My first week as a teacher, or 'English Language Teaching Assistant' has gone relatively well. This may well be to do with the fact, however, that I haven't really had to do any teaching yet. Before I fully launch into the events of this week, I'll quickly explain what it is that I'm actually doing here.
The British Council runs a worldwide language assistantship scheme for native English speakers. Although the scheme is available all over, I chose to do it in a German speaking country as it's the only one that offers placements for just one semester, rather than the whole year. As I also have to spend time in France and Spain this year, I couldn't really opt for a scheme longer then 4/5 months, so this is perfect. We have to work 13 hours a week, and my time here is divided between two schools. As we aren't qualified teachers, we aren't supposed to take whole classes by ourselves. Instead, our job is to get the students speaking English, to teach them a bit about our culture, to answer any questions they have - in short we are simply an aid for the English lessons, however the teachers want to use us.
I got up bright and early at 6am on Monday to travel to my first school, which is about an hour outside of Salzburg. My main concern was if they'd even be expecting me, as I'd had very limited contact with the school before arriving (not for lack of trying I must add!). However, quite a few of the other assistants had a similar experience with their schools, so I guess I can consider this my first real experience of Austria's strange approach to rules. As I was arriving for the first lesson, I was on the train with all the other school kids so just followed them off the train assuming they'd lead me in the right direction. Once we'd left the station, the younger kids seemed to be going one way and the older kids another. As I'm teaching in the secondary school, I decided to follow the older kids and sure enough found my way to the school. In Austrian schools, the students have to take off their outside shoes and wear 'Hausschuhe' ie. slippers, so they all went into the locker room to change shoes. I didn't realise this was what they were doing, so followed them in there as well. I quickly realised that wasn't where I was meant to be, back-tracked, wandered round for a bit looking for a Reception. I saw a photocopier in a corner and figured some teachers must hang out around there so headed over, and behind it was the Staff Room. I went in and found my contact teacher and was quite proud of myself that, apart from once actually at the school, the whole journey had gone relatively smoothly! We had a quick chat, and he introduced himself and some of the other English teachers. Almost half of them were speaking to me in English which isn't ideal as I'm here to improve my German! I am making an effort to reply to them all in German, though, so I hope this means the other will eventually switch to German too.
My first lesson was a bit of an anti-climax to be honest. I hadn't been given much instruction, so just stood up at the front of the class and essentially winged it. I introduced myself and then answered a few questions. If I'd known how these lessons would go, I'd definitely have prepared a little talk, maybe brought in some photos and thought of a game or something as well. As it was, my whole thing was over in about 15 minutes and the teacher didn't need me for the rest of the lesson so said I should go back to the staff room. I introduced myself to a few teachers, one of them took me on a quick tour of the school and then I went to the Sekretariat to sign my contract and some other forms. In my second lesson, I only told the children my name and they then had to be the 'detectives' to find out everything else about me. It was a much better lesson, as it was more interactive and got them talking more. The teacher for my 3rd lesson that day apparently didn't know that I was going to be there, (so I guess in a way my fears were confirmed), but that meant I got to go home an hour earlier than I was expecting.
I decided to use the time well and so went to the bank to finish opening my account. This was relatively easy as my host dad knows someone at the bank, so had called up and arranged almost everything. I just needed to go in with my passport and sign the actual documents. Once that was sorted, I headed back home and had a nap to recover from the early start! That evening, I headed back into town as I was meeting with my contact teacher from my second school, which is an Abendgymnasium (evening school) for 18-25 year olds, so will be quite a different teaching experience! There was some timetabling confusion as apparently there hadn't been any contact between the two schools, so we didn't actually get to sort out my timetable as planned. It was good to go the school and get a feel for it, though. It seems a lot more organised, and all of the English teachers were speaking German to me, so overall I got a good vibe.
On Tuesday, I had another 6am start to get to school for the first lesson. I told my contact teachers about the confusion with the second school so that they could get in touch with them to sort it out. I also thought this would be a good opportunity to ask if we could discuss my timetable, as as it stood I had four 6am starts a week and no days off (which apparently we're entitled to). Unfortunately, they weren't that helpful but I said to myself that changes were inevitable anyway, as they have to accommodate the second school. My two lessons were very similar to the day before, with the kids being 'inspectors' and me answering their questions. My working day was over by 9:30am, and I headed straight home for a nap! That afternoon a few of the assistants were meeting for a drink on the Stein Terrasse, which is on the top floor of quite a posh hotel and has such great views over Salzburg. We all swapped stories from our first day, and it was interesting to hear about everyone else's experience as we're placed all over Salzburg, in all kinds of different schools.We had a drink and then a few of us went out to an Italian restaurant after.
Wednesday I had another e-mail from a teacher saying that she didn't know that I was here and so wouldn't need me. The only other lessons I had that day were 'standby' (what that means I'm still not entirely sure) so I didn't need to go in at all. Instead, I spent the day doing 'admin'. I did all of the paperwork for a Vorteilskarte (train discount card), bought a Monatskarte (monthly train pass), had my phone unlocked and bought an Austrian sim. All of this was done in German, so I was pretty proud of myself. Wednesday afternoon is 'music afternoon' for my host family here. They asked me if I wanted to join in, and I had visions of us turning into the Von Trapp family, or something similar. However, using the Year Abroad mantra of say 'yes' to everything, I agreed. The music teacher gave me some Mozart piano music to practice for next week, so I'll update you on how that goes...
Thursday was a 'Wandertag' (school trip) for the whole school so again I wasn't needed. My 5 day week had somehow turned into a 3 days, and meant that I was being eased in a lot more gently to my 6am starts so I can't complain about that! I met up with the other Alice, who also had the day off, and we went to Europark to do some shopping. It was only about 10 minutes on the train and has some pretty good shops so I'm sure we'll make it there again soon. A group of us were planning on going to Oktoberfest the next day, and we'd started to get quite excited at the prospect of going in dirndls. We went back to Salzburg and met up with another assistant, Cecilia, to see if we could rent them for tomorrow. Unfortunately, we got there too late and the place was shut. By this point we were really starting to run away with the idea, so went to a different shop and started trying them on. The whole thing happened very quickly and about half an hour later, all three of us were walking out the shop with our newly bought dirndls (in some kind of state of shock as they definitely weren't cheap). I'd say this is the definition of an impulse buy if there ever was one!
On Friday, my first lesson was on 'manners'. To stress the importance of manners in England, I taught them the phrase "Manners cost nothing, but mean everything", which I think sums it up quite well. The second lesson was a class of 6th formers, so their English is quite advanced. The class was split into two, and I took one half for the first 20 minutes, then the second half. It was the first time I was properly controlling a class, and minus a few awkward silences it went reasonably well. I then got the train back to Salzburg and met up with 5 other assistants, so that we could make our way to OKTOBERFEST...
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