In my decade in Spain, I have always worked somehow teaching English. When I first came back after study abroad, I worked as an auxiliar de conversación, a language assistant in a high school. Then I had a stint at an academia, where students learn English after school all over Spain. Now I am an autónoma, meaning self-employed (a topic worth a blog post of its own). So I still spend my days with kids and teenagers, and still treasure the fun misunderstandings and cultural differences.
This week I asked a 16-year-old student where he hung out with his friends. Keep in mind, here in Spain 18 is the legal age to both drive and drink alcohol, so it's not like he could just hop in his car and go somewhere. ¨At the bar.¨ What?? I've been here long enough to know that bars are okay for all-ages. In the beginning I remember being shocked seeing little kids at bars, even if they were accompanying their parents. But still, even now, his answer came off as so strange. Imagine my underage student and his pals having a pop at a seedy, dark bar like back home. He met my surprise with his own bafflement. ¨So then where do kids get a Coke in the United States? What do you mean they hang out at people's houses?!¨ Cultural differences still exist, however small they may be.
My youngest ¨student¨ is 4. A while back she used to speak jibberish to me, I believe in an attempt at ¨speaking my language.¨ Her new favorite joke is saying things that are wrong and then cracking up when I call her a silly goose. For example, she points to the number 3 and says ¨Five¨ or the color red and says ¨yellow,¨ and waits grinning for me to catch her mistake. Obviously, at 4 she doesn't know a ton, but after 2 years it seems that she understands me and has a good basic vocabulary of animals, colors, numbers.
On the other end of the spectrum are two teenage sisters who I have worked with for the past four years. They have a great level of English, so we just spend the hour chatting or even gossiping. Sometimes when I leave they trill, ¨Love youu¨ like we're besties. They also argue over which of them knows me better. Daymakers!
Most days, I just get such a kick out of teaching English over here.
