What Teaching Has Taught Me

I have now been an English assistant in a primary school for 6 weeks in Malaga on the south coast of Spain. With a fairly heavy schedule that involves teaching a total of about 450 children in a working week, it’s safe to say that I have dived head first into the enigmatic world of Spanish education. 

As can be expected, Spanish schools reflect relaxed Spanish culture. There is a large list of differences between their education and the memories I have from childhood in the UK. This includes the fact that it doesn’t seem to matter if the teacher is 10 minutes late, that lunchtime doesn’t come around until 2pm and there doesn’t seem to be any strict system for homework (or any punishments if half the class decide not to do it). However, the lenient schooling works to my advantage; a laid-back syllabus in the English lessons means that I can teach what I want in the way that I want to teach it.

No time for nervousness or lack of confidence, on my first day I was handed a piece of chalk and told to take a class of 10 year olds for 45 minutes. With 20 seconds to rack my brain for any piece of knowledge that might be interesting to them, I decided to talk about London. Big Ben, the London Eye, Tower Bridge (which fascinates 10 year olds because it opens and closes for boats) were all on the menu, and the kids loved it. I even suggested they do some written work on the subject, and 2 days later I was handed 30 projects to mark and a red pen.

Some of the many projects!

Since my first week, my patriotism has only grown stronger. We have now covered English food (“it’s very unhealthy”, commented one 8 year old), English schools, English uniforms and the Royal Family (which amusingly gets translated into Spanish; our Queen is now called Isabel, and her son is Carlos). The kids think I’m incredibly exotic, and I have even persuaded the younger ones that Harry Styles is my best friend.    

In terms of teaching as a career enhancer, I would argue that standing up in front of 30 children is a fantastic experience for creativity, quick thinking, managing relationships and public speaking. The phrase, ‘transferable skills’ is thrown around university campuses regularly, but teaching foreign children for 6 weeks, having to constantly adapt to their level of enthusiasm and ability has taught me a huge amount.

Hand me that piece of chalk and put me in front of 30 men in suits any day- at least they won’t ask why the cars don’t fall off the bridge when it opens for the boats!

Teaching the Royal Family in Spanish!

The Things the Spanish Got Right

Image: Spain-Holiday

I have recently made the big leap across the border from Bordeaux in France to the sunny south coast of Spain. My new home is Malaga, the touristy city that allows for beach days in February and continuous eating all day long. As a primary school teacher by day and an Erasmus partier by night, here are a few of my favourite things…

The Social Life. My experience after 3 weeks in the Spanish sun is that the most important thing to a Spaniard is to sit outside cafes drinking beer with friends all day long. “Una caña” is a small beer which, in Malaga, usually costs around 1 euro. In my short time, I have learned that at least one “caña” must be consumed every day. It’s time to wave goodbye to the vineyards of Bordeaux!

The Siesta. It seems to me that everything in Spain happens a few hours later than in the UK. Lunch is at 3pm, supper is at 10pm and night clubs shut at 7am. This has led to the ingenious invention by the Spanish of two shorter sleeps every day, rather than our preferred 8-hour nights. In Malaga, you would be hard pushed to find a shop or restaurant that is open between the hours of 3pm and 5pm. Take note, the siesta is taken seriously in Spain.

The Spanish Language. This is a comparison to France, in which I spent a lot of time being angered by incorrect English on billboards and the language battle with waiters when they replied to me in English (despite being in bourgeois Bordeaux). Even in the tourist town of Malaga, music is in Spanish, shops have Spanish names and the people always reply to me in their mother tongue. Perhaps the same wouldn’t be said for a small town 50 km away called Marbella…

The Spaniards. They may not see any need to apologise if they barge into you in the street, but I have never felt more welcome than I have this past month by the Malagueños. If you ask for directions, they’re happy to walk you to your destination and if you don’t know a word in Spanish, they wait patiently while you try to explain what you mean.

Malaga's Beach!

The French Can’t Drive

After four years of driving in the UK, I decided that it was time my little car got to take a holiday and come with me to the wine region of Bordeaux in the south of France for 6 months. I had been warned about French drivers by my Father (coincidentally an advanced driving instructor) who taught me how to drive. Under his strict ruling, I had to complete at least 50 hours of lessons before sitting my test and failing was not even an option. However, despite all the warnings, I could never have been prepared for driving in France. Quite simply, the French don’t know how to drive.

Right-hand Drive. My brother, who drives through Europe on a weekly basis these days, had kindly informed me of toll roads requiring payment (on the left hand side) so I invested in an automatic Télépéage before I even reached the border, but I hadn’t quite realised the same would go for car parks. I have since discovered two methods of reaching a machine on the wrong side of the car; “the jump-out-and-run-around” as well as the “extreme-lean”. Neither is particularly comfortable. I believe it is Napoleon I have to blame for this, you should have stayed on the left!

French Kissing. It would appear that the French adopt their attitude to kissing to their cars as well. When a Frenchman is driving, he indubitably feels the need to roll along bumper to bumper without a care in the world. ‘Bumper kissing’, as I now refer to it, is an obligatory stage of parallel parking too. Don’t forget to kiss both the car in front and the car behind when you squeeze into the space! Personally, I actually care if my number plate is bent in half when I return to my car. The French don’t seem to.

Parking: French Style

Speed Limits. This is more of a gripe aimed at the people who decide the speed limits on French roads. Nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody except me, sticks to them. Perhaps it is a suggestion that the speed limits are too slow, or perhaps it is too easy to get away with it, but it is infuriating when I am driving along at a legal pace and the person behind me wants to go faster, and he shows it by extreme bumper kissing me. 

Traffic Lights. Before now, my experience of driving has been limited to country roads in the UK. You can imagine my surprise, therefore, when I arrived in Bordeaux and I discovered that the amber light was in fact an indication to speed up, not to slow down as I am used to. As a result, I witness cars running red lights on a daily basis, and I gasp each and every time. The worst occasion was a crash that I witnessed between two cars because one ignored the red light. Frenchies- amber means stop. 

Not speed up...

Beeping. I live on a busy street, a street that lots of impatient commuters use to get to work in the morning. If someone wants to parallel park in the road and needs to hold you up for 1 minute while they do so; let them. Some of us are trying to sleep and your constant beeping is only stressing everybody out. They will take longer to park, and I will wake up from my magical dream about how the French have all suddenly become wonderful drivers… 

So I suppose for now, I shall just have to embrace French culture and learn to drive like them. One thing, please don’t tell my Father…

The Things the French Got Wrong

Image: Waldo

My self-prescribed mission was to embrace French culture as far as is possible while in Bordeaux. My assignment thus far has been fairly successful; I buy bread most days from the Boulangerie, I spend 5 minutes kissing all my colleagues every morning and I’ve completely forgotten how to drive smoothly. However, as much as I am enjoying temporarily denying my true nationality, there are some things that I miss about Blighty…

QWERTY Keyboards. I fully accept that other countries should use other keyboards to fit with their languages. Accents are common in French, so therefore putting an é on the keyboard makes sense. However, banishing a full stop from its place causing it to be impossible to find is frustrating and being rid of a £ sign when constantly needing to write prices in English is infuriating. Needless to say, within a week, Amazon.fr was my new friend and the AZERTY keyboard was exiled to the shelving unit.  

Strikes. I know that we’re not entirely innocent of this at home, but the French take it to the extreme. The news must be checked daily to ensure that public transport is all running smoothly and an extra 20 minutes must always be left just in case. I found it particularly amusing when I was in Paris 2 years ago and there were large strikes over raising the retirement age from 60 to 62. In England, it’s currently 65. I kept my mouth shut…

Sundays. It may be unfair to say that the French get Sundays wrong, perhaps it is fairer to suggest that they simply haven’t updated their Sunday system along with the rest of us yet. If you wake up on a Sunday morning without anything in the fridge, you have two choices; no food or restaurant food. Shops still believe in a full day off in the south west, however, it may be interesting to note that the wineries are all open…

The Internet. The only one of my list that has actually been less of a nuisance and more of an annoyance. Our internet provider was genuinely proud of the fact that they take less than two weeks (10 days specifically) to deliver the box after we purchased the internet. When I, and the Austrian girl I was with, explained that our internet at home is installed immediately, I think they got a little bit offended…

As much as I have now become a regular user of the phrase, ‘this would never happen in England’, I imagine that the moment I step off the plane and step into a long queue back home, I shall utter the words, ‘this would never happen in France…’ 

The Challenges Of Moving Abroad

My recent big move has been a fairly smooth ride as far as these things go, but it hasn’t always been completely bump free. A voyage across the seas for an extended period of time can be an incredibly worthwhile thing to do; independence, initiative and interest can all be acquired while you’re away. However, it isn’t always plain sailing (perhaps you learn how to make travel related puns as well), here are a few reasons why...

Image: cartoonaday

New People. Meeting people is often one of the hardest parts of moving away. Meeting fun, nice and normal people is often even harder. However, don’t forget that while you’re abroad, you have the perfect opportunity to meet a huge variety of people. Why not approach a randomer on the street and ask them to show you around? If they think you’re weird, just tell them it’s what all English people do.  

New Habits. Getting used to a new routine can be a very confusing thing, but it’s very important to embrace the culture of the place where you are living. Waiting until 9pm to eat dinner, as the French do, was practically impossible to get used to, but now I prefer it. Clubs not even opening until 2am was even stranger but I finally felt like I fit into French culture when I discovered that I can start work as late as 9.30am.

New Living Arrangements. Moving into a flat with strangers and a kettle-less kitchen can be a daunting thing. Discovering how to make the washing machine work provided a particularly deceptive challenge (the washing powder and the freshener look identical!), but making mistakes and learning how to not burn yourself when lighting the oven is all part of the ‘broadening your horizons’ experience.  

Had to invest!

New Language. Without a doubt the most nerve-wracking, nail-biting pre-year abroad jitters for me came from my fear of not being able to understand those around me. Of course it was a struggle at first, and I still occasionally nod my head when someone looks at me expectantly without a clue what I’m agreeing to, but over time it occurs less and less and you begin to understand more and more. 

The Things the French Got Right

I am now just over 1 month into my time in Bordeaux, and I’m starting to shed my patriotism and accept that there are some things that the French do rather well. Although I will always argue that they don’t understand tea, there are some things that perhaps they do better than us...

Bank Holidays. This week there was a bank holiday that fell on a Thursday. The French have come up with a genius thing called, ’le pont’ (‘the bridge’) which essentially means that Friday becomes a day off as well so that the whole country gets a 4 day weekend to spend by the beach.

McDonalds. You know how when you walk into a McDonalds in England, you sometimes feel a bit gross just for being there? The French fast food establishments are actually quite swanky; rather than going to the counter to be served, they have machines near the entrance where you enter what you would like and then wait for your number to be called. Genius.

Cheese. My local supermarket has two entire aisles dedicated to cheese, need I say more?

Drinks’ Prices. We all know that wine is cheaper in France than in England, and that is particularly true when in Bordeaux. However, it did come as a rather hilarious surprise to discover that it is actually cheaper to buy a glass of wine in a restaurant than a Coke. Supermarkets trick you into boozing too; a decent bottle of wine in the South West will set you back just 2 Euros.  

Heineken: Would You Play Departure Roulette?

If you were given the opportunity to drop your travel plans at the push of a button and head to a new and unknown destination, would you take it?

Heineken has launched a new instalment to its ‘Voyage’ campaign to test people’s sense of adventure. After setting up a departure board at New York’s JFK airport, the beer company persuaded the passing travellers to take a step into the unknown…

By pushing the green button, they would have to cancel their flight and forgo their original plans, whether it be going home or away, and head to the destination nominated by the machine, all expenses paid for by Heineken.

It is no wonder that the video has become viral on YouTube, with over 2.5 million views having only been launched less than a month ago. Heineken’s social experiment is able to capture the hearts and minds of travellers and adventurers alike, and the cleverly made video builds a sense of anticipation as those who turn down the opportunity are revealed first before the brave few step up to the podium. 

Heineken’s brand director, Belen Pamukoff believes a legendary trip requires spontaneity, “It should welcome random experiences where improvisation is the only way forward. This summer, in a variety of exciting ways, we are plucking guys from their everyday lives and dropping them into a world unlike anything they've ever seen”.

Would you push that button?

Why You Should Spend All Your Money On A Skiing Holiday

Insert some sort of 'on the piste' joke...

We all know that a trip to the French Alps is not exactly the cheapest way to spend your holidays and perhaps not the most important use of your student loan. However, I hope to persuade you that if you find yourself with a tiny bit to spare or you need an (energetic) break from uni, a ski holiday is the answer.

The Mountains. Exams getting you down? Dissertation looming? Fresh air is obviously what you need! I’m not talking about the untouched fumes of the countryside, but the refreshing sparkle of snow and the glint of a freshly pisted double black diamond run. 

The Alcohol. Almost as important as the skiing, some might argue that it is more so, is the necessity to party and to make sure you get as little sleep as is humanly possible during your week away. Not only do you party like it’s 1999 (apparently that’s a song?) but you discover a whole host of drinks that you aren’t allowed to even sniff when back home. Toffee Vodka? Yes please. Smirnoff Ice? Totally socially acceptable when abroad! 

The Humiliation. Watching people fall over is funny. Falling over is quite funny. Causing people to fall over is pretty funny. Trying to do a CAB 1440 MUTE  (that’s a freestyle ski jump apparently) and then bailing is pretty funny, providing you don’t break any vertebrae in the process…

The Competition. There is no way of denying it, when skiing with friends, there’s a battle to be the best. Luckily enough, you can just about get away with whispering expletives under your breath while dropping that cliff without anyone hearing your cries of fear. You may be completely terrified, but you will have secured your place as the most outrageous skier to all those watching and can go home with your head held high (as well as your broken arm). 

Image: LA Observed