How to Apply for the North American Language & Culture Assistant Program

LAST UPDATED JANUARY 2014

The gig I got working in Spain for the 2012-2013 school year is through the Spanish Ministry of Education’s North American Language & Cultural Assistant program (auxiliares de conversación in Spanish). Basically, as long as you’re a senior in college/a college graduate, a citizen of the U.S. or Canada, and a native speaker of English or French (vive le Québec!), you’re eligible to apply. You can read my review of the program here, but in this post I want to show you how to get from where you are right now to the example email below in which Spain announced my placement in Andalucía.

North American Language and Culture Assistant placement email
The golden ticket to Spain!!!

Before I begin, please read over the official resources provided by the ministry, for they walk you through the craziness that is Profex (the online application program):
Other important official links:

Inscrita status

This first stage is essentially getting your application number. Everything depends upon it. So if you’re even just thinking about this program right now, go to Profex and start your application (after November 1, 2012 January 9, 2014). You arrive at the inscrita (“entered in”) stage after filling out your basic information, CV, and your school preferences (region, urban/rural, kids/teens).

A note about the regional preferences: You have to select one region from a group of six and then rank those groups from 1 to 3. The groupings are:
  • Grupo A: Asturias, Ceuta y Melilla, Extremadura, La Rioja, Navarra, País Vasco
  • Grupo B: Aragón, Cantabria, Castilla-La Mancha, Cataluña, Galicia, Islas Canarias
  • Grupo C: Andalucía, Castilla y León, Islas Baleares, Madrid, Murcia, Valencia
Keep in mind that for the 2014-2015 school year, Cataluña, Ceuta y Melilla, Islas Canarias, and Valencia aren’t participating in the auxiliares program for North Americans. Also, “Madrid” refers to the Madrid region, not the city proper, just something to keep in mind. (Don’t know anything about the regions? Check out veteran auxiliar Liz Carlson’s region breakdown here.)

The important thing to do is finish the application as soon as possible so your application number will be low; you can go back and upload your documents later in the curriculum > documentos anexos section. As long as Spain approves your application (i.e., you arrive at the admitida stage below), the only thing they look at when making placements is your inscrita number. So get to it!

Registrada status

Your application becomes registrada (“registered”) once you mail in to your consulate the signed, printed-off copy of the PDF application you get after first applying. You also have to include a signed, ticked-off, and printed checklist to make sure you’ve done everything correctly. Consult the manual for which consulate to mail these things to; I had to mail mine to Miami even though I did all my visa stuff through Houston.

Admitida status

You would think this stage, which means “admitted,” would be your golden ticket to Spain. It really means that your application is complete. But you still have to get to this status before Spain even considers placing you. To arrive at admitida, you have to mail in and upload several documents.

Things to mail in to your assigned consulate:

  • The signed PDF printout of your application
  • The signed checklist
  • Annex 2 (New York only—I have no idea what this is)

Things to upload online to Profex:

  • A scan of the identification pages of your passport
  • A scan of your transcript or college diploma
  • A statement of purpose, a short letter describing why you want to do the program
  • A signed letter of recommendation on letterhead from a professor or supervisor

Adjudicada / Candidato seleccionado status

Then, after waiting for foreeeeever, Spain will change your status to adjudicada—“awarded” or “allotted”—and announce which of the autonomous communities they have placed you in. Hooray! But you have to either accept the offer (so you can get a school placement) or reject it (so they can place someone else). If you do nothing for five business days, your placement is automatically rejected—a nightmare scenario, indeed. As a first year, my status was changed to this in early July almost four months after the application period closed. With my inscrita so high (at #1429), I had been waitlisted in late May after the first round of first-year applicants was finished. However, last year people in the 3,000s were getting placed in July, so it’s hard to predict placements.

Aceptada status

If you accept, then your application becomes, naturally, aceptada. (If you say “no,” then it becomes renuncia, “renounced” or “given up.”)

Carta de nombramiento status

You reach the final step in this convoluted, nerve-wracking process when your carta de nombramiento arrives either in your mailbox or in your email inbox. This “letter of appointment” will say what school you will be teaching at, not only so you can begin stressing about apartment-hunting, but also so you can start the visa process. Mine came two weeks and six days after my application became adjudicada.

Applicants: ask any questions you have below! Veteran language assistants: do you have any tips about this crazy ordeal?

What others are reading:

A Crash Course in the Galician Language

Image
Galicia, located in Spain’s northwestern corner, is  one of the country’s greatest regions. When I lived there from 2013 to 2015, I couldn’t get enough of the glorious, fresh food , the green, lush countryside, and the grand, granite architecture . But I could only take canned sardines with me back home, we’ve got enough humidity here in Texas, and sadly the oldest buildings in suburban Plano date back not to the 1070s but the 1970s. View this post on Instagram Okay, but really, y'all, where are the fairies??? This place has got some serious magic about it... // #flowers #spring #park #santiago #santiagodecompostela #galicia #spain #vsco #vscocam A post shared by Trevor Huxham (@trevorhuxham) on Mar 13, 2014 at 1:29pm PDT But what has stuck with me the most has been galego , the Galician language that I quickly picked up on after being immersed in it from day one at the elementary school I worked at. Clo
keep reading...

Is St. James Really Buried in Santiago de Compostela, Spain?

Image
As you head down a curve of the busy San Pedro street, you catch your first view of the twin bell towers of the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela—and you catch your breath. Petite hatchbacks rattle across the cobblestone as your feet seem drawn farther down the path, although that might just be gravity pulling you downhill toward the old zone. You cinch up your backpack’s sternum strap for the final approach of this multiple-night pilgrimage. For not the first time on your Camino, you lose your sense of direction as you enter Santiago’s old town: granite flagstones at your feet, stone-and-graying-plaster houses on either side, and overcast skies above disorient you—yet your eyes eventually lock on to a spray-painted yellow arrow on the side of a building. Once you’re back on autopilot, you start to reflect on why you started this crazy, 70-mile-plus hike in the first place. Rúa de San Pedro, Santiago de Compostela Maybe you hiked from Sarria farther inland as a cheap and hea
keep reading...

Mont-Saint-Michel, France: An Island Fortress in the English Channel

Image
After Paris and the Bayeux Tapestry , the third thing I wanted to see while traveling in France was Mont-Saint-Michel , a towering monastery built on top of a mountainous island off the coast of Normandy. Before visiting, I really didn’t know much at all about the Mount except that it was only accessible when the tides were out…and that it looked just plain cool. During the visit, I ended up learning a bit about French history and why the Mount is such a big deal for the French people. Mont-Saint-Michel It was by sheer luck, though, that I was able to visit Mont-Saint-Michel at all (pronounced “mohn san mee-shehl” [mɔ̃ sɛ̃ mi.ʃɛl]). The very day I had chosen to visit Mont-Saint-Michel was the first day in weeks  that the tourist bus was running between Saint-Malo (where my hostel was) and the Mount, with maybe one or two other runs more for December. I paid 20€ for the round-trip service but didn’t complain because this really freaky coincidence made the whole visit possible.
keep reading...