Portfolio
Life of a language assistant in Madrid
Working as a language assistant in Spain has been a very fulfilling experience. Ever since, I had been wondering what it’s like to live in Spain. All my life, I lived in Manila, Philippines, thus moving to another country is something new to me. Though it wasn’t my first time to be in Spain (I traveled in 2018 and 2019 for vacation), still, I knew living in Spain means an array of new experiences, challenges and memories.
Through the past trips I had around Spain, I simply fell in love with its beautiful places, culture, and people. Being a language assistant gives me the chance to experience more of those. So when I arrived on the 23rd of September 2020, I was so excited to start this new chapter of my life. Given this chance by Spain’s Ministry of Education and AuxMadrid to be a language assistant, I know I won't let this opportunity pass.
Topics tree:
- Brief personal background
- Main tasks as a language assistant
- Activities and projects I made in the school
- Experiences with 1st grade
- Experiences with 2nd grade
- Extra-curricular tasks
- Realizations
Brief personal background
While I don’t have any formal teaching experience before, I find my academic background and past jobs helpful to my responsibilities as a language assistant right now. I took up Bachelor of Arts Major in Journalism at the University of Santo Tomas in Manila. Since most of my academic subjects were in English and focused on journalistic practices such as mastery in writing and public speaking, these learning in the university aid me to teach English in Spain. Not to mention that in the Philippines, English is one of the national languages, spoken by majority of the people and widely used for academic and economic purposes.
After graduating college, I continued studying. This time, I took up Spanish language at Instituto Cervantes de Manila where I reached up to level B2.1. At the same time, I was working as a Spanish translator where I was able to master my Spanish. I also became a Spanish document reviewer before I left the Philippines to fly to Spain. Through these corporate jobs, I was able to apply whatever I learned in Spanish school, which now I'm able to use in living and socializing with people in Spain.
Main tasks as a language assistant
I’m assigned at CEIP Marques de Leganés, a public school in the municipality of Leganés located south of Madrid. I assist in the 1st and 2nd grade, which each consists of three classes. Aside from English subject, I also assist in Social Science, Natural Science, and Arts subjects.
Generally speaking, I find the job as a language assistant very easy to get familiar with. I feel lucky to be assigned in a school with helpful people around, from the teachers to the non-academic staff. When I first visited the school, the academic head gladly showed me around the school, and he also introduced me to the English coordinator who briefed me on what my tasks are. Then, on October 1st 2020, I started my job as a language assistant. The first few days was a period of adjustments. I'm glad that I was able to blend in right away, thanks to the people in school who helped in every way they can.
On a daily basis, my primary task is to assist the teacher in delivering the lessons in English. As the subjects I assist in are taught in English, I have to make sure that the students understand the lessons in English and that they spell, write, and pronounce the words in English correctly.
Activities and projects I made in school
I also come up with fun activities to do aside from relying on the book to give a lesson. Here are some of them:
 |
| Map coloring activity I made for the 1st grade. I personally designed this map to make sure the continent names and ocean names are included. I also added photos of animals and famous places in every continent. The map can be downloaded here. |
 |
| Joints pasting and labeling activity for the 1st grade. I cut each body part and students had to paste them correctly and label the joints name after. This activity served as a good review of the lesson on joints. |
 |
| Compass-making activity for the 1st grade. In this activity, I let the students make their own compass and we used this in learning how to point at north, south, east, and west. |
 |
| I assisted in making turkey dolls out of used loo roll carton. This was an activity done during the Thanksgiving week for the 2nd grade. |
 |
| Due to snowstorm Filomena last January 2021, classes have to be done online. With that, I was requested to create activities for my students, focusing on listening and reading in English. Here's the story telling I made and narrated for the 1st grade and the 2nd grade. |
Experiences with 1st grade
 |
| Flash cards I made for the 1st and 2nd grade |
In 1st grade classes, I usually create my own visual aid for teaching. It’s something I enjoy the most since it lets my creativity flow. Whenever I see the happy reaction of my young students on the colorful papers, drawings, and text, I feel so accomplished. Based on my observation, younger students focus more on the lessons and can grasp the lessons faster when visual aids are used. Also, since younger ones tend to have shorter attention span, I include video and audio to make the class lively and fun. Finally, to add variation to our daily lessons, I also come up with games and other fun activities, making sure the students don’t get bored in class.
Some may find teaching in lower grade levels hard to facilitate, as these students are still very dependent and may require a lot of patience. However, for me, I treat these as challenges that make my life as a language assistant very accomplishing. Also, I do these tasks not as a job, but rather as an act of caring for the kids. I feel like I’m their mom and they’re my own kids. In fact, as time goes by, I become closer to my students whom I find very sweet, loving, and innocent. Teaching them gives me a sense of worth not only as a language assistant but as a person.
Experiences with 2nd grade
In 2nd grade classes, I try as much as possible to involve each student’s participation. I let my students speak often in class to improve their conversational skills since as noticed that there’s lack of practice in spoken English in this grade level. When answering exercises on the book, for example, I let them read the instructions first and ask if they understand it. In these activities, I correct mispronounced words and write them on the board to also make sure they also know how to spell them correctly. Also, I include audio as tools for learning, which help them improve their English listening skills.
I come up with activities where interactive skills can be improved, such as group works. Also, 2nd grade students tend to be more competitive, so I incorporate games and mini competitions that have a reward or prize in the end. In that way, I could also teach them the essence of camaraderie, humility in winning, and other values.
My 2nd grade students are less dependent already, but still I make sure to guide them especially in English. Just like the 1st graders, they're also very friendly and lovable. I treat them as if kids of my own.
Halloween event
Aside from the daily tasks in assisting with English, we, the language assistants, were requested to take part in the school’s Halloween activities.
 |
| Halloween craft I came up with. |
First, I was asked to come up with a craft activity that the students did during Halloween day in school. I decided to let them do a pumpkin craft, which is a cool cut-paste activity that also let the student run their creative minds in designing how they want their pumpkin to look like.
Along with the two other language assistants, we also put up a PowerPoint presentation for the students, telling and sharing how we celebrate Halloween in our respective countries. I also designed and printed the certificates for the Halloween door designing activity.
Lastly, I participated in coming up with a short role playing about Halloween. Since this year social distancing and less physical contact have to be practiced, the presenters (including myself), just went from one classroom to the next to do the presentation. I teamed up with the school’s PE teacher and another language assistant to deliver a spooky presentation. The day may be a bit tiring (we went to 12 classrooms), but it was surely fun.
Here's my video doing the presentation during the Halloween event from CEIP Marque de Leganes' official YouTube channel. My clip can be viewed from 8:50 to 11:23.
Throughout the day, we wore Halloween spooky costumes. Aside from the teachers, the students were also given the option to go to school in costume. I had fun in coming up and designing my own costume, which was a scary witch with a big spider on her hat!
Christmas event
 |
| Christmas craft I came up with. These are some of the my student's work. |
 |
| PowerPoint slides I made for Christmas. |
For the Christmas festivities in school, I was requested again to come up with a craft work for the students. This time, of course, the theme should be Christmas. With that, I let them do a rocking Santa Claus, which is a cool craft for kids. In some classes, I gave the instructions to the students myself on how to make it and I saw how they loved the craft work.
I also helped my co-language assistant in putting up a short PowerPoint presentation about Christmas in our respective countries. Basically, I shared about the customs and traditions in the Philippines with regard to Christmas.
To take part in the Christmas day event at school, I was asked to do a short puppet show among the infantile students. I went to eight classrooms, with puppet sticks telling a story on how Christmas is celebrated a bit different in the year 2020 due to CO-VID19. I really had a nice experience with these kids, especially that most of them were laughing and having fun while telling the story.
Here's my video doing the puppet show during the Christmas event from CEIP Marque de Leganes' official YouTube channel. My clip can be viewed from 1:39 to 3:01.
Realizations
So far, I’ve been enjoying this internship program by the Ministry of Education / AuxMadrid. It’s a very fulfilling experience to become a language assistant assigned in Madrid. Aside from the job itself, living in Madrid is also a unique experience. Each day, I feel thankful that to wake up in a beautiful city like Madrid that’s worth exploring day by day.
Nobody said living abroad is easy. It may involve huge adjustments, compromising, and acceptance in many ways. The internship experience in Spain has been allowing me to move out of my comfort zone. I has also been testing how far I can go. It teaches me to become very independent person. Being abroad may mean having to live and work with other people from different countries. It teaches me the values of camaraderie, respect to other culture, and being proud of my roots. Asked if I'd recommend this program, I'll definitely do so!
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
No comments: