What our teachers say about teaching in Seville?
As you will have seen from our previous blog posts, we provide a wide range of internships to Erasmus+ students. One of our most popular internships is becoming a teacher or a teaching assistant at a school or language academy in Seville. Teaching is a great way to work while you travel, and doing an internship with 3Si is a great way to develop your teaching skills!
We’ve been asking some of our teaching interns at OC Languages Escuela de Idiomas how they’ve found their placements, and you can read their interviews below.
OC Languages Escuela de Idiomas is a close partner of 3Si, teaching several foreign languages to children and adults at their Academy near the centre of Seville. These students have come for their internships through 3Si from Red Ochre, one of our sending organisations in the UK.
- Tell us about your school – what is it like there and what is your favourite thing about it?
- How are you finding working with children, teenagers/adults?
- Was this your first-time teaching? If so, how did you find adapting to your new job?
- What would be your advice for future 3Si teaching interns?
John Whitty
- OC is very relaxed, friendly and supportive. The staff are very approachable and helpful which is my favourite thing about it.
- I have been mainly teaching adults which has been fun as they are usually enthusiastic. I have noticed from the kids and teenage classes I have observed that the students are generally well behaved and participate fully. This is due in no small part to the teachers and the admin staff.
- It was nerve racking as this was my first job, but the positive feedback I received from students and staff made it much easier.
- My advice for future 3si students would be to not overthink things and just embrace any challenges or opportunities the academy throws at you. And try to make classes interesting for yourself as well as the students.
Try to make classes interesting for yourself as well as the students.
John Whitty
Teacher Assistant
Marcos Vinícius Pinheiro Ramos
- I am working at OC Languages in Seville. It’s a great school. I enjoy a lot teaching there because the school is fully equipped, has got lots of teaching material sources for all levels. My favourite thing about it is that the teachers and coordinators are very helpful and nice. They give their best to make sure I have a nice time there, and I really appreciate it. Good vibes from there!
- I mostly teach adults, which I find a lot more comfortable in terms of approach and teaching techniques. I also was trained to teach adults, then it is alright. On the other hand, there were some occasions where I had to help some teenagers with extra class activities or specific topics they had to improve. I found that challenging as I had never dealt with teens before. They’re quieter and harder to create instant rapport, sometimes shy and insecure to show their doubts and insecurities related to English. I feel I would need more thorough training and hands-on experience if I decide to work mostly with children in the future.
- Well, my first time teaching was along my full time CELTA course, where I had to teach for at least 6 hours total. At OC, I taught my very first unmonitored lesson after the CELTA. At the beginning, I was quite nervous, was afraid of making mistakes and not being able to deliver a good lesson and build up a good rapport with the students. But that feeling decreased along every lesson I had until I realised that is normal, and today I keep teaching the same students with a lot more confidence and quality than before.
- Just believe in yourself, go through your lessons before class, build up good rapport with your students, be confident, curious, be open to learn new things, welcome the challenges, let yourself make mistakes, so you learn from them, and enjoy the program.
Just believe in yourself, go through your lessons before class, build up good rapport with your students, be confident, curious, be open to learn new things, welcome the challenges, let yourself make mistakes, so you learn from them, and enjoy the program.
Marcos Pinheiro
Teacher Assistant
Usamah Patel
- I love the support I receive on a day to day basis. It’s a fun academy, the students are awesome to teach and I have a lot of fun teaching them. All the staff really try to help you so I’m grateful to be at oc languages.
- Finding it quite fun and learning lots of things, finding it easier then I thought.
- It was my first time teaching English, but to my surprise I adapted naturally to what was needed for the job. So it was fun change.
- Ask for Ania & Bruno at OC Languages. Probably the best people to work with in most of the schools. I would recommend you use this time and experience to really learn an get a good experience of how it is like, you have a certain leverage where you can make mistakes and if you use that to you advantage by doing more work an putting in a lot of effort, you will surely learn a lot and gain a huge experience. The more mistakes you make the more you learn. So I say, have fun but work hard.
The more mistakes you make the more you learn. So I say, have fun but work hard.
Usamah Patel
Teacher Assistant
Thank you to John, Marcos and Usamah for telling us about your experiences as teaching assistants at OC Languages!
Have you ever considered teaching English as a foreign language abroad? Get in touch with our partner, Red Ochre, to see the opportunities available to you.