The Auxiliar Diaries: What to Expect

Before my auxiliar exchange I read a zillion blogs about every aspect of the experience. Some were helpful, and some were really not! So here's my guide on how to be an auxiliar in Spain, based on my experiences.

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So it turns out, what I had envisaged for these last eight months of my life was pretty much nothing like what it turned out to be.  Maybe I missed the key points of everything I read, or maybe, true Spanish style, there was nothing of substance in what I read, so in some ways the program wasn't exactly what I was expecting, and in others Spain wasn't what I was expecting!  So I thought I'd share a few thoughts on things to expect in the auxiliar program here in Spain:

1. You're not the _English_ teacher...
I had, not unreasonably, kind of assumed I'd be assisting the teachers in the ESL classes - you know, teaching English.  What I did NOT realise is that these are bilingual schools, where classes are actually taught in English, and THAT's what you're expected to help with!  I never studied science past Year 10, so to find myself teaching Year 9 biology has been a bit confronting, to say the least.  History and Geography classes have been easier, since the teacher wants me to talk about the same time periods and phenomena as they occurred in and influenced Australia.  Anyway, be warned - you won't be explaining past participles in English class, you'll be explaining the pronunciation of 'glomerulus' to your science class.  Yes, I had to look that one up too.

2. The Spanish and organisation do not mix
There will be times when class will be cancelled, and the only way you will find out is by attending an empty classroom.  There will be times where the class will have an exam during your timeslot, and the only way you will find out is by walking into the middle of an exam.  There will be times where you walk into the classroom, the teacher pushes the textbook into your hands open to a particular page, and walks up the back of the room to wait for you to begin class.  Basically, there's no loop to be in here.  People will forget to tell you things, not think to tell you things, not really plan ahead where you're involved, and generally leave you wanting to strangle someone or something until you get used to essentially getting screwed over a lot.  Ask for a list of public holidays and school-free days, find out where the teacher's noticeboard is and learn to check it so you know who's on camp and when, and be prepared to smile and say, "Not a problem," when someone apologises for the general Spanish apathy making you look the fool yet again.  After four or five months you learn to just go with the flow and not get mad when things don't work right - the entire Spanish nation apparently runs on this principle, from what I've seen.

3. WorkChoices does not exist in Spain
Yes, we have a contract.  No, that contract is not much use.  Nothing is really spelled out clearly, so  exactly what our job entails is up for debate.  Supposedly we work 12 hours a week, and schools can allocate that time as they please, whether it be for classes, English tutoring sessions or meeting with teachers.  Theoretically our job also includes class prep.  Whether those 12 hours and that class prep intersect is one of the great unknowns.  In my case, I was given 12 hours of class, so anything else comes out of my own time.  Teachers also don't co-ordinate my classes with each other, so there have been weeks with no prep work whatsoever and then weeks with hours of reading and research to do.  Oh, and then there's my favourite - if you miss a single class through illness or other reasons, you're obliged to make it up, but the school can cancel any number of your classes with no warning and no such concessions are made to you!  Basically, be prepared to possibly be screwed over, and if you stand up for yourself, be prepared to potentially have your own contract used against you.

4. Not all teachers are created equal...
It's been one of the bigger revelations of the year for me, but there's a wide variety of teachers and teaching styles, and some are light years ahead of the rest.  The good teachers are a joy to work with, but be prepared for the less delightful teachers as well.  Some of the bilingual teachers 'don't speak' English, some can't or don't control their classes, leaving you standing awkwardly at the front of chaos, some teachers seem to think YOU're the teacher and THEY're the assistant and suddenly have no clue what they're doing once you're in the room.  There's really not a lot you can do - you can't really reform bad teachers, though you can try and insist on a modicum of preparation and advance warning from the teachers.  Otherwise, just don't be surprised when you suddenly find yourself in front of 30 noisy, rowdy teenagers with no teacher in sight.

So those are more or less the biggest surprises I had once I started classes!  Did anyone have their own "Oh..." moments once they started at their school?  First-years, any things you've been wondering about your transition from student to teacher?

Sierra Nevada ski trip!

A few months ago, the PE teacher with whom I had the most classes mentioned that he was taking the 2ndo ESO class (Year 8) to the nearby Sierra Nevada ski range for a day trip, and I should come along (he did say he'd love to take me to Andorra with the Year 11 class for their ski trip, but that one was out of his power). On the first day back of 2016, Joaquín told me that the trip was coming up in about two weeks, so if I could pay the 40eu the following day, I was in.  My co-ordinator released me from the day's classes, I paid up and I was on the figurative bus.

After two weeks of frantically searching for borrowed  ski gear, I was up at 6am last Wednesday to dress and head to the bus station before 7am.  Two dark hours of noisy 13-year-olds later, we pulled up to the town of Pradollano, the main town of the Sierra Nevada Ski Resort. Our guide handed out lift passes, and it was onto the gondola and up the mountain.

Pradollano and the mountains

Winter wonderland!

Though we were all already kitted up, it took a while to sort out the actual equipment - helmets, boots and either snowboards or skis and poles for everyone. We were then split up into smaller groups for lessons with an instructor.

Glamorous!

Lesson 1 - how to put on your skis (harder than it sounds.) Lesson 2 - walking. Then it was gliding, limbo, jumping and stopping. Once we'd mastered that, the instructor took us to a very small incline nearby and had us ski to the bottom before stopping.  Some of us managed the stopping better than others.  Some stopped into others.  In short, skiing with teenage first-timers is hilarious.  I spent most of the day laughing at them all falling over.

Walking on skis

Next it was on a small ski ramp to the top of the learner's incline, and then straight onto a longer one that dropped us about halfway up the nearest slope.  This time Manolo, our instructor, had us ski down bit by bit, working on stopping.  When skiing, you stop by turning your toes inwards to create a wedge shape, or 'cuña' in Spanish.  I spent a lot of time yelling "Cuña!" at my students, who equally spent a lot of time skiing right on past me 'til they ran out of momentum.  Again, so long as they weren't bleeding, watching my students whizzing past going, "I don't know how to stooooooop!" was pretty funny for me.  Call it revenge for tiring Thursday afternoons trying to make them stay in their seats and stop throwing paper around the classroom.

Halfway up the slope

Me and the kids

We stopped for lunch at 2pm, after a couple more sessions skiing down the small slope.  We also worked on turning, which, again, caused problems for some...

WHOOSH. "What was tha...oh, Antonio forgot how to stop again....cuña, Antonio!...yup, he's fallen over now."
THUMP. "Who fell over this time?" "Daniel.  Again.  No, Daniel, try standing up with your skis on this time.  Hey, Manolo, once you've sorted out Antonio, Daniel needs help again!"
THUMP. "Was that...". "Yup. Antonio." "How did he manage to fall over when he wasn't even moving?..." "I have no idea."

*This dialogue is not verbatim, but is 90% accurate.  I'm sure because this happened many times...many, many times.

After a quick sandwich lunch sitting in the lovely warm, comfortable snow, we had an hour of free skiing time until we had to meet again to take the bus.  I elected to go with our PE teacher Joaquín and some of the boys in my group, since they were doing the larger slope.  What I didn't realise was that they were taking the ski lift to the top of the nearest slope...ALL the way to the top.

On the main slope

After what seemed like a VERY long time on the ski lift, about a dozen of us marshalled at the top of the slope before setting off.  We lasted about 30 metres before we had a man down. In the 10 or so minutes it took to get Fran back on his skis, the snowboarders gathered underneath the chairlift and eventually took off without us, the rest of us skiers gathered a bit further up, and all the boys promptly fell down the nearest incline as soon as we started moving again.

Waiting on my boys...

Eventually I left the students behind, since they ALL kept falling over and I couldn't help them back into their skis, so I left them to Joaquín and went it alone.  The crowning moment of my day was skiing neatly to the bottom of the slope and braking gently from 200 metres up (ok, so I hurtled down in ever-increasing speed and terror until I ran out of momentum at the bottom, but hey, progress).  This was followed by a painful slog back to the hire centre to get out of those awful ski boots, and a two-hour bus ride home with an incredibly noisy, hyped-up bunch of kids.  How they had that much energy after the day we'd had I will never understand, but then that's niños for you.

Second ski lift from the right - top to bottom!

Bucket list #23: learn to ski - check!