Shpeekin' Inglis. (B2 or not B2.)

It's several weeks since I wrote a post and in that time, I haven't really read anyone else's blog or even thought about blogging. Blame Facebook! So many of my friends from blogworld are now Facebook friends too and when life is a bit hectic,then a quick scan of status posts makes me feel like I'm still in touch.

But here's a brief round up....

• Romy's performance, which wrote about in my last post. 
• Hot on the heels of this incredible production, we had end of term exams; 
• Ruy had archery competitions - where he walked off with one 3rd and two 1st prizes. 
• And my students at work had their English B2 exams.

And here's some detail, as much for me to remember it all by as for a blog post in its own right...

The exam preparation was quite time consuming for me as we did the Trinity syllabus, which is very interactive and requires a lot of extra input from the teacher! (At least, this teacher seemed to put in a lot of extra hours....there is always a lot to learn.)

B2 indicates the level of English that a foreign student has to reach in order to study at an English University. And I have been preparing a class of 10 people from the offices and research department in the factory where I am working. It's been very interesting, to say the least, teaching a group of adults who have different backgrounds, different experiences of learning English but who have close and friendly working relationships with each other. Our classes - held over the lunch break twice a week - have occasionally been utterly rowdy!

I know from teaching teenagers and younger children that I've always had a sneaky soft spot for the noisy, energetic individuals who liven up proceedings - or sometimes disrupt them - and who keep you on your toes. I could name several that I will never forget and I was delighted the other day to bump into one of them, who will be about 16 now, I think. When he saw me, instead of the usual polite greeting that I occasionally get from ex-students, he opened his arms wide and gave me a big hug and said how happy he was to see me! Made my day.

Teaching adults is different. But my B2 class has been very different! There's a great phrase that sums up how it's felt teaching this lively and disparate group of people - it's been like herding cats! We have had since mid-February to start the work, which is in two main parts - written and spoken, with the emphasis on communication. The written part took place at the end of May and a few people had problems with the timing...nothing we can do about that now! The spoken part consisted of preparing a portfolio of three writing tasks done in different styles - letter, report and creative - and which can be corrected as many times as needed before submission. The teacher can't directly correct but can indicate where mistakes have been made. The final results were, in my opinion, really well done and I was pleased with everyone's efforts. At the actual interview, students go in individually and converse with the examiner for about 12 minutes. They have around 4 minutes to talk about a subject or topic of their choice. My group had an incredibly wide range of topics - from a disastrous honeymoon to producing specialist plastic film products; from a childhood in France to a childhood in Transylvania; and from the guitar to business planning! In addition, they had to talk about their portfolio, including asking the examiner some questions and leading an interactive session to find out details of a strange or unusual situation that the examiner introduces.

The examiner was in for quite an afternoon!

The date for the interview was 25th June - which just happened to be my birthday - and my students were due in both before and after the lunch break. There were three - and I picked the three that might be most nervous - before lunch and they arrived all together and definitely nervous. The other six were after lunch. (One person chose not to enter the exam, but had been in our classes - if you wonder where the 10th had gone!) But I'd met the examiner beforehand - a very sweet, gentle and rather eccentric (at least so she appeared to the Spanish folk) retired FE teacher, who spoke slowly and calmly and very clearly - and so I was sure that my students wouldn't have a problem. And the first one emerged smiling broadly. Then my only dubious candidate went in - she'd been very busy and rather stressed for a few weeks previously and I felt her speaking had actually deteriorated, rather than improved and I was a bit concerned. However, she too emerged with a big smile and a huge sense of relief. She said she surprised herself with how fluent she had been! And the final morning candidate left the room, more than 12 minutes later, and punched the air with delight!!

I went with the examiner and my friend from the Academy for lunch in the park - a glorious spot in full view of the castle. The examiner was enchanted with the place and sweetly anxious to know how the candidates seemed to be when they left the exam. I told her that they seemed to have enjoyed their conversation and felt that it had gone well. (Maybe it would help in the results, maybe not!!)

And then they arrived....a group of my B2 students came to the park BEFORE their exam...and I could hear them clearly speaking in English, ordering a beer or four! Eeek!!!

As the examiner went back to prepare for the afternoon session, I scurried over to my group just in time for George to see my face and change his order to a non-alcoholic beer. They'd already had two.
Elena was the first of the afternoon interviews and she definitely was going to be a nervous candidate especially for the interactive session, which for her was a potential nightmare. She pushes herself hard and has put in an incredible amount of work in preparation and likes to know she has her facts clear. She has given us some unintentional laughs over the period as she's tried to be 'spontaneous' in the interactive practice.... However, after two beers, she seemed remarkably relaxed. Jolly even. And on the verge of ordering another beer! I had to drag her away and we had an hilarious twenty minutes waiting for her exam, where she never stopped talking with Toni in English. I only hoped the examiner wouldn't notice - although to me, it was quite obvious that Elena's usual somewhat formal demeanour had disappeared. Fortunately, she came out smiling, though complaining that it had gone far too quickly and that she had lots more she wanted to talk about - her topic was Equality for Women.

The next two were utterly sober and quiet and sensible. One came out not too happy but as he's from the Pays Basco and much less extroverted than the rest of the group, it was in keeping. He speaks very well but he isn't the most interactive of types - and when the examiner asked whether he wanted to ask her any questions (a cue to do so), he said, no thank you!

Whilst the other candidate was in, the remaining three from the park emerged....full of beans. Lots of beans. There has been a long standing joke about using the word 'subtle' during the classes, on account of the very direct approach of one person. He's worked very hard in softening his style of writing, which bordered on brutal, but still has a tendency to pronounce the word 'shuttle'. It was the ambition of the group to use the word at least once during their interview, so the three remaining candidates were practising. In whispers, so we didn't disturb the exam in progress. It was not reassuring, though it was very comical.

Eventually, all three had been in, done their bit and come out. Then they left to return to work. As the last one closed the door, the examiner emerged from her room. I swear she looked exhausted! And she said, 'Well they were a lively bunch, weren't they? Are they yours?' - and I SO wished those last three had still been around, then I could have said - 'THAT'S subtlety!'

The next morning, the students from the Academy had their exams and then Toni, Becky (the native English teacher at the Academy, who took over from me when I left) and I waited for the examiner to finish off and give us the feedback - and the results - from the interviews.  We were all on tenterhooks and most concerned that our students had done their best. (I was also worried that the examiner might come out and tell me I shouldn't allow my candidates to enter for their interviews in a state of inebriation.) But eventually, we had our minds put at rest. All my students passed - and a few of them passed really well indeed. Alberto - with his honeymoon story and great sense of humour - had impressed enough to get 3 As, which is fantastic.

I went back to the factory to share the news and there was much whooping and hugging and a great sense of relief. We had still to wait until late July for the results of the written exams, but as the spoken part amounts to 70% of the exam, most people feel they've made the grade. And they are also keen to continue onto the next level. I may have work for a bit longer yet.

Thank you if you've made it to the end of this quite personal ramble. I don't know who will have done, but if you are or have been a teacher, you'll understand the anxiety and concerns that you have when it's exam time. And at least I've only had 9 students!! I know that they are all pleased to have passed - one or two definitely thinking they could have done better and one or two feeling hugely relieved - but I suspect my own delight and relief almost matches theirs.


And now BREATHE! It's holiday time.

On being inspired

In recent weeks, Romy and I have been enjoying a little post-prandial crafting at our big glass table in the kitchen - and I've shared some of our attempts at making in earlier posts.

We've been going at Romy's pace and she's really enjoyed the process. We keep buying a few more 'bits' when we pop into town. And today we went shopping again and this time, called in to 'A LITTLE bit of BRITAIN' - a shop in Alcala la Real that started off, as its name suggests, as a place where the expats in the area could buy their Tetley teabags, Bird's Custard Powder and various other necessities that some folk just can't live without. It's owned and run by the wonderful Alan - invariably friendly, helpful and good-natured - and he had the great idea of opening up some additional space for people to put their second-hand goods for sale. The Spanish haven't ever really grasped the idea of 'second-hand' and on their version of ebay, the prices people want are ridiculous and unrealistic. A lot of expats move out here and find they have all the 'wrong' stuff for their new homes. A lot of expats move back to the UK and decide not to take all their stuff back with them. Alan's shop works a treat and now, the local Spanish folk are recognising what a brilliant idea it is!

I digress, I believe. Ah no, I know why it was important to mention Alan's shop. It's because once a month, he moves all the secondhand furniture to the farther reaches and holds a Saturday market - renting out a 'stall' to anyone who has anything to sell. Some months, it's really good, with clothes, plants, food, (occasionally a chocolate stall!) and jewellery, as well as bric-a-brac and other second-hand items. I usually try and get there on a craft market day. There are sometimes people there who sell cards too. And in the shop, Alan always has a wide selection though some of them are not very inspiring and I asked if he'd be willing to sell some of ours in his shop - and, being Alan, he said yes! And now I get back to my thread...today we took our wares in to the shop. I asked what sort of cards were most in demand and unfortunately, he said it was 'Sympathy' cards...

So, when we came home, Romy agreed that I should make some sympathy cards - the idea didn't really inspire her. The night before, I had been looking at some new ideas on the internet and spent 17 minutes of my life watching a video on Youtube. It's not possible for me to embed the video for you to have a look, but here is the link. I was so inspired by this piece that this afternoon, I sat down and made a 'With Sympathy' card that I'm rather pleased with.

The card was a nice cream colour, on which I painted a watercolour background in teal and pale yellow. Then I made a flower stamp out of foam, and, using a pencil, made some imprint 'dot's. We had some teal ink by pure chance so I stamped the flowers randomly and lightly onto the background.

Then I ran a fine strip of ribbon down one side - which, with retrospect, I shouldn't have done...

The heart was cut from a loose page out of my Oxford Dictionary of English in Current Usage and I put it on a piece of foam before sticking it on to make it stand out a little. Then I pencilled around the edged and then blurred them a little.

I had bought the leaf skeletons from the UK and put one onto the other corner to provide a little balance.
Then with a silver pen, I added some squares - though these don't show up too well on the photo.

I wrote 'with sympathy' across both sides of the card, which has a centre opening.

It was a deeply satisfying card to make and the photo doesn't really do it justice. I feel as though I have really learned something...






My second attempt was slightly different and I didn't do a watercolour background, but made another foam stamp - this time using a heart shape.


Using the teal ink, I covered the whole of the card but made the shading random.

I added a few of the flower stamps using the only other coloured ink I have - which is red. I wasn't sure how this would look but decided to use a pinky-red piece of embossed paper on top. This I cut out with some scissors Romy and I bought today in town - cost all of 64c! Again, using a pencil, I went round the edges and smudged the colour to darken the frame of the centre card.

Another leaf skeleton and a strip of cream card to write 'so sorry' on.








I do hope these cards don't fly off Alan's shelves soon but I also hope that they perhaps convey a little more personal touch than some of the cards that are available at the moment.

And I couldn't stop there. So I made one more card this afternoon. It's an 'I Love You' card and says

You are ....   always on my mind and in my heart. 

Again, the inspiration is from the beautiful Art Journal that Rach0113 created and shared. Thank you Rach0113! You are amazing!!

I can't tell you the pleasure I have had in making these three cards today. I'm alight with ideas and plans for more and more cards...

How I wish the good folk of Alcala were full of a burning desire to send cards to each other. I must start making some in Spanish too...Maybe it'll catch on one day - they do seem to be getting the hang of second hand goods!

(Forgive my indulgence. You don't need to comment on this post - but I really needed to write it!!)

Soy una iglesia

I've had a lovely week switching between Spanish and English classes. I've just started back at the Academia, where I do a few hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and have also this week taken on some adult Spanish learners - by which I mean, of course, adult Spaniards who want to learn English and not 'adults who want to learn Spanish'.

In English, I think the hardest thing is to teach pronunciation as there are so many different ways to pronounce certain letters - think of English vowels and how there are always two ways to say each one, then add the various combinations that give the diphthongs, then add the 'magic e' to the end of words like mad, war, sit, rod... and so on. Compared to the five basic vowel sounds in Spanish, English has either an rich abundance or a minefield of different sounds. And that's just the start.

And if you can successfully get the pronunciation right, how on earth can one explain English spelling and how words that look different but sound the same or worse, look the same but sound different? (For example, homophones such as 'mail' and 'male' or homonyms such as 'wound' (oo) and 'wound' (ow))

This week, in one class of beginners (children), we were doing parts of the body. Most of them could remember 'ear' so I thought it would help memories to link the word 'hear' with 'ear'. Firstly we had to practice making the sound for 'h' as it is silent in Spanish. (It's spelt 'hache', pronounced 'atchay', so to spell it out, you have to say 'hache con (with) hache' otherwise how can anyone know that there is an 'h' at the beginning of the word?) The linking seemed like a good idea for my beginners but in the next class, one up from beginners, we were reading 'Goldilocks and the Three Bears' - and, oh dear (like 'ear'), everyone pronounced 'bear' to rhyme with 'ear' (so 'beer'!) ...so then we had to go through words that looked like 'ear' but sounded like 'air' (not like 'are' though, unless the word started with a consonant, such as 'bare' or 'care' or 'share') - and of course, it is always possible that you'll confuse them (and yourself) by trying to find a logical reason why bear is NOT pronounced like ear.

Local accents can play a part too. The last English person to teach the children at the Academia was from Liverpool, but to be honest, there's no detectable Scouse twang in the sounds they make - I'm a bit disappointed about that, it would have been rather nice - but the vowels sounds are definitely northern, like my own, so no 'barths' or 'parths' in this part of Spain. However, the local Spanish people tend to miss the final 's' off their own words, so numbers such as 'dos' and 'tres' (2 and 3), come out as 'doh' and treh' and no one ever says 'buenos dias' - no, just 'bueno' - nada mas. The 's' can disappear from mid-word too - 'hasta luego' becomes ' a'ta luego' (silent 'h', don't forget) and so on. It's highly contagious and I find myself dropping 's's all over the place when I speak. Hard final consonants such as 'd', 'g' and 't' are alien to the Spanish - so imagine trying to pronounce 'dogs' - some of the best attempts still sound rather like 'doh..' or 'dohs' if they remember the 's'.I think I already mentioned the pleasure I get in asking the children to say 'crisps' and 'wasps' - and the tongue-twister, "She sells seashells on the seashore!"

In my Spanish conversation classes, a common complaint is that the locals don't seem to understand even the simplest of sentences when it's spoken by an English person. A carefully prepared and delivered sentence can be met with a '¿qué?' - and to be fair, the words might have been Spanish on paper but uttered aloud, using English pronunciation and stresses, the words do not sound Spanish enough for them to be recognised by other than the most sympathetic and understanding of ears. Embarrassment is sometimes a restricting factor. People simply feel silly trying to roll their 'rrs' or making the necessary lisping and throat-clearing sounds that are part of the Spanish alphabet.

And speaking of embarrassment - there are lots of words that are the same or almost the same in both languages - those that share a common, latin root, for example. Knowing some of these is really helpful to learners but even more important ones to learn are those that look the same or seem the same - but are not at all the same. Take 'embarrassed' - the Spanish word that fools the English is 'embarazada' - and most people feel confident that this would be a fairly safe guess. Potentially embarrassing for a woman to make the mistake but downright bizarre if the man does - it means 'pregnant' in Spanish. Though I like the idea that there might be a connection somewhere...

Very difficult for the English learner is the 'gender issue' - nothing to do with feminism - but the need to understand that all nouns are either masculine or feminine and that any adjective used to describe it must also take the masculine or feminine form as appropriate. And you'll just have to believe me that there are lots of words that mean something very different it you get the gender wrong - not just male or female things. One of my class confessed that for some number of weeks, she had visited her local butcher to buy a chicken, always asking for a large one because the small ones were very small - and wondered why the butcher and other customers always smirked and muttered when she spoke - until one day she was taken aside by a little old lady who explained her dreadful error. She had mixed up the gender of the chicken - which is masculine and therefore 'un pollo', with the feminine (???) version, which is a slang reference to the male member. She now buys her chickens prepacked at the supermarket.

A really difficult one that I understand in principle, but which I often get wrong in practice is the Spanish equivalent of the verb 'to be' - there are two, which is the problem - SER and ESTAR. Basically, the former is used to describe a permanent state whilst the latter is usually for a temporary state - though it's not quite that simple- it never is. Both are irregular verbs and both need to be learned as they are commonly used. And it does seem, in both languages and possibly in languages the world over, the more common a verb, the more it veers away from the regular. The English verb 'to be' has eight forms (am, are, is, was, were, being, been and be), compared to the usual four of most regular verbs (- 'to talk', for example, has only talk, talks, talking and talked.)


It's one thing to get SER and ESTAR mixed up but getting the language a little bit wrong can also lead to the utterances of a strange sort. You may have heard of the man who mistook his wife for a hat* but I once got confused with a church. Yes, the title of this piece is one of my own mistakes, made many years ago. I wanted to tell someone I was an Englishwoman - and knew enough to use 'soy' - from the verb SER - as my being English and a woman were both permanent enough to qualify for that verb - but I did confuse 'inglesa' (English woman) for 'iglesia' (Church). And in my few months of experience in teaching Spanish to English women, I've met several more churches. Are there any more out there, I wonder?

* 'The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat'  - a book by Oliver Sachs, the neurologist who wrote about the case histories of some of his patients - fascinating stuff.

If you haven't see this before..

The daughter of a work colleague of mine has a blogspot called The Wandering Wayfarer on which she posts lots of arty/fashion photos. And I like to look at these, partly because the pictures are very nice but also because her mum is a lovely person and I feel as though I'm keeping in touch this way.

I was totally bowled over just now as I followed a Facebook link to the latest post - at first I thought I was seeing things when I saw some of her photographs move! They moved.

The wind ruffled skirts and hair and umbrellas flapped in the breeze. These weren't videos, but moving photographs.

The photographs are the work of Jamie Becks and they really are animated photos and I love them.

For me it creates a strange, fantasy feeling, with hints of Hogwarts and all things Potterish - or as The Wayfarer says, Hogwarts meets High Fashion.

This one is my favourite - I might keep looking at this for some time.

Hope you enjoy it too!

Learning Styles.

I've been looking at learning styles - I'm not a teacher, never have been, never will be - but the concept of learning is fascinating to me and I've always enjoyed the opportunity to find out more about how people learn and how different people learn differently. When I was working in England, I was lucky enough to have an excellent training colleague (though from the very start, she was always a friend). And she was good. She is good. I know this because so many of the things we did together have really stayed in my head. And she is good because she recognises and delivers her training using a variety of methods that engage everyone in one way or another.

I am trying so hard to do the same with my students - whether it's the English learning Spanish or the Spanish learning English. I have a self-confessed 'kinesthetic' learner, with whom I go walking, shopping, to the market or to a bar for a drink as part of our Spanish lesson. It seems to be helping her.
And having always emerged on every occasion, as an 'activist' (Honey & Mumford - try this test); 'resource/investigator' or 'shaper' (Belbin Team Roles - more) - I have now discovered that I too am a Kinesthetic learner (Fleming's VAK/VARK test - here) - which isn't surprising.

On my trawl through the internet for information about different learning styles, I also found some fun material that I can use with some of my students. Things like light-hearted personality quizzes - things that will enable them to ask each other questions, formulate responses, practice speaking out loud and improve their vocabulary. And help to identify their learning styles.


As I've mentioned before in earlier posts, in the more personality-focused tests, I'm happy with my 'diagnosis' as an ENFP by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. I know many people who are quite 'anti' these sorts of analyses and I raise the subject not to court controversy but to think at a personal level to understand a little better how my own personality and preferences influence my 'teaching' style. So, indulge me, it's my blog and this sort of navel-gazing - this extroverted peering at my own way of doing things - is helpful ... to me. Just writing this out is a learning process for me - I suspect I am so extroverted that at times I don't really know what I think until I open my mouth and hear the words! (Or write them down and read them. Do any other bloggers sometimes re-read an older post and think, gosh, did I write that!?)

Am I digressing....?

No. I realist that whilst I really want my students to learn, I want them to have fun whilst they're doing it - and this latter is equally important, I think, as the learning aspect. In my role at the language college, I have the luxury of focusing on fun. All the students have two classes of English a week, one focusing on grammar, writing and comprehension - which they take with Toni, who I suspect will take no-nonsense from any of them - and the other class is for conversation - which they take with me.

I will put up with quite a lot of nonsense - as long as it's in English!



With the younger ones, we sing a lot of songs - they love to sing, 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes'; 'One Finger, One Thumb, keep moving'; 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm' and so on - and I really enjoy singing with them. We also play 'Simon Says' and finding and touching different colours or textures. And we draw things and use colours - like 'a beautiful butterfly' or 'a big brown bear'. We make quite a lot of noise. Young children are mostly kinesthetic learners, I guess.

For the ages from about 9 up to 12 or so, we play word games like, 'I went to market' and  'Hangman' and sometimes we use a little juggling ball, passing from one to the other and thinking of connecting words. They really like my idea of getting them to draw things by giving verbal instructions - sometimes it's a monster with three heads, a hairy tummy button, spiky hair, claws, a long neck...etc. and they love creating a different monster each and comparing them - and this helps them to learn more vocabulary and demonstrate that they know what the words mean.

For the older ones, I do need to help prepare them for their exams, the format of which follows a set pattern - speaking about themselves, their families, their interests and talking about photographs for a full minute and also holding a joint conversation with another student. And this practice can get a bit repetative, hence my search for new and different methods to engage each student in their own particular learning style. I suspect that this is not something they will have covered at school - it's possibly a little bit out of the 'lesson-shaped' box that the Spanish curriculum follows. We'll see - at least I will have fun administering the quizzes!

I couldn't resist having a go at a few of the personality tests that I found (activist, kinesthetic ENFP that I am!) and quite liked doing the one that gave me a colour-coded output - called a PersonalDNA because of the stripey bar it creates. Lots of different ways to answer the questions, that's what caught my interest.



(So now I know I am a 'Benevolant Creator' as well as a Butterfly. Of course. That'll do for me - and it's so lovely and cheerful.)


If you fancy having a go - it takes about 20 minutes - this is the link to the website.

And whatever your style, keep on learning!!