3 year olds to retirees in a day

Ok, now I’m sat back in the UK with Elche a world, or at least a good chunk of a continent, away. Here are a few final thoughts.

The first and most striking thing is that trying to distill a typical Leonardo project teacher’s experience is impossible. What I experienced as a kindergarten teacher would be completely different to the teachers who taught adult classes at Top School. The best way to illustrate this is with a description of last Thursday. As well as teaching kindergarten, I taught an adult class observed by Michael in Top School, so I did everything from 3 year olds to retirees in the space of about 8 hours.

At the end of the morning I taught the 3 year old class. They are a very sweet group to teach, but I doubt any adults had to be instructed to go to the toilet and wash their hands upon arrival at Top School classes! With the 3 year olds, repetition of activities is not only not a problem, but really helpful for them to learn. So I did the Slippery Fish song as I had done countless times with 3 and 5 year olds and it still goes down a treat with them no matter how many times they’d done it before. Classroom management is so much more challenging with kindergarten however, and once they were on to their book activity which involved a pop out tadpole that becomes a frog, managing the concentration of children who do the activity at a different speed to the others is very challenging. As the disruptive students can tend to be the ones who gain all the attention, the idea of having all the children’s names on the board moving towards happy and sad faces on the left and right of the board depending on their behaviour in class works well in giving the good children attention, and setting the class the goal of all being on the good side. Once the pop out activity was done, the class really responded to the chance to jump like the frog in the story, but the challenge is to get them to stop! For all the exhaustion they can cause by the end of the day, the level of the English that these children have is phenomenal for their age, and seeing a 3 year old do something very well is enjoyable in a very different way to teaching a lesson where an already competent upper-intermediate adult produces good language that they were in all likelihood capable of producing with or without the teacher.

The early afternoon saw a five year old class where the children were preparing work for a display on the wall about the animal theme that they had been studying in class. After the usual routine activities such as who could tell me the day and date (move to the happy face for those who did
it after putting their hand up and not shouting) and the hello song, we revised animals with flashcards and the Sounds that the Animals Make song, before they had the chance to draw and colour their own favourite animals to go on the wall in the kindergarten building.

This all sounds very straightforward but 5 year olds in the afternoon, when they have been in school since 9am are the height of distracted irritability and disruptiveness, and the energy it takes to manage 18 children this age in the afternoon makes me admire full-time kindergarten teachers but not envy them. I should also say though that I loved doing the kindergarten activities and will really miss some of the children in case anyone thinks I am downbeat
about kindergarten teaching. I really can’t wait to be in a future role in Japan where I will be doing kindergarten classes among other age groups.

After doing a similar class with the other 5 year old class, then assisting Isa as she taught a 5 year old class at the end of the afternoon, I took the bus to get back to Elche. On arriving, I went straight back to the flat to pick up my laptop and drop off kindergarten stuff and headed to Top School where I met Michael who had an idea for the first hour of my adult class. When I got there I found out that I’d be teaching with Steph who was going to bring her class in with mine. I was very pleased about this as after getting used to kindergarten, I was really nervous going back into an adult class. We did a listening lesson based on Elvis Presley’s You were always on my mind. It was great to teach an adult class after several weeks of kindergarten just because the
challenges are so different and I would have missed out if I hadn’t had the chance to teach adults. It was enjoyable having a really motivated small group of adults but I did realise that team teaching is a skill in itself. As much as I think Steph and I understood the activities we were doing, being aware what we were expecting the other to do in class could be a bit stilted.

In the second hour, I had just two adults, both named Jesus. I did the Empire State Building lesson with them which worked very well and felt very easy. Whereas kindergarten involves a lot less preparation than an adult class, once you are confident that the idea for an adult class is good and that you know your lesson, the class runs relatively smoothly. In class with two strong intermediate adults who were keen to learn, compared to the afternoon with 5 year olds felt like everything ran itself. It also gave a chance to deal with more interesting language. The pronunciation drilling that we did at the end with a few words I noticed they had difficulty with also led them to start asking about other areas where they had queries, and drive the class along with problems they had come across in their own use of the language that they wanted to resolve. This was really enjoyable as they were immediately engaged with something they had taken the initiative in wanting to know how to communicate in English. Michael observed and gave great detailed feedback which was extremely valuable for me going forward.

The day ended with Christine, the Top School boss, treating all 15 of the teachers to a fantastic meal which was a great way to celebrate the last week of the project.

My overall final conclusions? I’m really glad I ended up doing kindergarten as I’m so much more confident tackling this again in the future having had this experience, but I couldn’t work full-time in a kindergarten. I loved teaching the adult class, and if I could have four more weeks and sample more adult classes and other age groups I would definitely do it as I would have no problem doubling the time I spent in Elche and getting to experience all the different types of teaching. I was lucky to have great flatmates, other teachers on the project, fantastic colleagues at San Alberto Magno and support from Top School, and superb training from UKLC, and Michael in particular while in Elche. If you’re a new TEFL teacher reading this and thinking of applying in 2013, do it! You are crazy not to take this chance if you get it.

Hywel

There was a man in short shorts

So here is finally the promised post on the half-marathon and the non-teaching stuff. Given the attractions of Spain's fiesta culture and the chance on Friday and Saturday to have a more indulgent night, why would I choose to forgo these for a 21.1 km race at 9:30 on a Sunday morning?

Well, I do have a bit of history in this area. I'm very much a morning person who includes "Where can I run?" before "Where can I go out at night?" in the list of questions I ask when I arrive somewhere new. I first gained Wales international vests in road & cross-country running in 2009 and arrived in Spain hoping to maintain fitness in the hope of selection for Wales in the Great Manchester Run the day after returning from Elche later this month.

For most of my colleagues on the Leonardo project, however, I would be known for my distance runner's typical split leg shorts rather than any athletic accomplishment by the end of our time in Denbigh. This was helpfully reinforced by Michael's locked room mystery on the theft of my shorts on the last Saturday before leaving Denbigh.

Once I got to Elche and started to recce places to run and a track to train on when not teaching, I quickly found out that a half marathon was due to take place in Elche on May 6th. My curiosity suitably piqued, I asked one of the distance runners at the track if the registration was still open. He directed me towards "the bald guy with the beard" on the infield for all information on the half marathon. Having found out that the start was a less than 5 min jog from our apartment and that this was the oldest half in the world, I was sold. I was told that I could either enter online or in person at the tienda de Caldon, I thought I'd go for the latter option, where I could get information in person if I wasn't confident in Spanish dealing with all the details on the website. This was however where my Spanish did let me down, as while I was asking if anyone knew roughly where this shop called Caldon was, I found out within a couple of days that what I had in fact been told was tienda Decathlon. Having got my entry sorted, I learnt at school that PE teacher Juan Llopis had also entered and a pint was bet on the outcome of our battle to add a little bit of spice to the race.

Now often for a Sunday race, I'm rooming with other athletes the night before or travelling with other athletes on the morning of the race. This race involved passing Saturday with a more than slightly hungover group of teachers in our apartment whose Friday night had not involved resting for a race. Not wanting to particularly spend all day on foot around Elche the day before the race, I was more than happy to have company that was not in the mood for moving anywhere fast. I got the tea and food that they needed to fight very sore heads and the next morning, I got the support round the course from Alex, Jess and Steph that I very much needed to overcome the protestations of my legs. As I passed them on the Ferrocaril bridge for the first time at 2km, I was tucked in to a lead group with five Moroccan guys who would be my company for the next few kms.

Unfortunately after a nice steady 5 kms in 16:05, they injected a 5kms so fast that my 15:30 for this section still saw me dropping off them, and facing a long and gradually slowing Sunday slog. By the time I came back through Paseo de l'Estacion where we had begun, the race was in its 17th km and they were well out of sight but I was greeted by the support group of earlier in the race on the bridge, and believe me, at this point I needed it! One more encounter a couple of kms later with Alex and his camera, and it was just a matter of hanging on for the finish in warmth now up into the 20s - which I'm sure was nice for spectating, but not for a runner already losing time hand over fist.

As I turned into the finish straight, I could see the finish clock just ticked past 69 minutes, and I had a half marathon personal best dating from 2010 of 69:28. I might have been dropped by the leaders but I was not letting the personal best go, and what passed in that state of fatigue for a flat out sprint was unleashed to bring me through the line in 69:24 for 6th place, a new PB and my bet won as Juan would not cross the line for another 25 minutes.

(above) early on in the lead group

(left) battling away on my own later on

The sprint for sixth

A post race massage and telling off from a chiropodist for the lack of attention I pay to my battered distance runner's toes later, I was reunited with the fantastic supporters I had en route. Alex, Steph, Jess and I enjoyed the rest of the day indulging in a marathon of a more gourmet nature, but Alex's blog is the place to go for that story and the accompanying photos of great food.

Possibly amused by another 'short shorts' joke after the race

So what other extra-curricular activities does this trip offer? Well for some it's the beaches that you can get to a short bus ride away, for others it's Spain's late night fiesta opportunities, or just sun-bathing in Elche's amazing palm grove. My own favourite experiences have included going to church over here where I received great hospitality and the chance to test my Spanish skills by following a Bible study with some of the other young people in the church. Also, getting out to run in the hills to the north of Elche and getting to see bits of the area on foot that nobody else has got to explore in the group was cool. Miriam, Steph and I also took the chance to travel to Alicante where we met up with Mary from the Leonardo French group visiting her Spanish beau, while also taking the chance to meet up with us on the Saturday evening of the first weekend. There were also two birthdays as Alex and Steph became a year wiser.

Steph and Alex giving an accurate assessment of how nice the birthday cake was!

The owner of the short shorts is enjoying life in Elche and best of all I've received confirmation of my selection in the Wales team after we get back. Next time it'll be back to blogging about the teaching and maybe an end of project post about my overall feeling about how it's gone.

Hywel

Spending time in somebody else's shoes

Now, anyone who reads this (the proverbial two men and a dog in all likelihood) has probably heard that they should walk a mile in someone else’s shoes. Well yesterday, I took a pair of someone else’s shoes and ran like the clappers to try and get the bus to Colegio San Alberto Magno.

This blog post was supposed to be about my run in tomorrow’s Elche Half Marathon and other not directly teaching related experiences. Well, the strange twists that life takes struck yesterday and that will all have to wait one more post. I had woken up in the morning, got ready and padded down in sock-clad feet to get breakfast. Having had my breakfast and feeling relaxed about being in plenty of time to brush my teeth, put on my shoes, collect my bag and meander to the bus stop, I went to turn the door knob to my room … and it didn’t budge. My calling out brought an enquiry from Jess as to what was going on, and my explanation of being unable to get into the room. It’s worth noting at this point that it’s supposed to be impossible for this to happen. The room doesn’t have a key lock, you can’t shut your keys in the room. The room only locks with a catch that you turn from the inside, but it nonetheless seemed pretty clear the catch had slipped and locked inside my bag with any materials I had planned to teach with that day, my toothbrush, wallet, phone, and more significantly with regards to walking to any bus stop, my shoes!. After 10 minutes of me kicking the door, wrestling with the knob, banging, and shoulder charging the unyielding door, the sanguine figure of Ben emerged from his room to enquire about the noise from the other end of the corridor. Having explained the situation, he asked my shoe size, and provided me with a pair of size nine shoes (I’m an eight and a half). “What time do you have to get the bus?” he asked. “Pretty much now” I replied and headed off. Now I’m a fair 10,000m runner but the dash to the bus stop was more like a middle-distance burn-up with a defeat being the result as I arrived to see the only bus already reasonably far away down the road towards San Alberto Magno, which is by the motorway to the North-East of Elche. After 30 seconds of ‘what on earth do I do now?’ thoughts, a car pulled up. “San Alberto Magno”? enquired the female driver, telling me to get in. Sitting in the car, I greeted the familiar figure of Andres from my five year olds class, and learned that my ability to get into school that day was as a result of Andres saying “Mummy, my teacher” from the back seat. So I enjoyed a ride in with Andres’s family and beat the bus to school.

Now, I had nothing that I had prepared with me. Isabel taught the 3 year old class that I was scheduled to teach in the morning with me assisting, and then I used break time to re-prepare the “Dictionary of the Sea” for the five year olds to do in the afternoon and found a different book for their storytime to the We’re all going on a Bear Hunt that I had planned. Bizarrely the result was probably my favourite lesson so far with the five year olds who really engaged with the story of The Magic in the Castle (after a bit of a battle for attention after they came in hyper from lunch break!). There were also some great ‘dictionaries of the sea’ that they produced.

And the door? Well I arrived back at the apartment to find out that Ben took a few seconds with a hairpin to get it open after I left. I owe him plenty for my decent outcome to the oddest day of my teaching career so far!

Now for 21.1kms tomorrow.

Cheers

Hywel

One week down...

Just over a week has gone by since, bleary eyed after a 3am start, we stumbled off the plane into the Spanish sunshine. Seven days on, there has been little improvement on the sleep deprivation front, however, with a good twenty hours teaching under our belts and plenty of guidance along the way, the prospect of this Monday’s three hour lesson was a whole lot less daunting. 

Rewind back to last Sunday and I was trying my upmost not to fall asleep on the sofa as we all crammed into one of the flats to discuss the all important first lesson, which was looming ever closer. The twenty kilo luggage allowance had left little room for books or extra resources, and although the week’s training in Wales had equipped us with plenty of ideas, translating those from paper to reality suddenly seemed decidedly intimidating. It turns out, however, that the only resource that we actually required was Michael, as half an hour later, we all had an introduction lesson plan ready to go. Luckily he was here all week to offer advice, inundate us with lesson ideas and nudge us in the right direction. Hopefully we’ve taken enough on board to survive the next two weeks without him... 

A far cry from the cold streets of Denby, Elche is all sunshine and palm trees (admittedly we have yet to compare the karaoke...) and although the locals are still awaiting the onset of summer, twenty odd degrees is suiting us just fine. We have found a local, destroyed our body clocks in the name of a truly Spanish night out and sampled many a caña y tapa. Most memorably, however, was probably second class in, when a camera crew interrupted my lesson. Two more news interviews later, it’s good to know that should TEFL teaching fall through, a career in front of the camera awaits:

 http://www.rtvv.es/va/comunidad-valenciana/academia-didiomes-ofereix-classes-dangles_0_688131247.html (or not...!)