Last year, I worked 12 hours a week as a high-school English teacher through the Spanish Ministry of Education’s “North American Language and Culture Assistant” (NALCA) program. This year, as a way to end up in Barcelona, I switched to teaching with the private program Meddeas.

Both teaching programs in Spain have their pros and cons, so which one should you choose if you’re thinking about being an auxiliar de conversación (language assistant)? Let’s break it down:

Teaching Programs in Spain: Ministry and Meddeas Face-Off

Hours

You’ll work 12 hours per week with the Ministry (16 in Madrid), and 20 with Meddeas. With each of these teaching programs in Spain, your hours aren’t necessarily back-to-back, so you may have gaps in your schedule where you’ll have to wait around at your school, lesson plan, drink coffees, and try fruitlessly to access Facebook, which your school will inevitably have blocked. Personally, I’d prefer to work 12 hours at a higher rate and then find my own private lessons (or just keep it at 12 hours and live an eternal vacation), but obviously, you might prefer having 20 guaranteed hours, even if the pay per hour is lower.

Pay

The Ministry pays 700 euros/month (1,000 euros in Madrid), and Meddeas pays between 600-900 (to see exact pay, check out my prior post on Meddeas). So you’ll usually earn more overall with Meddeas, but less per hour.

On-time Payment

The Ministry is infamous for paying late. Although I didn’t really experience that in Basque Country last year, I’ve heard horror stories. Some regions, like Galicia, are known for paying on time; others like Murcia—forget about it. So far, there have been no payment issues with Meddeas.

Organization

The Ministry program is also infamous for its poor organization. Although I honestly don’t have too many complaints with them (I went into it expecting worse), I’ll say that communication was sometimes poor, especially at the end of the year. Everyone was trying to renew their residency cards and the Ministry didn’t send us the documents till basically one day before our old card expired. Perdona?!?

Meddeas certainly seems more organized. They answer emails quickly, provided a helpful orientation, and the coordinator is available via phone if you have pressing questions. However, Spanish organization may be different from your U.S. or U.K. definition of organization, so in general, you may want to learn to relax a bit! :)

Spanish Requirements

The Ministry says you need an intermediate level of Spanish to participate, but they never check if you actually have that. However, the application and all the communication with the program is in Spanish, which may make it difficult if you don’t know any. Plus, they do no hand-holding—good luck opening a bank account or getting your residency card if you really know no Spanish.

Meddeas says that you don’t need to know any Spanish to apply, and since the application, acceptance information, and all communication with the program is in English, this is actually true. (Once again, though, I highly recommend having some level of Spanish to navigate more easily once you’re in Spain.)

Locations

The Ministry places in most regions, except Catalonia, Valencia, and Navarra. In addition, only Brits can be placed in the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla. You can be placed in a big city or a tiny pueblo—there’s really no telling.

Meddeas works in schools in every region of mainland Spain. (And possibly the islands, but don’t quote me on that!) This is the primary reason I switched to Meddeas this year—I wanted to be placed in Barcelona.

Type of School

The Ministry works in public schools. It places people in CIEPs (Colegio Infantil y Educación Primaria), ages 3-11; IESs (Instituto de Escuela Secundaria), ages 12-16; and Bachillerato, ages 17-18. They also work in EOIs (Escuela Oficial de Idiomas), meaning language schools for adults.

Meddeas works in private schools—some very Catholic, some not religious at all. They work with daycares all the way up to Bachillerato.

Orientation

The Ministry’s orientation is a either a 1 or 2-day “training” course held after the official start date (so you get to miss some days of teaching, woohoo!). Each autonomous community or province organizes their own orientation, so if you’re placed in Basque Country, your orientation will be in Basque Country. I didn’t find the orientation helpful at all, but it was good for meeting other people in the program.

Meddeas holds a 1-day orientation. (They have three separate orientations, but you attend the one that corresponds to your start-date.) This year, the orientation for the entire program was held in Barcelona, so I completely lucked out. Others—say, those placed in Andalucia—had much more hassle. You’d have to fly first to Barcelona with all your stuff, stay in a hostel for a day or two, then catch another flight or bus or train to your end destination. Bummer.

That being said, the orientation was so much more organized than the Ministry’s. For starters, it actually followed the time-table to a T, which is shocking. It included general information and expectations about Meddeas; a session on helpful teaching ideas and classroom organization; and a presentation on cultural norms and things about the Spanish school style that may strike us as weird. Overall, it was an impressive orientation.

Health Care

The Ministry provides pretty comprehensive health care. With Meddeas, if you’re not an EU citizen, you need to purchase it through a third-party provider in order to qualify for a visa. Nine months of coverage cost me about $270 USD. Once you’re in Spain, you’ll pay a tiny amount each month (around 10 euros) to Social Security, and thus qualify for Spain’s universal health coverage—even free dental and eye-care, my oh my.

Taxes

The Ministry’s pay is 100% untaxed. With Meddeas, we technically have to contribute a tiny bit to social security, so about 10 euros gets taken out from our grant monthly.

Spots Available

These are very rough numbers, but the Ministry program places around 2,000 applicants, and Meddeas places around 300.

Security Deposit

The Ministry requires NOTHING from you demonstrating your commitment, besides checking a box to say you accept your placement. You could literally back out of the program the day before it starts, and nothing would happen.

Meddeas requires EU citizens to turn in a 150-euro deposit after accepting placement, to show you’re really going to come. (This deposit is returned to you at the end of the program.) From Americans, they request proof that you’ve purchased your plane ticket. Meddeas also holds on to half of your first month’s paycheck until the end of the year, so if you quit the program early without a legitimate reason (like medical issues), you lose half a month’s pay.

Application Process

With the Ministry program, it’s a first-come-first-serve free-for-all through an online system called Profex. You need a letter of recommendation, your college transcripts, and a copy of your passport—that’s about it.

With Meddeas, they hold a Skype interview and an in-person interview, so you actually have to be chosen for the position.

Tailored Process          

The Ministry’s online Profex system allows you to state your top three regional preferences, age group, and what size city you’d like to live in. Who knows if they take much of that into account. Some people get their first-choice region; others get one they didn’t even list in their top 3. My friend had application number 14 this year—14 out of over 4,000, imagínate—and they placed her in her second choice of Galicia instead of her first choice of Basque Country. The Ministry’s mind is a mystery.

Meddeas’ process is much more tailored, since you actually speak with them in person and talk about your preferences. They really do make an effort to accommodate your wishes and place you in the best fit possible.

Visa

Both programs issue a Student Visa. This means you can get student benefits like discounts on train tickets and attraction entrances. But it also means you’re limited in finding other work while in Spain, since you can legally only work up to 20 hours a week on a student visa.

Other Time Commitments

The Ministry doesn’t have any. You work 12 hours a week and ya está.

During the school/work year, Meddeas requires that you participate in an online TEFL course, which may eat up an hour or so a week (if that). If you’re interested in becoming TEFL certified, doing it for free with Meddeas is a great option. (Though it’s unclear if this certification would actually be accepted in the majority of TEFL jobs worldwide).

So just tell me, which program should I do?

I can’t make that decision for you, dearest reader. It truly depends on the person.

I can say that for me, I don’t regret doing either the Ministry program or Meddeas. I certainly see the merits of both. And hey, after all, each one gives you a living wage and a Spanish visa, just to chat away in your native tongue. 

If pay per hour is what you’re looking at, the Ministry is a better deal. You can work a mere 12 hours a week and make enough to live on, versus Meddeas’ 20 hours a week for a slightly larger paycheck.

I also love the fact that with the Ministry program, health care is included, the grant is tax-free, and there’s no security deposit.

And like I said, during my year as a language assistant with the Ministry in Bilbao, I didn’t experience too many issues with late payments, poor organization and communication, or horror stories with my school. I got lucky, I guess.

But I traded that all in because I wanted to live in Barcelona. So I bought my own health care, work more hours, participate in an online TEFL course, and pay a wee bit of taxes. And I don’t regret making these “sacrifices,” if these first-world-problems can even be called that, because location was the most important consideration for me this year. And as an added bonus, I find the program’s organization much smoother and easier to handle, and the directors to be incredibly friendly and accommodating.

What it boils down to:

The Ministry program has many more extremes. You can have a fantastic experience or an awful one, depending on so many factors.

If you’re placed in the middle of no where, have a school that wasn’t properly briefed on the contractual requirements (and thus takes advantage of you), receive late payments, and can’t get a straight answer from the Ministry for the life of you—definitely, you could have a really rough year.

If you’re placed in the heart of Sevilla, love your school and coworkers and age group, get paid on time in a beautiful lump some of 700 untaxed euros, and your coordinator responds to your inquiring emails on-time, you’ll probably be loving life.

Meddeas is more controlled. The program itself is more organized; the lead coordinator of Meddeas has personally checked out every school, so in theory the schools should be well-briefed on expectations and know how to use their language assistant to everyone’s advantage. Communication with the Meddeas coordinators is easy and reliable. The interview process is clearly more controlled; it’s not a random free-for-all or first-come-first-serve race, and instead you’re chosen based on whether or not you’re a strong candidate. Placements are more personalized, and your preferences are taken strongly into account.

Oh right, and they have spots in Barcelona, which is why I’m writing about them in the first place.

For the Ministry’s teaching program in Spain, click here.

For detailed information on Meddeas, check out my previous post. And for Meddeas’s website, click here.

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I hope you found this break-down helpful. And I’m curious, readers, which program appeals to you more, and why? Please let me know in the comments! Also, leave any pending questions you may have, and I’ll make sure to answer them here.