Being an English Language Assistant

I seem to have forgotten how this works but I'll give it a go..

Hi!

My last post was when I was in Madrid which seems about a million years ago which isn't surprising seeing as it was almost a month ago since i've been on here - I can only apologise to those of you who have been waiting on reading this! Since then I've been super busy, I've now been here in Seville for just over a month and this is my fourth week of working here - which has been.. very interesting!

As most of you know, I work in two schools here alternating between the two. I work in one on Mondays and Wednesdays and the other on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I definitely have a favourite! As they're both so close to each other I seem to think one of them is a better school. The students seem to act completely differently, which is quite surprising really!

If you've been in contact with me at all you'll have heard most of these stories so I'm sorry, if not then enjoy!

In one school I work with solely first year classes, these students are aged 12 - 13 and their English is pretty low. They have the basics but they can't really hold a conversation and they have difficulty understanding me. I teach Social Science and Natural Science there, which obviously I have no clue about! To be left in charge of a class of around 20 students teaching them about Earth's atmosphere and other things is challenging but I would say I've become pretty good at just winging it. I have to teach the lessons in English and speak no Spanish at all, which is fine but when they can't speak English to me it becomes quite difficult. At uni I have never learnt about the earth's atmosphere so I lack the vocabulary to even try to begin to explain what on earth I'm rambling on about at the front, looking like a lemon.

The first week was pretty scary, it was all general introductions to me, my life, England etc. I basically talked a little bit about myself and then they asked me general questions. As I said, the level of English is very low so its generally things like "Do you got brother?" and "How many dog has you?" which is why I was very surprised when someone raised their hand and asked "What's your opinion on Spanish economy?". I have also been asked some more.. personal questions. One boy thought it would be funny to ask me a rather personal question - I didn't hear him as the class erupted into laughter after he asked me, followed by the teacher roaring at him telling him that he has no manners. After the class the teacher apologised to me for the rudeness of the class and told me they don't know the social boundaries. I asked him what the student had asked me and the teacher started laughing and said "He asked you if you are a virgin." ... Awkward!

The other school I teach 1st, 2nd, 3rd and top level students. Which is an interesting mix! On the whole, the 16-17 year old students don't really want to learn and don't care. My very first lesson on my very first day was them throwing stuff around the room absolutely refusing to cooperate with the teacher, who gave up within the first minute and just sat down as I talked and offered the occasional "ssh", which obviously did nothing as they were literally running around the room. Not a great first day! That may have just been a one off, the other older students are really interested and the work is a lot more interesting for me as their English is quite good so we can hold a conversation. I teach actual English lessons here so I feel much more useful! However I also teach maths, which is ridiculous. They cannot speak any English, a lot can't even count to 5 in English so teaching them square roots and stuff just does not work! Bad idea.

All in all, I'm really enjoying the job. No two days are the same and its very interesting, usually! Sometimes it can be really awkward, the language barrier is definitely a problem. A few teachers do literally just leave me, they sit at the back and don't say a word and expect me to teach the class. Which is fine, if I know what I'm doing. I found today that it's hard to explain words like "heavy" in English without saying it in Spanish - especially when I look to the teacher for help and she just shrugs her shoulders and says "You're the teacher, you have to explain it to them". 

Most of the students want to practice their English and do speak to me in English in the classes, if they have questions they their best to ask me in English, which I appreciate is ridiculously difficult and daunting, when speaking to a native speaker. I'm scared to speak Spanish to them because I will make mistakes - and they're 12! Even outside the classroom they all run out to see me and shout "Hello David!", hi 5 me and shake my hand, which is actually really nice. 

Also, my family came to visit me on Wednesday, which was really really nice. We did all the really touristy things which I haven't had the chance to do yet like go round the cathedral and up La Giralda, go into the Alcazar Palace, Plaza de España and Parque de Maria Luisa. If you follow me on Instagram you've probably seen most of the pictures, if you don't then why not (@davidmcgowan1). We also went to Alfonso XIII for Sian's birthday meal on Thursday, which I thought was incredible. Just google image a picture! (Of the hotel, not the 19th Century King of Spain.)

 It was really good to see everyone, especially little Jamesy, who although is as cute as ever has turned into a massive pain in the arse in my absence. Must be because I'm not there to administer my disciplinary techniques! Sunday was a bit poo, after saying bye at the train station I felt pretty homesick. After 5 days of amazing food, I walked into the kitchen that night to cook something, walked straight back out again and to Burger King. I didn't even regret it.

I have been shouted at by so many people many times that I'm slacking with this, which I'll totally agree I was. The 6 am starts every day have really started to get to me as I get home and just collapse and have no energy to move for the rest of the day. I'll try to post more regular updates.. I promise!

Thank you for reading :) 

David 

Madrid!

¡Hola a todos!

On Wednesday I went to Madrid for the Ministry of Education's training day for all the language assistants in Spain. It's quite an interesting tale so I will start at the very best place to start - the beginning.

I set off on Wednesday morning for Sevilla Santa Justa - the largest and main train station in Seville, which I had never been to before. I thought i'd attempt to navigate the metro. I didn't really know where it is so I asked at customer service in the metro station. I went over and asked her 'How do I get to Santa Justa' she looked me dead in the eyes and said 'No, imposible'. I gave her a bit of a look and said 'So I can't get there?', to which she just replied 'No. NEXT'. I grabbed a map and looked where it was, took the metro to the nearest station and walked the rest of the way. It really wasn't that difficult and certainly not impossible.

At the train station after a mini heart attack of seeing the price of the train - it was 60€ each way for a return of 70€ for a single. Seeing as I didn't know when i'd be leaving friday as I really wanted to stay longer and have a look around Madrid, I bought a single and planned to buy my return the other end when I was leaving. This didn't quite work out as I hoped.

After the best 2 and a half hour train journey of my life - this time I was on the high speed train - the AVE. This really is a high speed train, I think it said the top speed is 250 km/h, not too bad! I slept the whole way but kept waking myself up with my head falling forwards off the edge of the window. I woke up a few times to people giving me a bit of a funny look. I just went back to sleep. When I arrived in Madrid I didn't realise the distance to the hotel, my phone was on about 2% battery and as that is my source of all knowledge and maps, I thought if I attempted to get there via the metro and it died, I would be eternally stuck in the Madrid metro system so opted to take a taxi there. The taxi driver nearly killed me a few times, but other than that it was alright. This turned out to be a wise choice as someone else got a metro and a bus to get to the airport, then a taxi from there which is definitely closer and it cost us the same. Although I got there in about half the time he did. Good old instincts! Or maybe laziness. Probably instincts though.

The hotel that the Spanish Ministry of Education had organised for us was seriously good too - the biggest hotel in Europe. I thought I had been in some pretty big hotels but this was something else. I went to the reception where the woman told me that we wouldn't be staying there and there were no rooms for us, I had a brief panic of where the hell am I going to stay for 3 nights but then I saw other English people heading toward the lifts so went and asked a different receptionist on the sly, who checked me in to my room.

A lot of people opt to do this programme so I thought that they would have provided a lot of rooms, maybe why they chose to do it in the biggest hotel in Europe! As I went to put the key card in the door I heard voices in the room, we were sharing rooms with others. Turned out the 2 who were in my room were actually really nice (I was told not to bitch about them on here because they're going to read it. If you want the truth, ask me privately.) They were really nice guys who turned out to be working not too far from me. We had no warning that we would be sharing rooms, which led to some funny stories. The first guy in my room, Jason, decided to strip off and get into bed for a siesta when in walks Josh to see another man asleep in, what he thought was, his bed. Slightly awkward. Could have been worse, one of the girls we met said she was in the shower when her roommates arrived.

Over the two days we had various talks about different aspects of what we will be doing, our duties and other things. It didn't really teach me anything that I didn't already know - but it was a trip to Madrid in this incredible hotel with dinner, lunch and breakfast included. The food there was incredible. They had a huge buffet with every kind of food you could imagine. I haven't really eaten that much when I've been here down to a few things so this was my chance to eat as much as I could before having to fend for myself again. I met quite a lot of people who will be working near me, including the uni friends of one the guys in my room, who were also really cool. This other guy then appeared out of nowhere and said he was teaching in a primary school in Castilla y Leon. Noone really questioned it until later on when he told everyone he was living a lie, he has a work placement in Madrid, isn't teaching and just came to see his friends while they were in Madrid and get some free food. Fair enough.

The next day was all in Spanish, nobody spoke English the whole day which was exhausting! I understood most of what was going on anyway! I didn't realise how much of a big deal this programme is too, there were various Secretaries of State there and ambassadors and representatives from all European countries. Very overwhelming but it did make me feel very proud for signing up to do this. That night everyone went to the bar and had some drinks, which was filled with some very very heated discussions about all kinds of political and economical topics. There was a girl from Glasgow there and when asked what she voted, caused an uproar of debate. She was very calm about it all though I'm sure there were some things she wanted to say! 

Today, we left the hotel early to go into Madrid and be a tourist. I haven't actually had the chance to be a tourist yet so to do touristy things was nice. We went to see the Palacio Real de Madrid which was really nice, saw a few more sights like the Plaza Mayor in Madrid and of course the Buen Retiro Parque. This literally blew my mind walking through it, it was absolutely incredible. And huge, too! Unfortunately my phone died and I stupidly forgot my charger so I couldn't take any pictures :( but there are loads on the internet if you're wondering what they look like, I'm sure!

After a tiring walk around Madrid and various metros, we went to the main train station - Puerta Atocha. When I went to buy my ticket back to Seville, there were no seats left on any train other than the premium class which was 150€. I had no phone and was stuck in the centre of Madrid, not ideal. After a huge panic and a very stressful hour or so, I booked myself into a hotel which I didn't realise was about 20 minutes on the cercanias from Madrid centre itself. The place seems to be really nice though and its very quiet as its not in the centre. Such a shame, I have to spend another night in the capital of Spain. Damn.

A very wise person once told me 'Every bad decision makes a great story'. Couldn't be more correct.

I went to look what I could get for dinner and walked past somewhere that I just couldn't walk away from - Pizza Hut. Surprisingly cheap yet so good! So here I am, sat in my hotel room, eating pizza, letting you all know what I got up to these last few days in Madrid.

#LaVidaLoca

David