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Pueblo Ingles: Like No Place on Earth
by Roy A. Barnes
September 2008
Adults who are 50 and older that are looking for a unique vacation can take part in a world famous talk-a-thon. It's offered by a company who brings English-speakers from all over planet earth to remote areas of Spain to interact with mainly Spanish businesspeople for a full week. This life changing experience is better known as PUEBLO INGLES. The first Pueblo Ingles program took place in July of 2001, when it was known as Englishtown. Since that time, well over 300 programs have transpired, touching the lives of thousands of Spaniards and volunteers.
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Participants interacting on a patio in the cobblestoned village of Valdelavilla.
Photo taken and owned by Roy A. Barnes
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Imagine having to go away for seven days to a place where cell phones basically don't work and access to the internet is generally much harder to come by. A place where you are forbidden to speak your native language; that is, you must communicate in a foreign tongue in which you will be misunderstood and pronounce many words and phrases incorrectly in and around a restored 18th century village. Well, such a place exists. It's called Valdelavilla. Valdelavilla is nestled within a valley of Mediterranean scrub forest that's located in north-central Spain.
The Spaniards leave the program with a greater conversational mastery in their second language, and the volunteers leave Valdelavilla enriched in other ways. What makes the Pueblo Ingles experience so unique is that the Spaniards' difficulties conversing with their English-speaking clients are overcome in an atmosphere that is as low-key and supportive as possible; that is, 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. This is why these companies send their employees (which make up the majority of the Spanish participants) to Valdelavilla. The other Spaniards who come are English language students or those who are interested in improving their English-speaking and comprehension skills. This learning process has as many twists and turns as the roads that lead to the Pueblo Ingles program once you enter the Spanish province of Soria en route to Valdelavilla.
Volunteer Requirements
The most important requirement for potential volunteers to be considered for Pueblo Ingles is to be fluent in English. Any kind of English fluency will suffice, including North Carolina English, Alberta English, Hawaiian English, Minnesota English, and Australian English. While many volunteers participate during the prime of their lives, Pueblo Ingles welcomes even younger people to apply if they are at least 22 years of age and possess a college degree and/or work experience. Applicants who are fluent or who possess intermediate skills in Spanish need not apply, because the Spaniards are promised that the volunteers don't speak Spanish. 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 Pueblo Ingles Experience
The day begins at 9 am with breakfast and ends sometime after 10 pm, when the last meal is completed. A ninety minute break in the afternoon takes place for siesta time or whatever the participants feel like doing after the 2 o'clock lunch. Even the three daily meals, which include traditional and regional Spanish dishes, serve as class time for the Spaniards, who are matched evenly with volunteers at the dinner tables for conversation.
The other talking and interacting sessions vary, including one Spaniard and one volunteer pairing up for 50-minute, one-on-one conversations during the day and afternoon. Each session alternates with a different partner for the Spaniard. The pairs may take a walk on the cobblestone streets of Valdelavilla, or along the trails that lead to and from this village which radiates a medieval ambience. The couples can also lounge around in the large patio area of Valdelavilla. Anything, so long as the Spaniard and volunteer converse in English.
What adds to the adventure of the Pueblo Ingles experience, besides the sense of timelessness that the participants experience while at Valdelavilla, is the close proximity to a vulture preserve. So while the participants are enjoying the outdoors and discussing the issues of the day or just life in general, the above sky could be populated with anywhere from a few to a couple score of these scavengers. But if the Pueblo Ingles participants display some signs of life, the vultures will keep their distance!
After siesta time, a full group activity will take place. Later, some of the matched pairs may 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. This can be quite a challenge, as an equivalent word or phrase from Spanish to English doesn't always exist.
An hour before the 9pm dinner, everyone gathers at the big meeting room that overlooks Valdelavilla for a nightly variety show. Some of the entertainment entails individual performances, which have ranged from playing the guitar to giving a special report on the state of Oklahoma. The participants are also put in groups for the purpose of coming up with improvised skits to be performed over the course of the week.
The intensive exposure of everyone speaking the English language for seven solid days brings a new confidence in the Spanish professional, greatly in part to the fact that he or she has been exposed to 20 or so different English accents on a continuous basis. The average Spanish participant hears and speaks 105,000-plus English phrases while at Valdelavilla! Even the hardest accents to comprehend at the beginning of the program are more easily understood by the time the program ends.
Volunteers get to connect with people who are really friendly and inquisitive of the world in general. They are made to feel at home by the Spaniards as the Iberians strive closer to their goal of conversational English language mastery.
More Information on the Pueblo Ingles Volunteer Program
For more information on Pueblo Ingles, go to www.puebloingles.com and click on the link for English speakers. Pueblo Ingles also offers many programs at La Alberca, which is located in west-central Spain (Salamanca), as well as some other select Spanish locations. Pueblo Ingles programs run from January through November. Well over fifty adult programs are slated for 2008. Check Web site for details. Slots fill up fast, but if applicants are flexible with their dates, they have a great chance of securing a spot. Volunteers pay for their airfare to Spain and expenses before and after the program. Once Pueblo Ingles begins at a bus pick up location in Madrid, the firm provides the transport, accommodations, and three meals a day that consist of regional and traditional Spanish dishes. Accident insurance is also provided from the moment the volunteers board the bus in Madrid until they are returned back a week later from Pueblo Ingles.
Pueblo Ingles, Rafael Calvo 18, 4ºA, 28010 Madrid, Spain {The "4ºA" is Spanish for 4th Floor}.
Phone +34.913.913.400
Email: anglos@puebloingles.com
Web site: www.puebloingles.com
Roy A. Barnes writes from Cheyenne, Wyoming USA. To date, he has volunteered in this unique program five times as a volunteer, including the fourth ever program back in 2001. He can be reached at 307.634.8047, or travelwriteroy@yahoo.com
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