"Para Lydia"

Earlier in the week I came up with the idea that asking whether you prefer primary school to secondary, is like asking whether you prefer drawings of cats, or slightly hurtful racial slurs....

Back with the younger ones this week and I didn't realise how much I'd missed it until I saw the looks on the their faces when they saw me! They are always so excited and happy, I feel so mean when I have to tell them to be quiet or something. I am also nowhere near to mastering "the look" that instantly quiets any group of people; my mum has tried to teach me many times but to no avail 😉.

Delivered a few lessons on describing people, and what types of music they like etc. which have all gone down well. I think being given free reign in primary has really allowed me to be creative, and let the children have some fun in lessons instead of just reading from a textbook. I feel myself more drawn to making lexical sets and speaking the main focus of each lesson, as this is what I think they'll most benefit from whilst I'm there. Obviously in an ideal situation, if I was there for months for example, I would be doing a variety of skills every week. However, I think it's important that they are able to hear me speak, and hear how I say things. Skills such as reading and writing can be done with any teacher, but I believe the insight they get from hearing and speaking to a native is invaluable. I also enjoy doing this a lot as I can have a lot of fun with warmers 😊.

Back to Secondary on Monday which I have mixed feelings about. I'm excited for more of a challenge, and having to plan a bit more studiously, according to their syllabus. I have just done 2 plans for Monday morning and I'm feeling good about them, I'm hoping it's a good balance of work and play. I'm slightly apprehensive about classroom control and trying not to cry when they're not nice.... It's all in the body language I'm sure. In all seriousness though I'm ready for a new challenge, as I haven't properly taught the older years, and so I'm eager to get some experience.

Bit of an odd week really, I was quite ill halfway through and so had Wednesday off, which I was beating myself up about- "Lydia this is Spain, they don't get colds here. Get out of bed faker". Thankfully I recovered pretty quickly and was back to tortilla and coffee in no time. Went for some tapas last night with another trainee teacher I met at school which was nice, and ended up making some interesting friends too! Had a really lovely time even though it was a very early night for the Spanish haha! Having a Eurovision watch party tonight and I'm very excited- predicting England might get about 3 maybe 4 votes this year? I wonder if I could borrow the landline in the university residence for a second.....