Arcadia Spain

We all know that being abroad is a unique experience. Depending on their preferences and interests, some of our students start planning their adventure even before their program starts. This can help us understand and see how a student plans or wants to spend their time while visiting our countries.

Most of their plans and the questions they ask us are related to three main topics: traveling, housing, and academics. I would say that traveling is what they are more interested about in many cases. However, from time to time, we are asked about other topics such as volunteering. This make us smile and see the importance they give to the community where they will be living for a semester.

Bearing all this in mind, Arcadia in Spain has tried to provide students with several volunteering options in the last years. We had students helping in local private language schools, in nursing homes, and even in some public local schools. Unfortunately, our partnerships with all these providers came to an end due to the COVID pandemic. We have been in contact with all these providers, but the current situation after the pandemic is still making it really difficult to have volunteering opportunities in these facilities. This is also due to the current restrictions imposed by local governments and associations as a way to control and restrict the access to certain services and population.

We perfectly understand that these limitations are necessary in some cases, but our aim has been and is still the same: offering our students some volunteering options in Granada. This being said, we analyzed the current situation and considered that working with children was the best way to start a new volunteering partnership. Since all public schools in Granada were unable to work with us due to the limitations imposed by law, we had to find other providers in the private sector.

In January 2024, we started having conversations with the Our Lady of Mercy School in Granada. After a few emails and conversations online, we were able to meet their staff in person and their facilities, which contributed to a new opportunity for our students. Since March 2024, Arcadia in Spain and the Our Lady of Mercy School have been collaborating to offer our students in Granada the opportunity to volunteer as language and culture assistants. This school has always promoted the inclusion of native speakers to improve their teaching practice and learning and they were really interested in having our students in their own learning community.

The aim of this volunteering activity is to give our students the chance to know a local school, practice their Spanish with teachers, and speak English with the local students. Arcadia students are not teaching English, but supporting teachers in their classes (conversation, cultural aspects, traditions, idioms and expressions, etc.). Volunteers normally spend a few hours per week in this activity. This volunteering opportunity allows students to acquire new abilities, see how other education systems work, and understand how important education and training are for children.

The School Coordinator, Mari Paz Manrique Prados, and Sergio Pajares Nievas, Student Life Coordinator for Arcadia in Spain, have been working on schedules, courses, and participation to ensure that all Arcadia students are always supported while participating as volunteers.

Students are covered by the Arcadia insurance at all times. They are also allowed to be in the school facilities since they provide the school with their official Spanish background check that states that no criminal records have been found in Spain, as required by law.

Mari Paz and Sergio work closely to determine the best groups for each Arcadia students based on their preferences for ages or courses and their majors and minors in the US. For example, most of the students participating in this volunteering opportunity are studying psychology or education in their home universities. 

As explained, the Our Lady of Mercy School in Granada was the one chosen because of their needs and interest in our collaboration proposal, and their location. In fact, this private Catholic school is located in the Realejo neighborhood, near the main building of the Center of Modern Languages of the University of Granada, where our students have their daily classes every semester. This school, which was founded by Juan Nepomuceno Zegrí Moreno (Spanish Roman Catholic priest), is part of the Mercedarian Sisters of Charity Schools’ network. Different education stages are being offered at this school: preschool (0-6), elementary school (6-12), and high school (12-16). Although this is a Catholic school, students with different religions and traditions are welcome. Educating students in a diverse and international environment is key for the teachers working here.

Students receive some basic training on how the school works and what teachers expect from them. This is not a job, so they are also informed on how communication and feedback are essential for their experience as volunteers. Upon completion of this volunteering opportunity, students get a volunteer certificate issued by the School Coordinator in which they will describe their main goals, tasks, participation, time spent at the school, among other details. Apart from this document, students can also get a Co-Curricular Learning Certificate (CLC) from Arcadia upon completion of a reflection essay on their volunteering experience.

In the spring semester of 2024, we had three students participating in this volunteering opportunity:

• Natalie Miller (spring 2024, College of Wooster, History & Humanities)
• Lilli Wallace-Larkin (spring 2024, Denison University, Anthropology & Social Sciences)
• Ana Boulay (spring 2024, George Washington University, Political Science & Social Sciences)

These are some of their comments and reflections on their experience as volunteers as described in their own essays:

Natalie Miller

“In the United States, I am pursuing a degree in Adolescent to Young Adult Education in Integrated Social Studies because most of my experience has been with students between the ages of twelve and fifteen. This work helped me develop the skills to work with younger age demographics and in a different content area than I typically would in the United States; however, this was a challenge with some trial and error.

[…]

Seeing the difference between the Spanish and United States school systems was interesting. While I only received two years of education in a foreign language of my choosing, Spanish, French, or Japanese, I learned that the students at the Colegio de Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes study English and French throughout their education. It is a content area that I wish American public schools would invest more in. I hope to continue developing my language skills to help in my career as an educator who can help make that possible in the United States.”

Lilli Wallace-Larkin

“My schedule allows me to spend about thirty minutes in each classroom, giving me the opportunity to introduce a new lesson and activity in each session. An example of the activities that I did with the older children includes drawing a picture of the vocabulary word on the board and having the students raise their hands to guess the word. Another activity was putting together a story for the children about one of my favorite American pastimes: baseball. I told the children a story about what it was like to go to my first baseball game and explained the rules of the game. I even showed them a photo of my home team’s mascot, the Phillie Phanatic, which made the children laugh for a while.

[…]

Overall, my experience at Colegio de Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes has been quite a transformative journey, both professionally and personally. This unique “intercambio” experience allowed me to witness firsthand the reciprocal benefits of cultural and linguistic exchange. Teaching English to the children was deeply fulfilling, and seeing their progress was immensely rewarding. Simultaneously, improving my Spanish through daily interactions with the teachers further fulfilled my understanding of the language itself. These lessons I have learned and the relationships that I have built during this time will continue to influence my approach to teaching and cultural immersion in the future.”

Ana Boulay

“Another interesting thing I noticed was the native languages of the teachers, all of them were native Spanish speakers which makes sense as we are in Spain. This was a similarity I found between my experience learning Spanish in the United States because for most of the teachers I had, Spanish was their second language. Although it isn’t possible to have every language teacher be a native speaker in the language they are teaching, it makes me wonder what words and phrases I learned incorrectly due to the pronunciation of the teachers I was learning from.

[…]

There were some main differences between American education and Spanish, in terms of the way the students interacted with each other and teachers. One of the main differences was the physical aspect from students to teachers, oftentimes they would hug each other or kiss one another. I thought this was very sweet and wasn’t bothered by it at all but other people I talked to from the United States felt uncomfortable by this.”

It was great to see their different perspectives and experiences. The three students described this opportunity as a great and unique way of learning and encouraged future students to do the same while in Granada.

The feedback we got from the school was also very positive and all the teachers asked for new students this upcoming semester. In fact, although our Arcadia students only helped in the elementary stage of this school, high school teachers have also requested some volunteers for their classes, which shows us the importance and great value this school is giving to this new partnership.

We have now five new fall students interested in joining this opportunity and they will start their volunteering very soon.

We are sure they will love this experience and learn a lot while helping these students.