With beginning of March, I started my teaching practice at a catalan school in Barcelona. (ESCOLA GRAVI-a private school). On the first day they welcomed we with open arms and were all very friendly to me. The only problem was the language. Only the english teachers can speak English, none of the other teachers though. There are two girls, which also study education primaria and are able to have a conversation with my colleague and me but other than that it's hard to catch what they are saying, as they speak catalan, not even spanish.
My colleague Güzin is from Turkey and usually studies English as a foreign language in Istanbul. She is also an Erasmus student and does the practice with me at Escola Gravi.
I'm there Mondays and Wednesdays from 9am until 5pm. The siesta break is from 1pm until 3pm.
The first days I did observations and got in contact with the children. They are all very warm-hearted and some of them always come to me and give me hugs. In general the atmosphere in school is extremely positive and welcoming. From the first day on I had the feeling that they are happy to have me and are willing to share cultures with each other. The only problem, like I said before, is the language barrier. I always try to speak spanish and some catalan words but my level of spanish is not well enough to have a fluent conversation. However, the more time I spend there the more people are open up and try to involve me and joke around together.
There are 12 classes. 1st until 6th grade (6 to 12 year olds) and each class exists twice. The group of students depend but an ordinary class has about 18-23 pupils. The students come from all over Barcelona, but most of them from the neighbourhoods La Teixonera or Gracia.
The method of teaching is very traditional, as I would say. A lot of frontal lessons and work sheets. There are a few kids with special needs and the teachers take good care in giving them individualized tasks and try to let other students help as much as possible so that they feel integrated.
It is very stunning to see how much it is possible to communicate with children, even though our mother tongues are not the same. It is even easier than to talk to the adults because they are very good in reading body language and face expressions. They also have to make the effort to try to speak in English to me and I make the effort and try to talk in Spanish to them. It is a wonderful way of learning from each other.
I started giving microlessons and after a few weeks I've already taught full lessons and it was great. Sometimes I was very happy and grateful that my tutor Eva was with me to translate, if there was no way for them to understand me (especially with the 1st - 3rd graders) but most of the time they were able to figure out what I wanted from them.
It was one of the most precious experiences of my semester abroad, which I couldn't have experienced if I didn't go on Erasmus!
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