Spanish Teacher in England <

Spanish Teacher in England

I would like to share with you all my experience as a Spanish teacher in England. I studied foreign language teaching, and specialised in English. In my third and last year of university I went to England for a month to do a work placement. There, I had to put into practice all that I had learnt in foreign language teaching, but this time I had to teach Spanish to English children.

During the month I was in Twickenham, I was teaching Spanish at Trafalgar Junior School. I gave clases to the last two years of primary school (years 5 and 6) and also I did something called “Spanish Club”, an activity which took place at midday and was open to any student at the school who wanted to talk in Spanish for 30 minutes.

I remember perfectly the feeling I had the first day I stepped into the school. It was not like any of the other schools I had been to in Spain. Besides being a private school, and one of the richest zones in London; the English culture was so that the children and teachers were directed to me in a very formal way and at times very welcoming but serious. I remember spending my first week in the playground, during breaks and not one child approached me, something unthinkable in any school around here.

This fact, demonstrated to me that it is very important to know your students, your target group and your environment in which you work in, to achieve maximum performance. The characteristics of the school, the English culture and the children themselves influence the planning of the clases. It would be a silly example but it is not trivial, to know that English people are a bit reluctant to make physical contact on their first day of class.

Whenever I give clases in a foreign language to children, I try not to use their native language at any time. Unfortunately, for one reason or another, I always miss small words. When I was in Trafalgar, I did all the clases integrationally in Spanish. I think that there are two concrete explanations. To begin with, I was teaching my native language, and however much I know spanish, I always find it difficult to do the clases in a language which is not my own, and therefore, for me, speaking spanish was something that came naturally to me. The other explanation is to do with discipline. The few times which I inevitably use Spanish in English clases is to put into order or to speak with someone specifically. In trafalgar I did not have this problem since the students had consistantly exemplary behaviour. It was an interesting experience in which i learnt alot and have wanted to repeat.

In one of my classes I taught how to cook a Spanish omelette. I remember the satisfaction I had the next day when two or three children told me that they had made one with their parents. This is priceless.