“English speakers are brought from around the world to live and converse with Spanish people” BBC

WHAT IS PUEBLO INGLES?

Pueblo Ingles translates literally as English village but this merely sums up what the program is about. We take beautiful locations and flood them full of the English language. The program was designed to be, and has evolved into being, the quickest and most effective way for students to improve their English listening, understanding and conversational proficiency.

Volunteers at our beautiful villages have all of their food and accommodation paid for - just for spending time with students and talking. But of course “the highest reward for a person's toll is not what he gets for it but what he becomes by it” (John Ruskin). Pueblo Ingles volunteers gain a unique and enriching personal, social and cultural experience. Yes, we have a straightforward concept, but this is definitely not a straightforward program!

AN ENGLISH IMMERSION PROGRAM

It can be stressful, frustrating and unproductive for a person to do business in their non-native language if they lack the sufficient proficiency to effectively convey their position, opinions or ideas. The most effective way to improve confidence and ability to speak a foreign tongue is through concentrated exposure to the language. While the class room can teach language theory, it is putting the theory into practice that really makes a difference. The idea of Pueblo Ingles is to provide business people with an intensive exposure to raw English and to authentic and impulsive English conversation .

This is where our volunteers come in. Pueblo Ingles seeks out the native speakers to provide this exposure and provides a framework that guarantees a package of English that cannot be achieved anywhere else. Native English speakers, our native volunteers or “Anglos” as we call them, come from around the globe to help this intense immersion program achieve the following objectives:

• To expose the students to the personal, raw and authentic styles of English spoken by native speakers. This will improve real life effectiveness as opposed to class room proficiency.
• To train their ears to detect and distinguish different sounds.
• To offer a supportive environment. Fundamental to building their confidence is showing them that despite numerous slip-ups they can still intelligibly express themselves in English.
• To force them to stop translating mentally and hence remove a long lasting and restrictive bad habits. On our programs there is no time to translate therefore thinking in English is pushed to the forefront.
• To prove to them that being effective with the English language does not necessarily revolve around a perfect mastery of grammar nor a broad spectrum of vocabulary, even though these are welcomed secondary effects.

Reading through these objectives you might be wondering whether it's all work and no play. You might be asking yourself about how much preparation and planning you will have to do to help achieve them. Luckily our program is designed in a way that allows its participants to just slip right in and go with the flow, with no stress and with no hassle. All of your days' activities will be organized for you and you should never have to look ahead to anything further than your next activity or meal. The above objectives are always achieved for the simple reason that once a program gets rolling, there's no stopping it!

WHAT WILL THE VOLUNTEER BE DOING?

Talking, talking and talking!!! Your job on the program will not be so much as to “teach” English, but to expose the students to the English language in its natural form through conversations, presentations, and fun, light-hearted activities like group work and theatre sketches. So there will be no need to brush up on your grammar and vocabulary!

Your days will be made up of activities like one-to-one sessions where you get to chat to a different Spaniard each hour about…well, about anything you fancy really! The idea is to chat to them as you would your friends and colleagues, so they can improve both their listening and conversation skills.

Meal times are also important conversation opportunities and at every meal you will be required to sit with two students and one other volunteer (but you can choose who you sit with!). The evenings usually consist of small group activities or more one-to-one sessions followed by evening entertainment provided by – yourselves! If you choose to, this will be your chance to present on a topic of interest, to dazzle everyone with your theatrical or musical talent, or to showcase some kind of other skill you might have….or discover!

Volunteers have given presentations on all kinds of things, from talking about their home towns and how to drink scotch, to demonstrating tai chi and karate. This is not meant to be a nerve-wracking experience by any means, but just a light-hearted and fun way to finish the days of endless talking!

Look further into the detail of what it will take to become a volunteer.