Resumen del curso por Amy Baker

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time as an English language assistant at CEIP Salvador Allende. From day one I felt welcomed and put at ease by the staff and I soon came to feel part of the bilingual team.

I spent the year helping in lessons with years 4, 5 and 6 in Natural and Social Science. My role in class was to give the children a chance to practise English and get used to a native English speaker. So, generally in lessons I read from the textbook and did vocabulary and speaking activities with the children. Also, I often worked with a small group of children at the back of the classroom, which personally I found was a much better way of engaging with the children and allowing them all to participate in activities.

I learnt a great deal from working with the different teachers. Amongst other things, I learnt about the role of the teacher, the factors that affect their work, how to deal with classroom problems, and about different methods of evaluation. Also, I attended the weekly meetings of the bilingual staff team, from which I learnt how the teachers organised their work. I am very grateful to Gracia and all of the staff I worked with for giving me the opportunity to be part of the bilingual team and to learn from them.

I have some great memories from working at the school, with some of my favourites being the Halloween celebrations, seeing the year 6 Christmas play (a very impressive version of Dickens’s  A Christmas Carol, all in English), sharing my presentation about A British Christmas with the whole school, and working in a year 5 lesson where they made their own model ecosystems.

It has been a fantastic experience working at Salvador Allende, where I’ve learnt a lot, both personally and professionally, and I will really miss working here.