of the greatest things about teaching English is the flexibility it gives you both in terms of choosing the kind of classes you want to teach as well the hours you are willing to work. This is something especially good about working in a city such as Barcelona, as there is such a strong emphasis on having a good work life balance (i.e its completely true that everywhere becomes a sleepy ghost town between the hours of 2 and 4 pm)

¡Saludos Desde Barcelona! Teaching English in Barcelona - By Jemeala Tarbah

With my current job I have no base and have to travel constantly between different locations, which can be considered both a good and bad thing.

I actually did apply for around 15 jobs in the last few weeks of school both in language schools and within companies and I heard back from around half almost immediately. In the space of one week I had three interviews, all of which were successful. I was even offered free accommodation alongside a job by a couple who ran a school just outside Barcelona. In the end I chose a position that offered around 10 hours per week teaching children from 5 to 13 years old in both schools and private classes. Initially this was not a lot of hours but within a couple of weeks those hours doubled. If you are willing to work the opportunities are definitely there.

I really enjoy the way I work as I feel that teaching in a child’s home has so many benefits and allows you, as the teacher, to feel like part of the family and thus allows the children to get comfortable with you and learn so much more. I get to make crafts with my 13 year old, create and perform plays with my 11 year olds and read stories to my 5 year olds. Overall I teach over 100 different faces but having private one to one classes as well as larger groups in schools allows me, as a new teacher, to get a mix of experience and figure out what I want out of teaching in the future.

After I had been in Barcelona for 3 months I returned home for Christmas holidays and was immediately greeted by an onslaught of questions and the inevitable exclamations of ‘I am so jealous of your life, it looks amazing’. This can be both flattering and unsettling at the same time.

The go to phrase of ‘you should do it too!’ always seemed to spill out of my mouth as a first response, but now a couple more months into the experience I now know that this adventure is definitely not for everyone… but it can be absolutely amazing for the right person!

By Jemeala Tarbah