Welcome to One Paso Adelante! In Spanish, paso translates to step and adelante translates to forward or ahead. Así es, a step forward. The purpose of this blog is to document my experiences traveling both in my home country and abroad. One Paso Adelante represents my travel philosophy of slow, mindful travel, one step at a time. Join me on my current journey living and working in Latin America.
On the road between Colombia and Ecuador
One Paso Adelante 
Hi Laura,
I’ve been reading through your blog, which is so insightful and helpful.
I applied to Meddeas yesterday and was sent an email for the initial Skype interview taking place tomorrow. I am extremely nervous and don’t know what to expect because this is my first time applying for any teaching position.
Would you have any tips for someone who is just starting out and what to expect, as I said I have no experience so I’m a little fish swimming into a big big sea right now.
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Hi Orla,
Thanks for writing! Congrats on moving on to the next stage with Meddeas! You’ll do just fine in the interview. It wasn’t any more stressful than other interviews I’ve done, so don’t worry too much.
I am not sure if you have experience teaching, but if this is your first time applying for a teaching job and you don’t have much experience, I would suggest researching some basic teaching techniques. I was never a trained teacher, but I learned through experience. So even though I didn’t know the terminology of some of the techniques I was using to teach, I was able to describe to them in the interview some ideas I had for teaching, and that was sufficient. I highly recommend, though, thinking of some games/activities or basic ideas of lessons you have for students. For example, off the top of your head, how would you create a speaking activity or writing activity for 10-year-olds on the topic of “family”? Would you do partner work, group work, individual work? Would students create some kind of poster or presentation? Or would you play a competition or game with the class? These are some things you can brainstorm before the interview so you have some fresh ideas in mind for when they ask you to create a lesson off the top of your head. Basic google searches related to teaching kids, teaching English/EFL/ESL, games for learning a language, etc. will help you go into the interview with some good ideas!
And again, don’t sweat it! The interviewers were very friendly, and Meddeas seems like a really nice organization to work for. Good luck and let me know how it goes!
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Hey Laura!
Thank you so much for all of your advice. I just finished the interview I think it went well so fingers crossed! 🙂
Again, thanks so much for your tips, it helped me so much to calm my nerves.
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