Hazel

Cefire 2017

Last night, as I sat down with a group of teachers, ready to listen to and discuss good listening techniques in the classroom, a soft voice next to me asked, “Hylo Hazel.Sut ydych chi, heddi?” What?? Julia speaks Welsh! This would be amazing if it were true but, as you´ve probably guessed, it was not. Julia then proceeded to tell me that the student teacher working at her school was Welsh and had taught her how to ask me, “Hello, Hazel. How are you today?” and that she had been practising it all day. I was very touched by Julia´s thoughfulness and effort to make me feel welcome. This one act of kindness summed up my whole experience of taking part in the CEFIRE English Teaching Course. Here we have shared our collective knowledge, experiences and good practice and have listened to excellent talks on various topics from listening, good pronunciation and adaptation of resources to name only a few, delivered so expertly by Oana.

In the second week, Oana divided us into groups in order to devise a scheme of work on a given topic relevant to our teaching range. As I´m interested in learning how Spanish schools teach English to 1st Primary, I volunteered to work with the teachers with experience of this age range.

We were given the task of devising listening, reading, grammar and speaking activities on the topic of “My Birthday” and what transpired in our group was amazing. Within 15 minutes, with Mapi, Julia, Ana and Belén firing on all cyliders with creative ideas, we had decided on our underlying theme and mode of attack! This week was our second meeting and our running order is decided upon and we’ve shared the tasks between us ready for a “show and tell” to each other tomorrow. I´m now looking forward to seeing the final product next week, which I´m sure will be wonderful. Sorted!