Teaching Eeengleesh in Espain

I thought that since it's nearly September (seriously, HOW did that happen?), it was about time that I finally actually admit to the fact that, well, I'm living in Spain to teach English, not to go gallivanting off to as many foreign countries as possible. As you may or may not know, this past year I somehow got myself into teaching English to (mostly) preschoolers. I had seven classes in the primary school (fourth, fifth, and sixth graders), but the majority of my 25 hours teaching were spent with 3-, 4-, and 5-year-olds. Don't ask me how or why that happened. (Not because there isn't a why or a how, but rather because it's better that I leave that topic alone.) So anyway, I spent the greater portion of the last ten months reviewing colors and numbers, playing games, and teaching songs. (That's right, my friends, I was forced to break my strict rule of never, ever singing in public - but it's okay because they're so little they don't care, right? Or perhaps the opposite, I'm scarring them for life with my awful singing voice?)

I'm still not sure how, but I somehow grew to enjoy teaching the little kids. After all, they're too young to be really obnoxious or critical or negative like teenagers and preteens can be. This isn't to say that teaching such young children English is a piece of cake, because it isn't; more than anything it's very difficult to keep their attention for nearly an hour in a language that is almost entirely foreign to them when they're that young. Some classes wound up being really great and easy and fun, while a select few others were just short of a nightmare.

Naturally, the five-year-olds were my favorite this past year. They're the oldest (in preschool), they know the most English, and they also just happened to be a really great group of kids. (I know teachers aren't supposed to have favorites, but let's be real - it happens. I absolutely had some favorite students, and the majority of them were five-year-olds.) Unfortunately, it's unlikely I will have these students next year when they more to first grade in primary school. I'll see them but I most likely won't teach their English classes.

Preschool graduation.

I should probably clarify that the majority of my preschoolers still have an...interesting level of English competence. This is something that varies greatly amongst Spanish schools, and as far as I know, the English program at my school is relatively new. The vast majority of the preschoolers I teach have never heard or spoken any words of English when they enter preschool at three years of age, and since they only get an average of five hours of English a week, the learning process is slow. However, I can generally lead my classes in English and speak entirely in English with my preschoolers and they understand the majority of what I say (especially the five-year-olds), but they aren't able to produce full sentences on their own. My four- and five-year-olds know how to say "My name is...", "I like...", and "I'm fine thank you, and you?" but these are automatic phrases they've learned by memorization. By the time they reach third or fourth grade they will most likely have a pretty decent level of English (as far as Spain goes), so they're on the right track.

But the great - and surprising, to me at least - thing about their level of English is that they do understand a great deal of what I say, even if it's just the gist of it and not word for word. Furthermore, they have an incredible vocabulary, the five-year-olds in particular. They know more animals in English than I think I knew in Spanish previous to this year, they can tell you what the weather is like, they know a ridiculous amount of insects in English, they can tell me what foods and sports they like, and most impressive of all, they know the alphabet in English and can identify a lot of words written out in English. It really is incredible how much information their brains soak up.

Anyway, my classses in primary were a much different experience (i.e. they can usually - keyword "usually" - speak full sentences in English and they're often much bigger pains in the butts). I had a little bit of different things, science taught in English (a serious nightmare), English grammar classes (where I was actually for once the teacher's assistant, what I'm actually supposed to be), and English theater workshops (a mix of fun and nightmare). I'll admit that even though the primary classes could be miserable, mainly because of the students' awful behavior, it was generally nice to have a mix of older kids with the little preschoolers.

I'm going to leave commenting on the Spanish education system, the program that I'm a part of in order to teach here, and the differences between education here and in the US until another time...probably once I've finished this school year because, well, I want to keep my job (if you catch my drift). But I will say, it has been a very interesting experience...

Oh, and the above video is the five-year-olds at their preschool graduation, singing a song in English (not taught to them by me). The quality isn't great, and I didn't realize that I was NOT recording the song until halfway through (oops), hence why it just starts in the middle of a line. But I think it's cute and they did a great job singing it - it's a challenging song for their age/English level!

Hungary (and a little bit of Slovakia!)

I can honestly say that before I visited Hungary I really knew nothing about the country. I'd seen amazing pictures of Budapest and heard great things as well, but in terms of central (and eastern) Europe, my knowledge is basically non-existant. (Is there a reason why in high school I had three years filled with the pilgrims, the American Revolution, and the US Civil War, and yet we never got past WWI - during which, by the way, I still have no idea what happened? Something about some archduke being assassinated? Anyway, my point is that my European history is extremely limited and I think the only things I know about communist/Soviet occupied Europe I've learned by visiting formerly occupied countries...yes, America, there are other countries in the world besides you.) Anyway, tangent aside, I learned a lot about Hungary and even central Europe just in the five days we were there. And the country (and city of Budapest) is really beautiful.

View of Pest across the Danube from the Fisherman's Bastion in Buda.

What else can I say about Hungary? Well, for one thing I have two pieces of advice: you should absolutely go, but you should absolutely not go in July or August, unless you're a masochistic person who enjoys high temperatures and intense humidity. Hungary seems to be doing an okay job, economically speaking, but it's still not western Europe. This obviously means a lot of things, but what I'm trying to say is that air conditioning is scarce, and well-functioning AC is even scarcer. We had an extremely miserable first night's sleep until we discovered that - thank God - the window actually DID open. We also had a pretty brutal train ride to a little town called Visegrad. But enough about that.

I'm not going to give you a detailed account of what we did during our trip because, well, I think that's pretty boring. And my pictures will give you a better idea of that anyway. What I will tell you is that aside from a few days in Budapest, we also took day (or half-day) trips to the little towns of Visegrad, Szentendre, and also the larger city of Bratislava, the capital of neighboring Slovakia. We loved Budapest and Bratislava. The other Hungarian towns were nice and pretty but nothing too spectacular.

Bratislava - isn't it pretty?!

The last thing I'll tell you about Budapest is that one of the best things I did (I use the word "best" instead of "favorite" intentionally, and you'll understand why) was a relatively new museum called the House of Terror. I know what you're thinking, I was too - sounds like some cheesy horror museum or haunted house tourist trap. Well, horror, yes; cheesy, not quite. The name is, unfortunately, very fitting. Basically, the museum covers the Nazi Germany and Soviet occupations of Hungary during the 20th century. Let me tell you - this country had it rough. They had a tough time recovering after the first World War (during which they lost 70%

House of Terror

of the country's territory) and as a result, had a difficult time fighting off Nazi Germany and not just one, but two periods of Soviet occupation (Hungary was never a Soviet state but they had a communist government both before and after WWII). So anyway, the building in which the museum is housed was actually where both the Gestapo and the communist government had their headquarters. Particularly during Soviet occupation, it was no secret that torture, imprisonment, and executions were going on in the foreboding, gray, Soviet cement block-like building. Thus its nickname.

So there's my Budapest trip in a nutshell (maybe...I'm not very good at keeping things short). Great trip, great food, and beautiful city(ies). Just oh so hot and sticky.

Spanish bureaucracy (and why it makes me wonder sometimes why I'm still here)

I'm going to tell you a little story about one of the most BS things about living in Spain as a foreigner. But first I have to explain a little bit about the process of obtaining the documents to live here legally. So, Americans coming to study in Spain on a student visa for more than 180 days have to apply for a residency card. The process is a pain in the butt, but if you have all of the right documents, you usually have no (major) problems getting your card. Renewing the card is a bigger issue. Again, it's not that it's difficult to renew your residency card, but the process can be frustrating and it takes forever.

Let me give you a brief overview of the first time I renewed my card. Last year (2011), the process basically went like this: call the Extranjería (immigration office) 60 days before your card is due to expire and they give you a date for an appointment to submit renewal documents. My card was going to expire August 23rd, so I called June 23rd. I was given an appointment for September 1st. Yes, you read that correctly - the appointment was for after the card was going to expire. Unbelievable. No worries, though, this is totally normal (for Spain).

On September 1st, I submitted all of my documents and was told that I would receive a letter in the mail telling me when my new card would be ready for pick-up. Approximately three to four months. Okay...

So December (three months), rolls by, January, February...no sign of any sort from the Extranjería. Finally March hit and at this point I'd been living in Spain without a valid residency card for literally half a year. By the time I was going to receive the new card it would be time to renew it again for the next year! But anyway, the company I work for told me to just go to the office in person to see if the card was ready, because likely, it was and I was just never going to receive that damn letter.

So I went sometime in mid-March to look into the whereabouts of my MIA residency card, and low and behold, it was sitting right there in the office. (Who knows how long it had been sitting there; I think I'd rather not know.) Here's the kicker though - in order to be handed my card, I had to pay a fee of 16 euros. This is on top of the 20 or so euros I'd already paid at my renewal appointment. My card was basically being held ransom! Spain: 1, Sarah: 0.

Long story short, I got my card. Three months later (June of this year) I had to make an appointment to renew it again. The process has changed a bit this year, so we'll see how long it is before I get my new card this time around.

Now, here comes the major BS part. While you're living in Spain with an expired residency card, it's fine so long as you're in the renewal process and have proof that you've made the appointment to renew it. However, this technically prohibits you from leaving the country. So essentially you're held hostage in Spain because the government is as slow as molasses. Why don't you guys go take another siesta or two. You can get around this, however, by applying for an autorización de regreso ("return authorization").

So, another day that I had to get permission to leave work in the morning to go to the immigration office way out in el culo del mundo (the middle of nowhere) so that I could go home last December for Christmas. Another ten euros that I had to shell out just for a particularly ghetto-looking piece of paper that says that I am allowed to leave Spain once and return once (valid only for 90 days from the date of issue!). This is the part that irks me the most - I have to pay the Spanish government for permission to leave the country because they are incapable of processing a cheap little plastic card that says I live here legally in a timely fashion. Seriously, the epitome of the term "bullshit." Spain: 2, Sarah: 0.

That was last Christmas. This summer (actually, tomorrow) I am traveling for two weeks in Sweden, Estonia, and Latvia (I know, bizarre choices) and I moronically failed to notice that when I booked my (non-refundable, of course) plane ticket back into Spain from Estonia, I did so for August 24th. Literally one day after the expiration date of my card. Faaaan-freaking-tastic. Originally I was going to just risk it - I'll being flying within the Schengen area, which means I won't be going through customs anywhere, and therefore no one should be checking my visa. When I went to Portugal last December I was never asked for my visa or any sort of documentation other than my passport.

But then, on two separate occasions already this summer - going to Hungary from Madrid and returning to Madrid from Poland, the obnoxiously irritating Ryanair check-in desk attendants asked me if I have a visa. The guy in Poland had a field day scrutinizing my passport before he asked me about my visa, and then had the gall to ask me if I had noticed its upcoming expiration date. So I guess my frustration in this case is not just with Spanish bureaucracy, but also with the pesky little Ryanair workers (who I only imagine get some sort of bonus every time they find an illegal American in Europe, as if they're bounty hunters or something).

But in all seriousness- are airline attendants even legally allowed to request your visa? It makes sense to me that they should make sure your passport is up-to-date, but shouldn't checking visas be the job of immigration or customs officials?

And even so, how is it even their business if I live legally in Spain? Isn't that for Spanish immigration officers to keep tabs on? Why do other European countries even care how long I've been in Spain? I'm an American with a US passport - I'm clearly not trying to take up residence in Poland, for example.

So anyway, I spent yesterday (Sunday) hunting down a place where I could print and make photocopies of documents in order to apply for an autorización de regreso today (Monday). Of course, being a Sunday in August made things particularly infuriating because practically nothing is open on Sundays and the places that are seem to all be on vacation for the month of August (financial crisis? huh? no money? let's go on vacation for a month anyway!). On the verge of tears I finally found one place that was open (after about four or five that were not), and they even had a photocopier. I was so grateful I almost hugged the guy who works there.

End of story, I went this morning to request the aforementioned BS document, forked over ten euros that I barely have to spare right now, and was given the paper with no problems (I had my doubts for a few reasons, but I won't go into that). The man helping me was also very nice, which is a refreshing change from the series of bitter and rude employees in practically any form of customer service in Spain. Spain: 3, Sarah: maybe 1/2.

So tomorrow I'm off to Stockholm, sola. Some quality alone time with yours truly. I would be willing to bet a good chunk of change that I won't even need to present my autorización de regreso form. But if so, I'll be fighting those petty little Ryanair employees to the death over my legal residency, rest assured.

Buen verano a todos! (Enjoy the rest of the summer!)