Adios, Valencia!

Valencia has been great and I already miss it. Being back in England feels like a culture shock, for example just walking into Sainsburys’ (as opposed to Mercadona) has made me realise how expensive things are… and it feels odd not to say “Buenas,”  “Hola” and “Hasta Luego” to shop assistants/even people who I pass on the quiet road in my village. I feel like I have the holiday blues!

Teaching in Spain has been quite interesting; I had no idea I would be teaching using chalk and board, neither did I imagine to teach three different Bachillerato classes full of forty students. Most of my classes were taught straight from the textbook, so nothing like the CELTA! This was quite a challenge to be able to modify activities from the textbook and make them fun, but I managed and felt rewarded at the end of these lessons. In my opinion, I had the most fun teaching 4^th ESO and 6^th Primary; these classes were generally more willing to get stuck into fun activities as exams weren’t on their minds unlike the Bach classes. (A bonus of me working at this school was the fact it was a 15 minute walk from our apartment and I passed the Mestalla Football Stadium everyday).

Living in Valencia has been excellent. I, along with everyone else on this placement have all been gutted to leave a day before Las Fallas, but I am so glad we got to experience the run-up to it. The Mascleta (fireworks), the Fallas opening ceremony, the food, and drinking Agua De Valencia have been a few of my many highlights of living here. I would definitely come back!

Gracias to UKLC for this experience, I have enjoyed it x

3 weeks in.

Like a lot of things in life this seems to have gone by rather quickly. I get the feeling that I will have really started to feel comfortable when we head back to the UK.

I've mostly learned my way around the school. I've been teaching more lessons (though I was sick a couple of days in week 2). Some of the lessons have gone better than others, this has been to a variety of reasons, the first is that teaching larger classes of teenagers means that how well they respond is quite a lot down to their mood and the time of day (later lessons can feel flatter). The other big factor is planning, some lesson I've done a better job of planning than others, some I have had little to no say in what has been planned, being handed the teacher's guide at the beginning of the class does not make for particularly fluid or interesting lessons but I suppose it has been a useful experience of "can I teach with zero prep?" apparently yes but it's not ideal.

In terms of what I've actually been covering, I've taught vocabulary and pronunciation, grammar (more enjoyable than maybe it sounds, particularly if I've had time to plan it, I think something you come to appreciate with grammar is that having a lesson where answers are clearly right or wrong is actually something of a relief). I've also taught lessons on manners in the UK, crime and law, and next week will be doing a reading lesson on social class.

Two things that have resulted in a bit of fragmented time table are having 17 different classes to teach (though, that has also meant repetition in teaching the same lesson to different classes of the same age group) and the fact that school has been in the midst of end of term exams (there's not a lot to gained from watching 25 students complete a reading and writing exam). I am looking forward to having a proper teaching job and having more control over what I get to teach and how, for the most part the teachers I am working with have been very open to me changing the work book tasks or coming up with my own, however, the number of different classes has limited that a little as I don't get to do very many follow on classes (I see most of my classes once a week so by the next week they're two or three lessons on from when I last saw them).

I'll be sad to leave Valencia, it's definitely somewhere I want to return to, maybe with some more free time so I can explore the area (and the surrounding wilderness) a bit more.

1st assessed lesson.

My first assessed lesson was on the Wednesday of week 2. I had already had the opportunity to teach a couple of lessons at Jesuitas beforehand but really having the opportunity to plan the lesson myself felt good. The lesson itself was a reading and speaking lesson on stress, given that this fell during the student’s end of term exams it was perhaps a fairly appropriate topic. The class was a first of Bachillerato class with 29 students. I was able to use a range of CELTA techniques, freeing myself from the course book's lesson structure gave me a lot more flexibility and it was good to see the students responding well to the more student focussed approach to teaching. All in all, the lesson went very well, the students enjoyed it and were able to complete all the tasks properly which as much as I can ask for as a teacher. Ms Piedad, my tutor was also very pleased with the lesson. It was also something of a watershed moment for me, this was the first lesson I had properly planned and taught since CELTA and while it was assessed, it was a very different feeling to the constant sense of anxiety that accompanied all my CELTA lessons, it made me feel much more confident as a teacher, I'm really looking forward to working properly as a teacher, it's a good balance between being enjoyable and challenging, as well as having very good job satisfaction. Teaching in a large Spanish school is an interesting experience, it has significant differences from CELTA (much larger classes, teenagers rather than adults) but it's also quite different from being in an equivalently sized UK school, the atmosphere and attitude is more relaxed and frankly happier.

Valencia, Vino Tinto, V not B.

So we're past half way through the placement and the days are just flying by. I love it here in Spain. The place is buzzing and the lifestyle is great. I have lived in a few places in Europe and this city has got to be up there as one of my favourites. Moncada has it moments of feeling a little dead, but the people make up for it. I have a handful of familiar faces that I say hello to most days although the conversation is often stunted by my lack of Spanish. Julio who owns the coffee shop opposite Schola was, at first, a little cold but he adores us now and we see him most mornings for coffee. He continues to speak mostly in Valencian at me but his hospitality is great and he always turns the music up when we get in! Donna and I have two women at the local bakery who now see us walk in and give us 'the nod' from over the counter as they start preparing our regular order. We also have Laura's parents who are the loveliest hosts. They continue to tell me long and descriptive stories even though I have little to no idea what they are saying. Donna is occasionally at my side with a translation!

I am working both at Schola (a language academy) and I'm participating as part of the CEFIRE training with 5 other UKLCers which is working with local teachers of English. The first few lessons at Schola were very interesting as we were just asked to observe but it struck me that the learning tends to stick quite closely to the book due to the nature of 'everything in the book prepares the students for the exam'. I observed and thought about how I would be able to manage this whilst also introducing some more communicative activities. The tutors at Schola have been supportive, offering ideas and suggestions whilst also giving us the freedom to create our own lessons.
At first, I was a bit disappointed to not have any classes of really young learners to test out some of the new ideas we learnt at the training week, but in general I have enjoyed my classes. I don't feel they have all been as successful as I'd hope but I can't quite put my finger on why. I've found that having to plan a lesson quickly has really highlighted my inexperience of teaching and it will be something I have to work on. CEFIRE is interesting as we get to discuss a lot of things with the teachers and all of them have such varied teaching experience and techniques. It has been useful to hear their ideas and help them a little with English although the night sessions get tiring!

In general, I'm very happy here in Valencia, it's definitely a place I would recommend to others who look for EFL work. I'm looking forward to the final 10 days, but I still have so much I want to do!

Some lessons have been taught

Almost the mid point for me and the students are sitting their mid-term exams. This is fragmenting my timetable a little but it’s all part of the experience. Since my last post, I have taught a good many more lessons and I’ve recorded some highlights here.

My first active/passive lesson was not especially successful but with feedback from the teachers in the school, I was able to develop a much more effective lesson (for the observation) that I taught later in the week.

I actually enjoyed teaching countable/uncountable nouns to 1^st ESO today –the students were studying the vocabulary of food so to begin the lesson, I filled 2/3 of the board with their suggested vocabulary items (checking pronunciation, especially with cognates, along the way). Then I provided some sentences on the board with gaps to fill with some/a(n)/any which we completed as a whole class. I handed the chalk (and quite a lot of control) to one of the students so that the class could identify the countable nouns in our vocabulary bank. This was brilliant because it uncovered problems with yogurt and coffee and allowed us to explore countable cups but uncountable quantities of ground coffee! Armed with this conceptual understanding, the students attacked their student book grammar exercises with confidence leaving us to deal with ‘fruit’ in feedback since las frutas means that fruit is countable in Spanish.

My native speaker status has me delivering some mini lessons on pronunciation within lessons taught by the school-teachers. There’s nothing like a good tongue twister, making silly sounds and pulling silly faces to get a group of 30 teenagers to laugh with (at) you. Mind you, they laugh less when you point out that you want them to mimic the faces and sounds.

After the exams, the 2 Bach students are going to look at some poetry. They have a new teacher who has started this week and who wants to take them away from the relative safety of their textbooks and grammar exercises. This is a different approach to the ‘authentic materials’ lesson but the aim is to develop vocabulary and get the students thinking about, and manipulating, the language in ways new to them. Of course, as a former school English teacher I’m looking forward to sharing some literature with these students but also well aware of the challenges and potential pitfalls of upcoming lessons!

Final reflections

As the saying goes better late than never! I’ve been back home for just over a week and had some time to reflect on the month that’s been. Firstly I want to say how grateful I am to have had this opportunity and send a big thank you to everyone who’s made it happen.

The last month in Moncada / Valencia was an immensely valuable learning experience. There were highs and lows all of which has made me more able to tackle the unfamiliar with greater confidence.

Before going out to Spain I had some vague ideas of what I hoped to get out of it. Gaining more hands on experience in the classroom and working with young learners were the big ones.

What I didn’t anticipate or give much importance to was just how much of a cultural ‘induction’ I would have. Working in an authentic Spanish environment and interacting with the students, staff and parents provided unique insights on the similarities and differences between British and Spanish culture. I still can’t quite get my head around 2 hr & 45 min lunches but oh well.

I’ve met some lovely people in the form of my fellow teachers who I hope to keep in touch with. The wonderful students at Dominicas really made this experience what it was. They were enthusiastic, excitable (maybe too much at times :-) and just good fun to teach.

It’s true that I had half formed thoughts about working in Spain before going to Valencia. A month of sunshine seems to have worked wonders as I’m now seriously considering going back!  

 

 

After week 1.

After five days at Jesuitas I am finally learning my way around the school, it's big at 2000 pupils, my first day of being shown around by my Tutor Ms. Piedad left me mainly wondering how I'd find any of my classes but everyone is helpful so if I really get myself lost I can generally ask a passing member of staff where the next class on my time table is. I'd say by day three I could for the most part navigate round the parts of the school that I need to.

So, what is teaching in a big Spanish school like? Jesuitas is a semi-private school, so the government pays part of the pupil's fees. In terms of atmosphere and scale it's very much like a large UK comprehensive school, except this goes all the way from primary to Bachillerato (equivalent to A levels). I've observed, assisted and taught at all age levels in the secondary school part of the school, so ESO 1-4 then Bachillerato 1 and 2. This has also been varying ability levels, both in terms of overall class ability and amongst the students in any given class, I was asked by one girl in an ESO 1 class "How long does it take to learn English properly?" My response was "You seem to have learned already." Class sizes are also quite variable, my smallest is 12 and my largest is 40, generally they're around 30 pupils though.

So what are Spanish English Language classes like? Well, noisy for the most part. Spanish school culture seems a fair bit more relaxed and easy going than UK schools, this has its pros and cons, obviously it makes getting pupils on task somewhat time consuming (as well as eventually punishing on your vocal cords) but the atmosphere is also very good natured, rowdy but well-meaning would be a good description I suppose, I've seen very few real examples of genuinely bad behaviour or bullying.

In terms of what I've actually been doing, week one has for the most part been me answering questions about myself, English, and British culture. This has without exception resulted in a look of shock on someone's face when I have explained that I do not watch football or support any football team. I've also had the opportunity to do some actual teaching, mostly lexis and pronunciation work (the halls of Jesuitas now ring to the chant of "Chill out!!!")

The staff have all been very welcoming and helpful, I've chatted about teaching, food, and culture (both in the UK and Spain). I've really enjoyed my first week, getting back into the classroom has been a pleasure, if a rather tiring one (I am working with seven different teachers and 18 different classes, I suspect learning all their names is unlikely).

 I'm hoping to actually get into central Valencia this week and hopefully do some hiking in the nearby mountains at the weekend.