Be True to your School

Here are some questions one of my friends asked about the school I'm at and what I'm up to here in Madrid. 

I would love to hear more about the school. What are your duties?

The easiest way to sum it up is that I am a professional English speaker. I'm in the classrooms so that the kids can hear a native speaker speak English. I read exercises from the textbooks, talk to the kids, help them with their work, etc.

Do you ever have to lead activities?

Yes. In half of my classes I start out the class asking what day of the week it is and what the weather is like. The last couple of weeks, I have had at least one class each day where I was leading the entire lesson because teachers were absent. I'm not a substitute teacher because there was another teacher in the class, but I was definitely on my own leading the lessons for all of these classes! Sometimes the other teachers don't help much because they use the time to grade papers for their own classes and they don't speak English so they feel like they can't actively help at all. It's pretty frustrating because I'm not allowed to speak Spanish at all and the kids really aren't at the level where they should be "immersed" in an English class. At least a few of the kids seem to be learning and improving.

What do you enjoy/do not enjoy?

I enjoy switching my English to British English! Cookies are now biscuits, the bathroom is the toilet, and (my favorite) the kids use rubbers instead of erasers. There's one other Auxiliar de Conversación (Conversation Assistant) at my school, and he's from Wales so I'm sure I'll come home with some random British-isms.

I'm not a huge fan of being left alone with the classes when the teachers are absent. I'm not supposed to speak Spanish around the kids (which is supposed to force them to speak English to me), so it's impossible to discipline them (or do anything, really) when they hardly know enough English to understand more than 20% of what I say. (They're only in 1st and 2nd grade, after all...) After being left alone with at least one class for the last 6 days of work, I'm pretty sure I never want to be an elementary school teacher now!

Have you grown attached to any of the kids?

As always, I have quickly picked out my favorite kids! Usually these are the kids who actually do their work, listen, and try to learn. Some of the bad kids make me laugh, so they're pretty cool, too...comic relief is always a good thing! One boy always comes up to me, shakes my hand, and says "Hhhello teacher. It is a pleasure to meet you," before he starts giggling and runs away. He seems pretty bright, but he's a Gypsy so the teachers don't really pay attention to him. Hopefully I can try to change that! (My first step was teaching him what a "fist bump" is! Obama would be proud!)

What is the school like? The school system in general?

The school is kind of similar to any American elementary school: bright colors, artwork, smelly bathrooms, you name it. It's a lot bigger than many of the elementary schools I've been to, but the classes are still fairly small (20-25 kids per teacher). It's a bilingual school, but only the 1st and 2nd grades are bilingual right now. The school's hours are from 9 to 4, but there's a 30 minute recess along with a 2 hour lunch break. The classes are 45 or 60 minutes long, but it usually takes at least 15 minutes for the teacher to get started with a class, so there's a lot of wasted time (welcome to Spain). The kids have to wear uniforms, but about a quarter of them never have a uniform on, wearing normal clothes instead (usually the Gypsy kids). The school is completely fenced in and looks like a jail from the outside. There's no baseball diamond (disappointing!) and there is no grass on the campus, just a lot of tiles and cement. As for the school system, it has similar problems as the US regarding curriculum and funding. But that's too complicated to explain, so I won't moan about it too much right now.

What kinds of things are the students learning in comparison to those in the US at the same age?

The first and second graders that I know from the US seem to be a little more advanced than kids of the same age here. Part of the problem here is that pre-school and kindergarten is optional (like in the states). Also, the kids aren't allowed to repeat first grade, so they end up really behind in second grade if they aren't ready for it. A lot of kids don't know the alphabet (even in second grade) and they're expected to be writing in cursive. The first graders are learning names of objects in the classroom and other basic phrases (Thank you, Will you hand me the ____ please?). I'm with the second graders for "science" and they're learning about the parts of the body and we just moved on to the different food groups.

General comparisons between schools in the states?

Overall, the primary school I'm at is a lot like the elementary schools I've worked at with the before and after school program in Sparks. The kids are the same, they just speak Spanish (or Romani if they're Gypsies) and they play football/soccer. The biggest difference is the respect they show to the teachers. The kids are loud, they shout out answers, and talk to their friends instead of paying attention. They call their teachers by their first name instead of Mr/Ms so-and-so, which is a little weird to me. I'm fine with them calling me Karen because I'm just an assistant, but it's odd that they don't use some sort of "respect marker" when they talk to their teachers. A lot of the time they simply say "profe" or "teacher" to get your attention.