Work for a month!

Just as I was losing all hope at having any more work in Madrid I received an email from an old acquaintance. She was a teacher that I worked with in the fall of 2008 at my school. She wanted to know if I was available to work a summer program at the American school the entire month of July. It was 4/5 year olds. In Aravaca. 9-2pm and the pay was excellent. Seeing as how I was desperate, and the pay was excellent I decided to give it a go despite all the other worries I had such as not actually being a teacher, teaching infantil etc. They were lenient with me and because we didn't come back from vacation until the 2 of July, I missed the first two days of school.

The first day of school was horribly daunting and nerve wracking. The other teacher who had the same age group as me has around 25 years of teaching experience and it seemed that everyone was a certified or experienced teacher and despite the fact that she told me that it was really just playing games and doing crafts in English with the kids, I felt totally out of place and overwhelmed. Part of it probably had to due with the fact that my class room didn't have anything in it besides chairs, tables, crayons, scissors, and glue sticks. And the fact that I had an assistant. That made two people I had to plan things for. There were no books to read, no toys to play with, nothing to do other than sing some songs, and fill in worksheets. After the first horrible day, things got gradually better. I planned my lessons out all the way until the end of class-sometimes I didn't actually use my plans, and I got to find ways around not having anything to do with them. Usually in the form of playing with little tiles or watching a movie in English. Some of my kids spoke really well and understood everything and some of them had no idea what I was saying and some of them were absolute disasters. The whole experience was without a doubt the most challenging thing I've had to do since writing thesis and after two years of kinda coasting by challenge wise, this was HUGE. But I survived, not with great outcomes, but I didn't fail either and I think the kids had an o.k time.

One of the aspects that struck me most about being at the American school was that everyone speaks English. And not the usual Spanish person speaking English that I'm used to. They spoke really well! The kids that went and graduated from the American school hardly have an accent. If you listen carefully you can tell they are non native speakers, but generally not. My faith has been restored in the Spaniard learning English. It can be done!