WEEK TWO  ROLLER COASTERS AND BICYCLES

It  has taken me almost a week to work out how to register and upload my first blog entry,  proving yet again that my computer skills continue to be Neolithic.   The school I am at is practically paperless.  The students have all  their lessons on Ipad, on which they are allowed to listen to music if they are doing written work in class, and frequently can be caught looking at other things on their Ipads – pictures etc.   I have only today learnt that this is a relatively new  experiment, a couple of years, but it means that there are no text books to which I can easily refer, as it is all on their Ipads.  I did ask at one point if I could be issued with one, or provided with the link to  the lessons, but nothing came of this.  Certainly it did not seem I could be issued with an Ipad, but I am not sure if there was just a breakdown in communication on the links.   I just get told the topic we are working with each lesson  and am expected to provide my own material.  It was a bit frustrating at first, not really having a context in which to prepare the lessons, but now into my second week, I am beginning to get an idea of the standards and experience of my classes. Of course, now I do know what they did last time! (I hesitate to say learnt ).

It is now Thursday in my second week, and so I suppose I am almost half way through, but I find each day a new challenge and will be grateful for the rest, although it is not clear yet what there is to do in Gandia over a Bank Holiday weekend.  So far, I have not been able to buy a walking map, although I  have learnt from one teacher that there is supposed to be a “green Circle” for walking around Gandia, a walk to a small lake (Ullals) and to the ruins of a castle (Bayren) which I may investigate at the  weekend.

It really is a roller coaster.   Yesterday I had three lessons back to back  (I know some Valencianos will scoff !) : two of them lessons with 2A where I read a prepared piece about my life and then asked the class questions, which were checked.  It could be argued that I was just an audio aid, reading the piece three times (once at  English/Spanish speed), but I did get the opportunity to monitor the classes and help with grammar.  The third class was with the sixth form and the teacher has asked me to do conversation with small groups of about ten at a time. This is the second group, and we talk about everything from Game of Thrones (Polly’s cousin Harry Lloyd, who acted in it, has become a legend,  the vocabulary learnt including liquid, gold, molten and pouring ) to discussion of  Gabriel Garcia Marquez  trying to recover a typewriter from a pawn shop during looting in Bogota in 1958  (pawn and loot obviously useful new words) and conflicting views on  the merits of a reality star called Belen Esteban,  catch phrases and drug addiction.  They are all happier talking in these smaller groups   than they would be in a big class.  It feels like good practice for them.    Then,   after  combing the internet for inspiration, back home to prepare for today’s important observed lesson on reported speech. 

Today has been a bit up and down too.   The observed lesson went surprisingly well with the 26 girls and 1 boy (!) of Class 4A.  My lesson plan actually seemed to work, and I managed to get in a Listening game (1-20 – they got to 13) and a game of Whispers which was designed to lead in naturally , well quite clumsily, into reported speech, and we had another game of it at the end, by popular request.

Flushed by this   I foolishly thought I could use the same Listening game for the smaller class of more difficult children, but I struggled with this and the lesson on Modals did not go nearly as well.  It was only the fact that I then had an hour’s conversation with the biology teacher  (one of potentially three one to one hours  with teachers that I have a week – I have another tomorrow) that restored my self-confidence a little.   We talked about the comparative education systems of England and Spain (I had to confess a general ignorance of it for the last forty years);  pipistrelle bats, on which he did a PhD; and, of course, Brexit and  Catalonian independence, the former topic being another low point for the day.

Tomorrow,  I have another class on Reported Speech, but after today’s experience will not be complacent about having a plan, as each class is so different.  I am also back in the Primary School for a lesson.    I have three classes and I find most of them very challenging.  Apart from the size of the classes, the noise level is intimidating.  I did try a simple game the first day, with them lining up in alphabetical order, but found the line disintegrating from behind by the time I had got to L.      Yesterday  I tried the liberal use of stickers, which Dave had got us in Chester, but as the hoard diminished, they became increasing fussy as to the colours and expressions they would take.  Clearly I should have made them work harder for them, but withholding them felt like punishment!.  In one class I took in some shopping, including a coconut,   four limes, and some tomatoes and rice  (usefully uncountable) which I had bought for possible use in a curry , and used it to  work with quantifiers , but then discovered that I really should have been working with nowhere, anywhere and somewhere. I hope for more success tomorrow.

I am in awe of those doing longer hours.  I am tired out every day !(later realized that the ant-hystamine I was taking might also have been a factor).

FRIDAY

Sadly  the lessons did not go as well today.   I was looking for something to engage the children with on  anywhere etc, and took in a You Tube of A Windmill in Amsterdam,  an old song popular with children in youth  - with such winning lines as …. “ a little mouse with clogs on,  where on the stair, right there.. !”,  but the song is so old that the video was pretty primitive, and the children were just bemused.  Maybe the song was just too childish and old fashioned too.  Not absolutely sure I have got the measure of the “level” of this class.  I was thinking of trying using  The Market Square  by AA Milne  next time, but as it comes from either  When We were Young, or Now We are Six,  it might again be too juvenile for them and too complicated at the same time.

            The second class with another Year 4 in Secondary Class again on reported speech was thrown a bit off course, because I had been chatting with other staff in the staff room for a bit before the lesson, which was very interesting, but then managed to forget my papers, when I went to class.  This meant that  I had to abandon the class  for a couple of minutes , while I went to retrieve them  ( I seem to be embodying the Absent Minded Professor completely while I am here).  I then felt I had missed my opportunity to take “command” of the class.    Whispers was used again with smaller groups this time (some learning progress here), and again the class went into group to do some exercises on reported speech, but I did have to keep monitoring, because clearly my instructions were not completely clear.

            My next lesson with Pepe, the Religious Instruction Teacher, for one to one conversation had to be cancelled, as he was involved in arranging some activities for the weekend.  He said that a Paella was going to be cooked by the Headmaster as part of a family day at the school on Sunday, but when I went down there it appeared to be closed.  Perhaps it was in the primary school and I just went to the wrong place (yes I did!).

 

So, now free for a whole four days !    The school is closed on both Monday and May Day ! We had only found out about this more or less by accident a couple of days ago, but Sheila had already booked a weekend away in Benidorm for a Tango  festival and   Dave has booked a sky diving trip.  Polly and I are a little less ambitious. I  am interested in exploring the countryside  and have discovered through a brochure called Gandia Senderismo that there are a number of  walks that can be done in the area and there is a National Park Parpallo Borrell  not that far away.    However the Tourist Office is not that helpful as to how to get to them – a language issue -  and my colleagues at work have also referred me to  a couple of places I can go locally: to Castle Bayren and Ullals lake, which I am told are about half an hour’s walk away.  There is also supposed to be a Green Circle walk around Gandia, which I never find much trace of. I decide to hire a bicycle to explore.  There are little “Boris” bikes, here called Safor, which appear to be adequate only for cycling around town, and I am intimidated by the  screen which seems to want my passport number, credit card, and hair colour before it will let me use them. So, I track down a bicycle hire shop on the internet (yes I can occasionally use it)   Ciclo Vento, which is correctly rated highly on   Trip Advisor and go off and arrange to hire a mountain bike for the following day:  15 Euro for first day and 10 for subsequent with a E50 deposit.  The proprietor has minimal English (still more than my Spanish – although Aquilar is now fully installed in my vocabulary), and tells me that no locks are provided, because a lock on a left bicycle is an invitation to steal it !  I am therefore anxious about keeping the bike for more than a day, in case there is nowhere safe to leave it, although I later discover it is quite possible  to carry it up the four floors to our flat without complete collapse  (it won’t go in the lift!). So  I only hire it for one day, and collect it the next morning, when he would have let me take it at 7.30 that night for an early start.   I celebrate this initiative by buying a pastry, where I meet one of my pupils with his father.  Salutations and embarrassment all round, probably most for the boy.

Last Friday night,   Sheila and I had gone to a  concert at the Casa de Cultura Marques de Gonzales de Quiros  to see the Quintet Casulana with Albert Ferrer, a great clarinetist playing Brazilian and Argentinian Tango music.   They had said there was no need to get tickets beforehand, but when I got there late it was completely sold out, and   I was only squeezed in after a couple of tracks to find Sheila had saved me a place.  It was a great concert. The previous night I had been too disorganized and tired to try to go and see CALIGULA by Albert Camus in Spanish, in which surprisingly no one else was interested, but this Friday there seemed to be nothing on except  the usual rock and roll band at PUB DUBLIN , which did not start until  11.30  - way past my bed time.   We also missed a trombone concert on Thursday night, so there is a reasonable amount of cultural activity in the evenings if you have the energy for it.

However cooking and eating does seem to take up most evenings – and of course panicking about lesson plans even if we are not actually writing them.

Saturday

Rode out towards Castle Bayren and Lake  Ullals in the morning, but got stuck on the main road, which did not seem to give me access to either so contented myself with the odd photograph before completing a full circuit of the town via the beach.  In the afternoon,  I cycled out to Villa Longa, where the good walks are supposed to start, also trying to find the Green Circle, but despite several diversions off the main road to follow likely viable side roads for a more scenic route and through empty villages,  mainly ended up on the main road for the 10 km ride.  At  Villa Longa there was no clear indication  where the walking routes might start and not really anybody around to ask, so I came back only knowing that it was not practical to think of walking out to the start of any route and I will probably have to get a taxi if I want to do some serious walking next week.   Still,  it was a good day’s cycling and I was sorry at the end that I had only  hired it for one day, knowing now that I could keep it safe in the flat.  The bike shop was not open on Sunday or Tuesday.

Sunday

Went to the Ducal Palace, where there was  an acapella concert in the courtyard in support of refugees and then did the tour of the Palace  which is well worth doing.  Sadly  everything closes at 1.30, so if you want to see the sights on a Sunday  you have to get up early .