Leaders in Language November 2016

On Monday  I ventured onto the metro system and went to Moncada district of Valencia  and attended the offices of Schola.  There we learned about the mysterious acronym ‘CIFIRE’ which was showing on our on our evening timetables and what we have been quizzing each other about for information. Basically CIFIRE is a teacher training body in Spain. And where do we come in? Firstly, all teachers regardless of subject are required to have a minimum level of intermediate standard of English. For those who qualified some years ago English will not have been a priority and we are here to assist and improve their language ability by attending this course. Secondly, the overall standard of English has improved in schools due to the fact that English is taught from a much earlier age than previously. It is very popular and we are kicking off with short introductions and a Pub Quiz in which participation is compulsory.

Then on Tuesday feeling like a five year old, excited and nervous I headed off for my first day of school. My nerves disappeared as soon as I realised how truly pleasant and kind all the teachers were.  I observed  classes and the kids were all reasonably well behaved. This as it turned out was a misconception on my part. As during the last 10 minutes of the third class a teacher came in and said something in Spanish. This announcement was followed by a heated debate of pupils arguing a point with their tutor. Backwards and forwards it went, with students jabbering away at each other. I finally found out that the argument was due to extremely bad behaviour the week before and consequently the class was being denied break time.

Friday two of my classes did not happen as a number of students were sitting exams. So I was asked to take a class and do a reading comprehension with another class. (Which I had not planned for)  I was happy to accept. I’ll admit this was not my best lesson but I have evaluated. Notes to self are:  1 follow the pattern of preaching vocabulary as I could see this caused the students a few problems.  2 Iron out the small segments of dead time 3 Be clear on instruction even when written in the book. Oh! and as this is a modern school the class didn’t have paper to make notes with…….Roll on next week for some more teaching!