My First Day of School!...uh, I mean, Work!

 

I’m walking to my first day of work. I’m cool as a cucumber for about 15 minutes out of the 25-minute commute. Then, the sweating ensues. I still haven’t had my meltdown up until this point…but I feel some emotions surging up from the pit of my stomach. Is it my time?? Am I going to freak out?? Wait, this is weird. This is my first day of work. In Spain. Oh crap there’s also a hill I still have to climb.

Well, I didn’t have a meltdown, but in a way I’m glad that I had SOME sort of reaction rather than the numbness I’ve felt about this experience up until then. Upon arrival at my school, I see a group of students, all males, loitering in front of the building. They are all tall, and not just from my humble 5’4” viewpoint, but tall by any male standards. They are all leaning against the fence, smoking, looking super cool and European, in an 80s Christian Slater kind of way. I laughed out loud to myself. Uhh these are the people I’m supposed to teach? I’m absolutely going to get eaten alive. 

Once I got inside and made my way to the secretary, my nerves ceased. I talked to the secretary very briefly before he introduced me to my coordinator, the professor I’d be working alongside the most, my mentor of sorts. This guy, Miguel, is just a constant bundle of sunshine, blanket of kindness, pile of fresh-from-the-dryer towels, etc. SO warm, SO considerate, just a delightful individual. He is all smiles, all laughs, all European swagger. Physically, he resembles a Spanish Danny Tanner, so really, you cannot possibly feel like you are in better hands. He gave me a brief tour of the building and also introduced me to every professor we passed by. It was definitely overwhelming and I missed most of their names, however what I can say is that everyone is so NICE. NICE NICE NICE. They all made it apparent that they wanted me to feel at home, and so many of them told me to contact them if I had any trouble or questions about Ourense. Some of the professors even had a little care package filled with Ourense tourism info that they presented me with, so that was great! 

What’s probably most interesting about this place is that they are excited that I speak English. Back in Granada, it wasn’t frowned upon to speak English, per se, but it was definitely encouraged to only speak Spanish as much as possible. Even in Grinnell, whenever you were in a Spanish environment it was expected that you'd only speak Spanish. At my school here in Ourense, however, the main purpose for existence is my English. People are impressed when they hear me speak English. When they present me with someone else who speaks English, they get excited when we exchange English words. It's a bit strange, because it's not like I have any sort of special training in the art of speaking English. But here I am in Spain, getting rewarded for speaking it fluently! Okayyy okayyyy I'll take it.

The school where I've been placed, CIFP A Farixa, is a formación professional, which is roughly the equivalent of a vocational school in the U.S. Most of the students I've met are from ages 20-25, however there's also students as old as 40. It seems that the main professional tracks I'll be assisting are those for business, tourism, and futsal...(!) As far as my daily tasks, I’m going to be doing a variety of things in addition to teaching English. Not only am I going to go through work sheets, powerpoints, and hand outs with teachers to assure that they’re using proper English and appropriate vocabulary, but I’m going to be helping classes in the pronunciation and translation of their given field into English.  While I have no background in tourism or business, I’ll still be helping out with the speaking portion of their classes. As for futbol sala…I GUESS you can say I have some background experience in the subject matter...:) :) :) :) :)...MAN am I excited! It’s not going to be a bunch of indoor soccer playing though, unfortunately. The small class consists of people who are training to become Futsal coaches, and so they have to go through theoretical aspects of soccer, as well as biological mechanisms of the body that are necessary to know as a personal trainer. But there will be soccer playing later :)

My schedule is kind of out of this world. They gave me 12 hours of work per week, with 5 of those hours being one-on-one preparations with professors, and 7 of those being hours in class, teaching and assisting. My earliest class is at 10:00 am, and I'm done by 2:30 pm most days. Additionally, I  have only 1 class scheduled for Friday, which Miguel was very apologetic about and even went so far as to tell me that if any day I don't want to come in, to just let him know. Even my first week of class, Miguel and the other professors told me to not worry about coming in at all; they wanted me to get settled and get to know Ourense and all that. Well, Miguel clearly saw my look of shock after he said that. I told him that I didn't know what to do with so much freedom. He asked if I'd prefer it if he just told me to come in. I nodded emphatically. So he did just that. SPOILING ME. That's what they're doing to me here! As if I wasn't spoiled enough already, huh??? Haha I am absolutely appreciative of how accommodating and friendly everyone at the school has been; I won't take advantage of their kindness for a second. I am ready to give me them boatloads of English!!