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 

Finding flats and making friends

¡Hola a todos!

So it's now half past 9 on Sunday night and I still haven't got a place to live! I assumed I could just turn up and there would be loads of places to choose from and I'd move in in a few days.. Definitely not the case. I have been to view quite a lot of flats now and the have all been absolutely disastrous. Seriously, terrible. I need to live in the centre to catch the bus to where I will be working so don't want to go too far out of the centre. How the landlord can show me round is beyond me, they are all filthy and way too far away. One of the landlords made me laugh though, he smelt my Englishness so spoke English to me while showing me around. Well, in Spanish the word for cupboard is armario, which sounds slightly like the English word 'armchair'..? Yeah, he kept calling all the cupboards in the place armchairs. The flat was disgusting but it gave me a little giggle when he said 'Open the armchair and have a look inside'. Or pointed at the wall and said 'There's an armchair there too', the first time he said it I just let it go and didn't think anything of it but when he said it again and again it became apparent what he was talking about. I probably should have said something but, alas, I didn't. I'm a terrible person. 

 I'm going to Madrid on Wednesday so if I don't have a place by then, I really will start to panic! I'm viewing some more tomorrow so fingers crossed!

Anyway, enough of that! The other day I received a Whatsapp from one of the  English teachers at the school, she invited me round to her house for dinner and to meet her son and the children of another English teacher, Jesus. I read the message and was immediately terrified, but I of course agreed. I went along last night and with after difficulty finding her flat, I arrived. 

I went up and said hello to everyone, when it became apparent that in Spain they greet each other by two kisses on either cheek - well I'm obviously not used to this! I must have spent about an hour kissing everyone. The girls, I hasten to add! Us men greet each other with a firm handshake. Because we are men. I greeted everyone and we headed up to the roof to eat, the flat was ridiculously hot - I was already melting and I'd only been in there 5 minutes. The heat here is ridiculous, it's nearly October and it's still in the high 20's / low 30's. It's crazy! 

We headed up to the roof where Elena had prepared the food for us all. There was a huge Union Jack hanging on the wall and lots of London posters and English things, which made me laugh. 

All the children were around my age, which was nice. They were talking amongst themselves and one of the teachers said to me can you follow what they're saying? Not a chance. They were talking unbelievably fast and with such a strong Andalucian accent that I understood literally nothing. They were told to speak very slowly to me, the speed they had to speak for me to understand was quite frankly embarrassing. It must have been painful for them to speak so slowly! We were left alone and it was slightly awkward at first but once we got chatting it was okay. They were all learning English so they were keen to practice it, and I was more than happy to speak to them in English, even though I shouldn't be. One of the guys told me he likes to watch Downton Abbey which I thought was quite funny. They all said that they love the Big Bang Theory, which is one of my favourite shows, but they find the American accent very difficult to understand.

Elena had made an Andalucian soup called salmorejo, it's tomato soup with lots of garlic and olive oil, and crushed up bits of boiled egg in. It was actually really nice! She had also made hollowed out boiled eggs filled with tuna and a kind of sauce. We all ate and chatted a bit more about our countries and their customs and after dinner they thought it would be a good idea to take me out and show me all around Sevilla. We walked for ages as they told me where is good to go, what each area is and things like that. 

We got back and Jesus asked me if I had been speaking Spanish, to which I wanted to say yes but the truth was that I let them talk to me in English the whole night. They all got told off and didn't speak a word in English to me for the rest of the night. I found that on the whole, I understood them really well if they spoke slowly enough. It was when I came to reply that there was a problem. I just can't think quickly enough in my head of what I want to say, I have to formulate it, wonder if it's correct or not, if I think it sounds okay then I'll say it. Marcos understood and told me that in one month we'll be able to have a proper conversation - we had a bet on it. On the whole all I did was sit there and nod a lot, probably looking like an idiot in the process.

I think I am starting to get to grips with the Andalucian accent also, the main thing that I've noticed they do is miss out 's' in random places - there doesn't seem to be any kind of logic to it. Sometimes it's there, other times not. Muchas Gracias is interesting because the 's' can disappear from anywhere. I heard so many variations:

Mucha gracias 

Muchas gracia

Mucha gracia

It just seems to disappear. If I listen very carefully I can tell where they should be. This lets me off the hook with my plurals because if I miss an 's' off a plural it doesn't really matter - I'm just adapting to the local dialect!

All in all it was a brilliant night, I met some great people who were probably some of the friendliest people I've ever met. They were incredibly welcoming and understanding of my position and I could tell they genuinely wanted to help me. It really does help me feel more settled with people like that. They also gave me some great advice about the city which I shan't bore you with. 

As you know, I have no place to live yet so I'm still in my funky hostel. Well, I haven't really been eating that well. I have breakfast here than I usually only get a sandwich or something for the rest of the day. Today however, I thought I didn't care about the embarrassment of going somewhere to eat on my own. Driven mainly by my stomach and of course, my mother. Today I had a big lunch and for dinner I went and got myself a pizza. There was nothing that could have prepared me for it. I was so excited to eat it you couldn't believe - not even tr smell of horse shit on Avenida de la constitución could put me off it! Which reminds me of an incredibly annoying thing some people do here. I went into the pizza place and was talking to him in Spanish. My massively English look / smell / aura must have made him think that he has to speak to me in English. There is no way to stop this other than to tell him to speak Spanish, which is a bit embarrassing. If he were to speak Spanish and I gave him the blank stare that I have mastered over the last few days, he would have the green light to speak to me in English. Until then, pleaseeee speak to me in Spanish! Rant over. 

That's all for now!

Cariños,

David 

Xxx