Nuestro ayudante Comenius

My work as a Comenius Assistant in Málaga was a very enriching and rewarding experience. When I arrived in Spain in September I knew almost nothing about this country, I spoke no Spanish whatsoever, and I had a really vague idea of what my work there was going to be like.

Nathänael's corner in the school

I have been extremely lucky as to the person in charge of the bilingual program in the CIEP Salvador Allende. From the get-go, Gracia Sarria Perez has gone out of her way to make me comfortable, help me to find my place at the school, and guide me as to what I should do in her class. I cannot stress enough how rewarding it was to work with such an enthusiastic and dedicated teacher.

I worked with four classes in Salvador Allende, two 3^rd grades and two 4^th grades. My role in the class has changed a lot depending on the topic, the teacher and the kids. At the beginning of the year, I would take a small group of kids in a corner of the classroom to make simple scientific experiments or investigations, in English of course. Later on, I started to give actual lectures to explain in details a specific point, such as why do the stars shine, how does the brain receive informations from the sensorial organs, etc...
 

At other moments, when the kids were working on an exercise, I would go from one kid to another to see who needed help, give them clues as to how to translate an idea into English words, and so on.
 

And finally, I designed computer presentations on each of the science, geography or history subjects we worked on, as well as on Christmas in different cultures.

I think the flexibility and diversity of these approaches allowed us  to see what worked and didn't work with the kids and to find a way to get each of them interested in the subject at hand. The teachers learned to rely on me, and the kids started to use English when addressing me.

Halloween activity

I believe I learned a lot from the teachers ways of working, and from interacting with the students. On the other hand, I think I was able to give a new point of view on both the scientific topics (having a degree in sciences) and the pedagogical approaches (being a student of Education Science in France, where the methods used often differ.We both learned from each other, and of course having been actively teaching shall be a great help in my future job.

On a personal level, I'm leaving Spain having learned a new language, but also with a new mindset. I believe I learned a lot this year, about teaching, about working in a team, and about myself.

Nathanaël Dufour