Lying, Stereotypes and Cardinal Sins (week 1)

I was once given some great advice that you shouldn’t worry about the future; just trust ‘future you’ because you’ll always deal with whatever’s thrown at you. Easier said than done though! As we were leaving UKLC and heading to Spain via mini buses, a Premier Inn, pancakes, a flight and a further mini bus, my nervous excitement was riding pretty high. It needn’t of reared its ugly head though, as ‘future me’ was fine and the school was great.

All of the teachers were and still are LOVELY! It’s only when you go to other countries that you realise that the stereotypes of British people, which you normally dismiss so quickly, are actually quite accurate. Spanish people are so warm and friendly. They open up to you straight away. Don’t get me wrong, British people are obviously amazing, they’re just varied. Imagine the most friendly ‘people-person’ you know in Britain…that’s all Spanish people! (In my experience anyway).

Despite thinking that I wouldn’t want to start teaching until the second week I actually started on the second day and got a hell of a lot of mileage out of lying. I milked ‘two truths one lie’ for the whole week adapting it to talk about likes and dislikes and using the past simple to talk about things that did (or didn’t) happen to you. It was great fun and a good way to exploit the students’ interest in me as an alien life form from England.

The funniest moment had to be when I committed a cardinal sin and accidently made a room full of Spanish kids chant “I don’t like paella”! It was one of my lies from the game, which I had to think up on the spot to adapt a lesson I didn’t know I’d be teaching. We were on our second or third drill before my tutor burst out laughing and pointed out how sacrilegious it was. We all had a good laugh about it and I drilled “I like paella” just so they could all sleep at night.

One thing worth noting is that the friendly chatty Spanish stereotype described earlier does extend to the children so you can forget about having everyone sit in silence whilst you calmly work through your lesson plan. Class rules, or no class rules, you’re not going to change Spanish culture in an hour. Maybe if you had a permanent job in Spain you might stand a chance, but realistically you’ve just got to work with it!