The four main lessons I learned from being an auxiliar were that becoming an auxiliar de conversación will change your life, you absolutely must embrace uncertainty to be successful as a language assistant, you’ll have a “balance of stories” of Spaniards instead of a “single story” perspective, and that it’s a perfect low-risk opportunity to try out teaching before spending money on a credential program!

In my favorite classes as an auxiliar de conversación extranjero, while the teacher teaches, I can usually interrupt with stories or cultural examples whenever I want. If I want to play games or do a presentation, I just have to let the teacher know. The teacher tells me what we’re doing the day before or the week before.

Auxiliares de conversación are in such a unique position to deliver interesting and engaging ESL lessons. Using this cheat sheet of the 15 most common pitfalls of boring English lessons will help ensure they don’t fall into these bad habits of dull EFL teaching!

Want different perspectives on if you should apply to be an auxiliar de conversación de inglés in Spain? Or looking for help with the Profex application through MEC? What does an auxiliar de conversación even do? Get answers to this and more at www.auxiliaresdeconversacion.org

Not “checking for understanding” may seem to speed things up in the classroom, but speeding through the chapters of your textbook in an attempt to “win” the curriculum race means nothing if you’re the only one who gets it. A key to successful language learning is to check for understanding quickly and often. Don’t teach something and wait for the exam to correct misconceptions. Teach it, and immediately see if your students understand.

What would you change if teaching the lesson to a new group of students?

In order to improve retention of what we teach, recent research suggests we should capture students’ attention before the lesson and then summarize at the end.

Regardless of your perspective, one thing that cannot be argued is that having different, engaging strategies for introducing new materials is a good thing.

Basically, you are using many, many checks for understanding to see how well students comprehend the material—and are then using this feedback to, in real time, make changes to your explanations and practice exercises.

This work is traditionally done independently (i.e. without the teacher) because the assumption is that the student needs less help/supervision than before. The student may check their answer against a key, but should not need to be reminded of each step in the process.

Lesson Assessment: Once students have had an opportunity to practice independently, how might they demonstrate mastery of the knowledge/skills required of the objective? The teacher should then create an “A” level example of this assessment .

This process, in a nutshell, is how you teach. Everyone “knows” how to do it, but I’m going to show you tricks to make sure (1) your lesson flows, (2) it’s more interesting than what other teachers usually do, and (3) most of your students actually remember what you’re teaching.

Your job is to make class fun—to make ENGLISH fun. Think of the class you hated in high school. Multiply that hatred by ten. That’s English to many of these students. Many of them grew up hearing extremely negative feedback regarding their language abilities. Let’s change that!

Here are some resources I wish I had the summer before I became an auxiliar de conversación in order to brush up on my Spanish. I’ve been teaching languages for over 10 years—and have seen tons of students who LOVED learning and many students who didn’t. Here are recommendations I have to help ensure learning Spanish stays fun.

Well, actually, jobs = sí bueno. Jobs = responsibility. Responsibility = a sense of belonging. And if I belong in English class, I am much more willing to buy in.

This next part is awesome. Ask for a volunteer to incorrectly model how to follow the steps. Remember Julio? Get Julio up there front and center.  Let him break all of the rules. Let him speak in Spanish. Let him take off his shoes, dormir una siesta, lo que sea--Julio will be so into this it’s not even funny. T

The Teacher Stare strikes fear into the heart and soul of any student within 50 yards—er—meters for the non-estadounidense audience.

Your job as an auxiliar is to help Spanish students raise their English fluency as fast as possible. Going slow and playing it safe doesn’t do this.