Student Mobility: the experience of a center hosting SAAM students
San Viator, besides being the project promoter, is also a hosting center. At the end of 2023, they hosted 16 students from Malawi. Here, Begoña Inchaurraga, the SAAM technician in the center’s International Department, tells us about the experience and describes how it was possible to integrate the students into the methodology of learning through challenges that the center applies.
How did you organize the mobility in your center before the arrival of the students? How have you been communicating the project to the center staff?
Once they gave us the list of students who were going to participate in the mobility. Once the list was in hand, we began to plan the trip to Malawi to meet them, and give them training on interculturality and prepare the trip with them. In addition, they were shown how the center and the surroundings are so that when they arrived they were somewhat familiar. The communication, when most of us met in person, was very fluid from the beginning, which we greatly appreciated.
How did you organise the students’ sessions and the programme? Did the SAAM students share classes with other students?
From the beginning we decided that since they are a large group, the best thing for them would be to separate them into different classrooms, and thus mix with the students at the center. To organize these classes, the students were divided into different groups, taking into account their age and the group they were. We can only say that it was the greatest success, it was incredible to see them interact with each other, the effort they made to communicate despite speaking different languages. We did not expect such a good reception and integration from our students, so we will repeat the same way of acting next year.
What activities were carried out to integrate them into the daily life of the center?
The center works through the methodology of challenges, so the class is separated into small groups and they must develop the challenge for approximately 3 weeks. So it was easy to integrate them since they would be in a small group, and always supervised by a teacher. In addition, every day at first hour, the students of the education degree were in charge of giving them Spanish and culture classes and carried out activities with them.
Was it an easy process and were there any problems such as the language barrier?
The biggest fear that we had when separating them into small groups (totally separated in the challenge groups) was that our students know English but at a very low level, and we thought that they would still not be able to communicate well. But as I mentioned before, our student body was incredible and every time you went through the workshop you could see students with their cell phones in hand and the translator open, making efforts to communicate and work together, just like the students from Malawi learning single words in Spanish. I have to say that there were barriers, clearly, and they could be seen above all in the food and how it was difficult for them to eat outside of the things that they are used to there and in the role of women, not in treatment of women but in the roles that they have to develop.
What do you think is the main thing students take away from this experience?
At the center we have an incredible team of teachers, and some of them have really invested in the Malawian students, adapting the work to do to what they wanted to learn too. Thanks to this, they started working on electric transport, and this has opened up the opportunity for them to return, to be hired by a company like SGV in their own country, while they finish their studies. I think that this has been possible thanks to the efforts of themselves as well as the teachers of San Viator, and that, in the end, is what lasts. In addition, an experience that will obviously remain in your memory forever.
What have you and your colleagues learned from the students and the accompanying teacher?
We have learned many things, we always tend to think that they are the ones who get the experience and that’s it, but everyone who has shared time with them has also had the opportunity to learn a lot. It is important to have an open mind, I think that we have learned to see other realities, not to judge, to see other ways of working that may be of interest to us to incorporate them into our center and above all we have learned how important interest is to learn about all technical or language difficulties.
Were you able to discover things about their country? Did they have the opportunity to teach and share their culture with the people in your center?
After they got to the center and were more comfortable, we asked them to make a presentation of their country and their school to students of different levels. It was a very good idea because they did share things with their fellow pros on a daily basis, in this way they were able to show photos, places, food, I think that next time we will do the presentation before, because it is also a good way to break the ice between the different alumni, and who doesn’t like to show off and be proud of their country? With respect to the workers and teachers of the center, a dinner was held the last night where they cooked products from their country and brought us gifts, and we cooked things from ours (although after a month they were used to it).
How did you feel when you welcomed students at your center for the first time after years of effort to make these mobility opportunities possible?
For part of our international team, it was the first time that they welcomed students to the center, as well as for part of the teaching staff, and above all, dividing them into different classes instead of welcoming them as a single group. I am NOT going to lie, it was a lot of work, many hours and a lot of energy, but when the group responds, all that work pays off, and a lot. It is an amazing experience that at the end is marvelous and we are still smiling thinking about it.
