Thursday 27 November 2008

Bye bye Barcelona

It's nearly time to go.....

Our fourth week in Barcelona and it's nearly time to move on. Our lovely landlady Ilse has already gone - she flew back to Germany on Tuesday - and on Saturday it'll be our turn to leave the house in Poublenou.

Kate taught her last CELTA course lesson this afternoon - a skills lesson based around lonely hearts adverts - and mine is tomorrow - I'm using "Money (that's what I want)" by The Flying Lizards and an article about the relationship between money and happiness. I'm the last up in our teaching practice group. The course has been great fun; sure it has also been stressful and frustrating at times, but we have both enjoyed the buzz of teaching, while our tutors, class mates and students have all been lovely. We've also learned a huge amount about the English language, and we're pretty sure the knowledge will be useful to us in our attempts to learn Spanish!
On Saturday we're driving to Madrid to stay with our friend Belen and hopefully see a few more of our Pueblo Ingles chums. Then on Sunday we're on the road again, this time to a plush hotel in Barco de Avila where we'll be spending the week talking English with Spanish learners at Vaughan Town. We're taking our Irish classmate Eoin with us, so we'll have some company on the road and lots of fun watching the Spanish learners try to get their ears round his thick Kerry accent!

Sunday 16 November 2008

the joys of living in Barcelona

What with the stunning architecture, vibrant nightlife, cosmopolitan vibe, shops, monuments, parks, the football club, the festivals, and the state of the art public transport, it's easy to forget that one of the attractions of the Catalan Capital is the 2kms of sandy sea front.

Taking a break from our lesson planning this afternoon, we strolled the 500 yards or so from Ilse's flat in Pouble Nou down to the beach, past busy skate ramps and basketball hoops. While not as packed as it must be in the summer, the seafront was still well populated with family picnics, courting couples, cyclists, rollerbladers, fishermen, strollers, surfers, sunbathers and swimmers.

Yes you read those last three right. Here in Barcelona the typical weather for November is cloudless blue skies from dawn til dusk. Water temperature a balmy 18 degrees. It's strange to think that while our Northern European neighbours are shivering under slate grey skies, Barcelona is basking in sunshine and it's warm enough for us to go swimming. Which we did.

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Crooked Timber

This a public service announcement from the People's Committee for Good Taste in Music.

Comrades,

We've been a bit slow on the uptake here, but one of the best bands that you've never heard off have just released a new album.

Those of you who were at our wedding might remember the fabulous Babel who played a storming set to round off the celebrations. Well their long awaited new album "Crooked Timber" has just come out on a small UK Independent label called People Tree Records.



You can buy the album from itunes, amazon and play.

Do it. Do it now.

Saturday 8 November 2008

A quarter of the way through...

One week of our month-long teaching course has gone by and Theo has already presided over three lessons, while I've been in charge of two. We've got loads more to learn, but at this stage we don't seem to be doing too badly and I'm convinced my students almost learned something during my last lesson. It was a close-run thing, anyway.

Apart from the general affability of the students, trainees and tutors, I've had two more pleasant realisations this week:
1. I really like teaching. With a couple of provisos. That the subject is English (I don't think quantum theory would do it for me, somehow. You probably need at least GCSE Physics, which would be a bit of a stumbling block in my case) and the students are adults (I'm quite happy to leave the challenge of trying to teach surly teenagers who're more interested in chewing gum or texting their mates to other people, frankly).
2. I like being back in the classroom as a student myself. If you ask me, further and higher education is wasted on the young. I definitely wouldn't have been so enthusiastic if I had done this course fifteen-odd years ago. Now, even the homework is quite satisfying, in the same way as going for a run or doing a work-out in the gym. It's a bit of a slog and you keep wishing it'll be over soon, but when it is you get a definite feeling of achievement and even, dare I say, a touch of euphoria. Or maybe that's just the relief you naturally feel, say, after overcoming a bout of constipation.

In my short time as a trainee teacher, I've also had a couple of insights about the habits of my own schoolteachers. The obsessive break-time cigarette-smoking and coffee-drinking, for example. Theo and I aren't doing the former at all and my consumption of coffee is so far under control (one con-leche and one contado per day - I could stop any time, honest...) but our fellow trainees are puffing away like the regular Strawberry Line service and I'm sure some of them are mainlining caffeine in the bogs. One thing you don't appreciate when you're a pupil or student is how damn terrifying you and your peers can be to the less experienced pedagog. By the time the teachers are too experienced to feel the fear, their addictions are too far gone to even attempt giving them up. Thus, the delightful ash-tray and coffee-breath cocktail of halitosis that let's you know they're reading your answers over your shoulder, even without looking.

Over-flowing bag syndrome is something I've often wondered about, too. Actually, it would be an exaggeration to say often, but since my initiation into the realm of the schoolroom, I've been frequently reminded of the seemingly endless books, papers and pens carted around by my former teachers, even as my own bulging backpack tips out all over the classroom floor.

So, three more weeks to go and major cock-ups notwithstanding, Theo and I will both be certified. It's a heady prospect.

Wednesday 5 November 2008

New people in our lives

These last few weeks have opened up a world of new friends for Theo and me - it's almost overwhelming. Our week with Pueblo Ingles at La Alberca has left us feeling slightly bereft because we became so close to so many people then had to be parted from them almost straight away. Slightly bereft, yes, but also richer in new relationships, many of which I feel sure will last indefinitely.

The experience at La Alberca was special partly because we felt we were doing something helpful, but mainly because the intense programme of conversation - much of it highly intimate in nature - led to a deep appreciation of and affection for the other people involved.

Our weekend in Madrid only added to these feelings as Belen and her boyfriend Cesar made us feel so very welcome in their flat and our other Spanish and Anglo friends organised a joyful reunion in the centre of the city. Extra thanks to Andres, Max and Cesar for their kind chauffeuring too!

It was hard not to feel a little flat as we tackled the seven-hour drive to Barcelona on Sunday then arrived in the middle of downpour. But our new landlady soon helped to lift our dampened spirits. Ilse is a German translator who lives and works in Barcelona and lets out one of her rooms to visiting trainee teachers. As soon as we had arrived and got our stuff inside, we were offered home-made pumpkin soup and told to help ourselves to anything in the kitchen. Not only is Ilse friendly and generous, she is also providing us with a well-furnished double bedroom plus en-suite bathroom. Yay!

For the last three days the weather has been warm and sunny, our tutors, fellow trainees and our students are all likable people and the teacher training course we are doing is challenging but enjoyable.

If we didn't have so much homework, we might even find the time to feel exceedingly smug.

Monday 3 November 2008

Let loose on unwitting learners

Theo and I have both completed our first twenty minutes of classroom teaching. It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you have a class of expectant faces in front of you (at least I assume that was the expression. I suppose some of them might have had wind or something) and zero experience at the chalk face (it's a white board nowadays, but that doesn't seem to sound as good) it's a tad daunting. However, Theo and I reckon we both did okay - at least, none of our students nor ourselves felt compelled to run out of the room screaming - whether any actual learning took place is a moot point. Mind you, I think we both learned that it is better to appear fairly relaxed, even if you want to run out of the room screaming, so that's something. Perhaps in the next couple of weeks we may actually manage to teach our pupils to speak some English. Although they appeared to be doing a lot of that without too much assistance on our part, luckily.

But in all seriousness, the fact that we have just spent the last week helping Spaniards improve their English (when we weren't dancing, drinking or telling filthy stories to one another) certainly gave our confidence levels a huge head-start. We both quite enjoyed it, too.