Can't get enough

In the running for Funniest Moment of the Year in the academia is the translation into English by one of my school pupils of the word cerveza (beer, for those of you who've never had to learn the essentials of the language before a holiday to Spain, or any other Spanish speaking country for that matter). Apparently, if you're desirous of a nice cold pint, you should, upon entering any fine public house, petition the barkeep for Duff.

Homer would be proud.

You know you have a good job when...

...you can spend a chunk of your time there watching films and listening to music - and it counts as part of your work. Yes indeed, I have shown such gems as Juno, Out of Africa, American History X, Pride and Prejudice, The Constant Gardener and The Goonies as well as some lesser works like The Holiday, Love Actually, Spiderman, Shaun of the Dead, Borat and Iron Man, that still make for good entertainment, especially when it´s in the name of earning a living. Of course, it´s not just watching the film, I do make the students work for their visual stimulation - with exercises that have words missing from a particular scene, they have to listen and fill in the gaps before they can watch the rest of the film - but it´s still a pretty good way to pass an hour.

On the songs front I´ve discovered that something upbeat is best to grab their attention. The current winner seems to be Michael Jackson´s Billy Jean, though it´s closely followed by Bohmeian Rhapsody, You´re the One That I Want (during the playing of which I have to be very careful not to slip into Olivia Netwon John mode and perform her actions in class - especially the part where she beckons to Travola with a sultry look on her face and runs her hands down her body), Hot Chocolate´s You Sexy Thing, Take On Me and It´s Not Unusual. During these lessons it's a common sight to see us all swaying in our chairs as we mouth the lyrics to the music.

This is all a pleasant change from previous years when I was mostly doing grammar and reading exercises with the students. This year we decided my lessons should be devoted to listening and speaking, and aren´t I glad we did.

Academia bits 'n' bobs

In the pell mell existence I sometimes lead at work, rushing from one lesson to the office to the next, I'm sometimes surprised into stopping, looking and marvelling. This week it was a twelve-year-old student who amazed me. Whilst his erstwhile companions were noisily milling around the entrance area waiting for class to begin, he was perched by the window, quietly humming Beethoven's Ode to Joy to himself, oblivious of all around him.

The previous week I'd been suprised my a ten-year-old who, in English, had told me that the President of Great Britain was Gordon Brown. After teaching the phrase 'Prime Minister' he quickly informed me that the previous one had been a certain Tony Blair. I congratulated him on his knowledge and and exercised some willpower so as to refrain from giving my own opinion on the subject.

Sometimes students just make me grin. Another twelve-year-old announced to me this week that he'd dreamt the world was going to end. It was a horrible dream, he said, the human race was wiped out by a nuclear attack. And which evil megalomaniac had pressed the button that cause all this distruction? Why, Homer Simpson, of course.

Look at the size of my pumpkins!

Last Sunday I decided it was time to harvest our largest pumpkins. Matt had been letting them grow to see how big they could get - I think this is a rather macho thing to do, correct me if I'm wrong, although I did enjoy driving up the hill in the preceeding weeks and being able to spot three orange splodges from a fair distance away, and it must have got the neighbours talking (though that's easily done).

Slumbering giants

With careful manouevring - Matt rolling and me spotting - we managed to move all three across our finca and onto the terrace where Matt had earmarked sites for the largest two.


Pumpkin pixie

Sentinels. All pumpkins in place

I then got out my carving equipment and proceded to prepare the smallest, but still impressive one, for the academia. I'd never carved a pumpkin before - we did turnips one Halloween when I was in the girl guides, which I found quite pathetic, this was much more exciting.

Being sensible and marking where I wanted to cut the lid.

Success!

During the hollowing process - a spoon works best, as I discovered after almost slicing my finger off a couple of times.

The hollowed pumpkin - after much scraping and building up of arm muscles. All ready for the fun part:

Ta daa! The finshed item. Not bad for a first effort I thought.

Not only did I end up with a great, if I may say so, pumpkin lantern, but also with several kilos of flesh that I proceeded to turn into soup and curry, resulting in a very full freezer, and full tummies that evening.

Even after it'd been hollowed out it was still a hefty brute. After some difficulties, I managed to get it down to the academia on Monday morning where I set it up opposite the front door for all to see.

How to earn brownie points from the boss.

Pumpkins here are smaller and green/yellow in colour so my splendid example was remarked upon by all and sundry who passed through the door. In one fell swoop I gained publicity for the academia, was granted status of 'cool teacher' by my pupils, toned my arms and garnered enough food to keep us going for a week or so. Not bad for an afternoon's work.

Phew!

The new academic year started in our Academia last Monday and the title of this post describes my reaction on Friday at 9pm when I left work for the weekend.

We have more students than ever, and they're still coming. I now have 30 teaching hours a week and we share a timetable that I'm never going to be able to remember as it's so complicated in order to fit everyone in; and all this despite the fact that we have a new teacher to take care of the youngest pupils (from the ages of 4-8), something that we're all rather delighted with as those were the most exhausting classes - imagine trying to 'teach' English to a four-year-old who's already been at school/nursery all day, doesn't even like colouring, is used to just being stuck in front of the TV at home and can't write his/her name, then put six of them in a class together.

Even though it was a rather tiring week, full of headless chicken impressions, I get on so well with my boss and everyone else at the Academia that I can't complain. And, best of all, I got a pay rise.

Anyway, please have patience with me at the moment. I'll post more once things settle down at work, whenever that is.

Dole scum! On how to become unemployed in Spain

Last week I was informed by Cris, my boss, that for her to be able to give me a permanent contract in October I need to be officially unemployed. A little strange I thought, but then again, we are in Spain, home of ridiculous bureaucracy and neverending paperwork.

So that is why I have spent three mornings this week, my supposed week off, at the unemployment office, or INEM, as it's known here. To begin with, I had to find the place, which you would think would be simple. I checked the address on the offical INEM website - it was to be found in a town down the valley - printed out a large scale map showing me exactly where the street was and off I went. I spent five minutes walking up and down this street, map in one hand, address in the other, before I realised that I was in the right place but the INEM office most definitely was not. A lovely lady in a perfumería informed me that it had indeed been on that street but had moved a few months ago and kindly gave me directions, stupid bloody website.

This did not bode well and I felt the little enthusiasm I had for dealing with yet more Spanish bureaucracy wane as I made my way to the new office. Once I eventually got to the place, I discovered it was not what I had been expecting. Let me tell you, the unemployment system here differs greatly to the one back in the UK - or at least the one I had to deal with many years back.

For a start, you only have 15 working days after the end of your contract to ask for unemployment benefit. Fortunately, even though blissfully unaware of this, I went on day 14. Even so, I encountered problems almost straight away as I apparently should've gone to the Ministry of Education on my arrival in Spain to have all my academic qualifications recognised (never mind that we're all in the European Union), so when it came to putting them on the computer we hit a problem, which the nice man there solved by ignoring the rules and putting me down as having a Spanish degree in Spanish language. Next up, my driving licence. Can I drive? I most certainly can? Do I have a car? No, but I can use my partner's. Very good. How long have I had my driving licence? I remember this one because I passed on my mum's birthday when I was seventeen. Ah. It transpired that because Spaniards are not allowed to drive until they are eighteen, the system would not allow a date which made the driver seventeen. I even got my licence out - still one of the old folded paper ones - and showed the date to the man who indeed admitted that I had been seventeen on passing my test. But the computer could not be persuaded and in the end we had to change the date to a year later. Great stuff, we were getting somewhere. However, I then discovered that to register yourself unemployed you also have to take a copy of your old contract (tick) and an employer's certificate, which of course I didn't have in my possession.

Reading the information I was then given, an employer's certificate is a signed and stamped letter from the employer stating that you've been working there for the last 180 days. So, after a mad dash to see Cris at the academia, this is what I returned with the following day. But no, the following day I was informed that an employer's certificate is an official document that gives lots of boring details about social security paid, etc. and didn't we tell you abut this yesterday? Grrr. This is where I panicked a bit. I was on day 15 without this complicated certificate and hopes of a permanent contract seemed to be going down the plughole. Luckily for me, the people in the Spanish job centre are very unlike their UK counterparts and offered to start the process with the documents I did have if I took them the certificate the following day. Which is what I've just been doing.

Now I just have to wait for my request to be processed and the money to appear in my account. I'm not sure how much I'll receive as it's linked to how long you've been working and how much you've earned. I was informed that I've only worked long enough for four-months benefit - not a problem as I know I'm officially back to work in October. The other good thing is that I don't have to show I'm looking for work - none of those horrible booklets to fill out stating exactly what you've been doing to find employment. I suppose they don't need it - limited benefit is incentive enough.

So now I have one extra day before the weekend to relax and congratulate myself on successfully navigating yet another Spanish bureaucratic nightmare. Well done me!

My almost-summer-holiday plans

The sun appeared this morning as if it were generally known that today is the first day of my summer holidays and this joyous fact should be celebrated with a bit of sunshine. The first thing I did was to put the washing machine on. Matt, optimistic as ever, predicted it to cloud over by lunchtime, though I still have a second pile of washing waiting for the machine, just in case.

And what, you may ask, do I have planned for this first wonderful day of my holidays? The answer: cleaning. The house is a tip, we have more visitors coming tomorrow (Simon and Sue - with more books from Amazon for me, hurray!), and we haven't had a thorough clean since before I started running around madly at work during exam time.

After that I intend to enjoy myself. I still have a bit of work this summer - we've had some new students appear demanding lessons in July and we still have some that have resists/university entrance exams in September, so Cris, my boss and I are alternating weeks. Luckily, I had cunningly planned a visit from said friends this first week of July, so poor Cris has to carry on for an extra week before she gets a rest. I, on the other hand, get to frolic round Asturias with Sue, Simon and Matt, and I'm looking forward to it greatly!

Things I don't like about living in Spain, Part III

These last couple of weeks at work have been exhausting. And there is one thing in particular I blame for us having to run around madly at the Academia, preparing work at the last minute for desperate students, and that is the Spanish Education System.

Now, I'm well aware that if it weren't so bad, I possibly wouldn't have a job, but when a student (B) comes to you and says he has to take a resit in five days time because the teacher has lost his final exam papers you do begin to despair.

We have numerous cases at the moment of students who have to take resists next week. In some cases it's because they've been lazy all year, failed previous exams, and really, they deserve it and hopefully will learn a lesson (although you do have to wonder why they've been lazy; it seems it's often because the teacher has failed to make any effort to make the lesson interesting, so the students just don't want to learn).

Another example, take N. He'd failed a couple a of exams throughout the year which is normal for the average student, they have to sit so many (and this is another point about the system here - there's an exam for every unit in the course book, about nine, plus end of term exams. I thought the idea behind education was to instill a love of learning, here all they instill is a hatred and a fear of never-ending exams), and needed to pass the final exam to be able to move up a year in September. He turned up at the Academia two week before the last exam. We ran about finding work for him to do, explained the grammar, and he knuckled down to it. He passed the final exam, but because of the previous fails has now been informed he still has to do the resit. No wonder some students ask why they should bother.

And this isn't just at the schools. My boss, when she was at university, took three years to pass one module simply because her lecturer took a personal dislike to her. (This wasn't uncommon apparently - she'd often tell people not to come in for the next lecture, wearing, for example, 'that horrible cardigan'. Who do these people think they are?) She went to see the dean, who told her he couldn't do anything about the problem and it was only in the third year after she'd been failed again by the miserable lecturer that he arbitrarily decided to pass her anyway.

We have an adult student, J, a music teacher who  had been taking an two-year English course at Oviedo University which would have given him a qualification to teach English to infants. He put so much effort into this, wrote wonderful stories in English and taught with them, and was told recently in a letter that was sent to all the students on the course that everyone had passed. A week later, he got another letter to say that he and another student had in fact, not passed, but failed. When he asked for an explanation he was told simply that his work had been insufficient. They took two years to tell him this and he's shattered. The worst thing is that his tutor, who failed him, is head of department and he has no other recourse.

There are no rules to this, it all works on the individual teacher's whim, which is what most gets my goat. We've had students this week who haven't known if they've passed or not and have been waiting in limbo to see if they have to take the resit - which is only a few days away. I find it highly unjust that a child's educational welfare rests as much on how they get on with the teacher as their academic ability. In the case of B (who struggles with English but who's been making more effort this year), he's had trouble with his teacher all year and I find it highly suspicious that his exam papers have mysteriously gone missing. Even if it's true, what does this tell us about the teacher?

In the case of those sitting their baccalaureate this year, we've had our work cut out for us since almost the start. Because most of the class (at the high school) was misbehaving, the teacher refused to teach. He just sat in class and handed out work, with no explanation other than 'look in your course books'. He took the biscuit towards the end of the year when we were doing his teaching for him on the last unit in the book: he suddenly announced that he wasn't going to set an exam for that unit after all but that the final exam would be on the Monday of the following week. Needless to say we spent many extra hours finding work and giving classes to those students - although we did work a minor miracle and all but one passed.

I could go on endlessly, these are just the worst examples that spring to mind at the moment. The problem is that teachers are not held accountable. There are no exam boards and every exam is set and marked by the individual teacher. There are good teachers, and great ones, although they currently seem to be in the minority. I finish work in two weeks - in theory. However, our summer is now getting booked up by students who have to take the last-chance resit in September - it looks like my days on the beach and in the mountains this summer will be limited.

I therefore place The Spanish Education System onto my bad things about Spain list, where it shall deservedly stay until somebody instigates a major upheaval in the way children are taught, I'm keeping my fingers crossed, but I'm not holding my breath.

Does this remind you of anyone?

We were sent this banner at the academia, along with several others to dot around our classrooms, by the nice people at Macmillan at the start of the academic year.

Somebody there really doesn't like George Bush, which is fine by me.

My own football rumour mill

I've been avoiding mentionning football on my blog, mostly due to the parlous situation that Leeds United have been in for, well, too long than I care to remember.

However, I did get very excited yesterday upon discovering that one of my students, who's a defender in the Real Oviedo youth squad, has been approached by Liverpool. I'm afraid to say I'm short on details, but you heard it here first.

What's for dinner?

This week it's peas, and more peas. Peas with mash and omelette, peas in a stir fry, pea and mushroom risotto... If they weren't so tasty I might get bored. We have so many pods on our pea bushes I'm seeing them in my sleep. You have to be very thorough when picking them as the plants are so bushy the pods are often well-hidden. It's very annoying when you come across a hidden pod full of of old, dry peas as they're much tastier when young and sweet.

I've been taking them into work for me for my merienda (afternoon snack to keep you going until dinner at 9/10pm) and absolutely everybody thinks I'm ever-so-slightly loopy for eating raw peas. I've made them all try them - apart from a couple of five-year olds nobody spat them out and the verdict was generally positive. However, I doubt I'll change their pea-eating habits, Spaniards can be very set in their ways when it comes to culinary matters.

Things that make me happy about living in Spain, part II

The 1st May in Spain is Dia del trabajador or Labour Day. It's also a national holiday. Hurray, a day off work! One of the great things about living in Spain is that we get more public holidays than anywhere else in Europe, 15 I think, compared to a miserly eight in the UK.

Added to this, each town will have its own fiesta. Ours is 30th November, when the town celebrates Las Cebollas Rellenas - stuffed onions being the gastronomic speciality of El Entrego - and all the restaurants use this as an excuse to charge lots of money for special, stuffed-onion-based menus that attract people from all over the region. A strange reason to take a day off, but I'm not complaining. We also get carnaval off here too, on Shrove Tuesday, so that puts the count up to 17.

Even better, we also have puentes or bridge days. Say, for example, a public holiday falls on a Thursday, the Friday is considered a bridge day and is often taken as a holiday too. The best time of year for puentes is the beginning of December. The 6th is Constitution Day and the 8th is the Day of the Immaculate Conception. This means the 7th is always a puente, plus the 5th and the 9th can be puentes as well if they fall a day before or after the weekend. This year we haven't been taking the bridge days off (I worked yesterday). Next academic year however, Cris, my lovely boss (said in all sincerity) has announced, with my full backing, that we'll be giving a letter to all parents at the start of October stating the days the Academia is to close - including the bridge days. Now that's what I like to hear.