Volunteer in Spain
Free Room and Board for Speaking English
By Roy A. Barnes
Imagine going away for seven days to a place where cell phones don't work and access to the Internet is nonexistent, a place where you are forbidden to speak your native language. Such a place is nestled in a valley of Mediterranean scrub forest in north central Spain. It's called "Valdelavilla," and the program with all its hardships is called Pueblo Ingles.
In 2001, Richard Vaughan, owner of the English language training firm called Vaughan Systems, had a dream of helping Spanish professionals gain a quicker fluency in conversational English. The program he started, Pueblo Ingles, has touched the lives of more than 3,000 Spaniards and English-speaking volunteers. The Spaniards leave the program with greater conversational mastery of their second language, and the volunteers leave the place enriched in other ways. What makes the Pueblo Ingles experience unique is that the Spaniards' difficulties in conversing in English with their English-speaking clients is overcome in an atmosphere that is as low key and supportive as possible—compared to the dog-eat-dog business environment, where not being able to understand English and its many nuances is costly for the Spanish firms.
Requirements for Volunteers
The first requirement for volunteers to go to Pueblo Ingles is to be fluent in English. An outgoing personality and being open to interacting with people of a different culture is also a must because conversing is job one for all the participants of Pueblo Ingles. The day begins at 9 a.m. with breakfast and ends sometime after 10 p.m., after the last meal is completed. There is a 90-minute break in the afternoon for siesta after the 2 p.m. lunch. Even the three daily meals of traditional and regional Spanish dishes serve as class time for the Spaniards, who are matched evenly with volunteers for conversation at the tables.
The other talking and interacting sessions vary, including pairing up for 50-minute one-on-one conversations during the day and afternoon between one Spaniard and an English-speaking volunteer, with the ensuing sessions alternating partners. Each pair may take a walk on the cobblestone streets of Valdelavilla, or along the trails that lead to and from the village. Or the couples can lounge around in the large patio area of Pueblo Ingles Anything, as long as the Spaniard and volunteer converse in English.
After siesta time, there is often a full group activity, or some of the matched pairs will get together with other couples to play badminton or a table game like Spanish Trivial Pursuit, where the Spaniards are required to translate the questions from the cards into English.
An hour before the 9 p.m. dinner, everyone gathers at the big meeting room that overlooks Valdelavilla for a nightly variety show. Both students and volunteers are encouraged to make at least one presentation on my subject during the week. Some of the members perform scenes from comedic plays like Woody Allen's Play It Again Sam or Neil Simon's The Odd Couple.
This intensive exposure to English over the course of a week brings a new confidence in the Spanish professional, in part because he or she has been exposed to 20 different English accents on a continual basis.
We volunteers get to connect with people who are really accepting and inquisitive. We become temporary Spaniards, made to feel at home by the natives as they strive to reach their goal of conversational English language mastery.
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For more information on Pueblo Ingles, go to www.puebloingles.com (then click on the English link). The program is also offered at La Alberca, which is located in west-central Spain (Salamanca), as well as Cazorla, in south-central Spain (Andalusia). In addition, a new program in Tuscany is being brought along, which features Italians getting conversationally-immersed in the English language the Villaggio Inglese way. Check the website for updates concerning that particular program in Italy. The programs run year round. Slots fill up fast, but if applicants are flexible with their dates, they have a great chance of securing a spot. Programs exclusively for teenagers are scheduled to take place during the summertime. Volunteers pay for their airfare to Spain and expenses before and after the program. Once a program begins at a bus pick-up location in Madrid, Pueblo Ingles provides the transport, accommodations, three meals a day, as well as accident insurance from the moment the volunteers board the bus in Madrid until they are returned back a week later.
As of March 2006, the founder, Richard Vaughan, is no longer associated with Pueblo Ingles. Yet his vision lives on in current and future programs, and the staff of Pueblo Ingles is committed to making the experience memorable for all participants.
Pueblo Ingles, www.puebloingles.com (then click on the "English" link)
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Roy A. Barnes lives in Cheyenne, Wyoming. To date, he's participated in the program five times.
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