The Story So Far

What a year it’s been so far! I’ve been very busy.

My work as a language assistant in Avilés has been somewhat demanding, I have only been working there for 12 hours a week but in terms of preparation, I have had to spend many hours each week coming up with ideas for each lesson and preparing a lesson plan accordingly. I will usually choose a theme for the lesson such as ‘Burns’ Night’ or ‘Shakespeare’. I have found that the resources on the British Council website’s ‘Learn English’ section have been particularly helpful. I quite like to have a lesson theme that is related to something that is happening in the UK currently that the students are likely not aware of, something such as Burns’ Night. It is also worth bearing in mind that festivals such as Halloween or St Patricks Day are not celebrated in quite the same way in Spain.

Some of my favourite activities to do with my students have been the ‘writing your own Valentine’s Day card’ and ‘designing your own reality TV show’, I have found that the students particularly enjoy the opportunity to be creative and they enjoy sharing their ideas with each other.

As I’ve mentioned before, one of my schools is fortunately very close to the ALSA bus station in Avilés, however the other is situated in Los Campos for which I have to take the train after the bus meaning my commute is an hour each way. If I’m early enough in the mornings I like to stop at the café for a ‘café con leche’ and a ‘pincho’, which is a small sandwich. At school, breaktimes are a great opportunity to practice Spanish with the teachers whilst having a coffee. It was during a lunch break in the staff room that my met my friend Alba who also lived in Gijón. I offered to give her English lessons and she introduced me to her running group, which has been another great opportunity to meet and have conversations with local Spanish people. I even took part in a relay race in a competition in the nearby town of Luanco.

Generally speaking with regards to language acquisition, I would say that it’s important to be persistent and patient. When I first arrived, I found it very difficult to talk to people due to a combination of my new surroundings and the speed at which the local people tend to speak. I think that Asturias in particular is very challenging due to the particularly small number of foreigners that come here and although it can at times be frustrating, the important thing is to stay dedicated and not to give up on yourself.

#coffee #language