It's a Jungle Down There

 

This is an extract from Cucarachas or Cucuruchos: An English Teacher's Spanish Dilemma (2019) available from Amazon.

One of the year two teachers is away and I’m covering. Year two are six-year-olds - dangerous territory, as at this young age a year’s difference can mean a lot in terms of language, logic - and civilization. The end-of-year concert is looming on next week’s horizon like a long-planned (and long-dreaded) family get-together: will everyone get along and have a blissful afternoon? Or will Uncle Ted get drunk and have another row with Auntie Mabel?

              By way of preparation (for the concert) the teacher of the other year two class wants me to take a small group of girls from both classes to practise their ‘flower dance’. This is the long-straw option: she’s going to work with the majority of the children to invent a bumble bee dance. I’m much happier putting a dozen flower girls through their paces than I would be inventing a bumble bee dance - well, any dance for that matter. Also, the flower girls know their stuff, apparently, so I’m going to dress it up as them teaching me the dance.

              I head over to class with my bunch of flowers and I ask them to get into position. There’s a wee bit of ‘You must to be there,’ and ‘No, no, eees you must to be here!’ between a tulip and a daffodil but we get into a semblance of order without any punches being thrown or any petals scrunched. I hit the play button.

              ‘Each of us is a flower, growing in my garden, each of us is a flower, we need the sun and rain.’

              The only problem with my ‘garden’ is that I’ve got three or four flowers swaying in the opposite direction to the other eight or nine. It kind of leaves me paralysed, don’t miss the pun, not wanting to go the wrong way myself.

              ‘Do we all have to go the same way?’ I ask, having pressed the pause button - and carefully avoided using the word ‘sway’.

              ‘Yes!’ twelve flowers roar at me with that heavy dose of Spanish claro intonation which signifies that I’ve asked a particularly dumb question and shouldn’t really be trusted in the allotment.

              ‘Well, which way do we go first?’ I ask.

              ‘We go the left,’ says a tall, brown-haired girl, pointing to her right.

              ‘No, ees must go the right primero,’ says a small girl with blonde hair pulled into a tight pony-tail. She, of course, is pointing to her left.

              There’s always a problem with lefts and rights when concert time comes around. While you stand in front of the stage telling the children to go left - this will be the children’s right if they’re on stage and therefore facing you. Teachers quickly learn there are two ways to try to cope with this: you can point to your left but say ‘right’ to the children, or you can turn your back on them and point and say ‘left’. I’ve tried both options over the years - neither of them work. If you point left and say right, at least one clever clogs will tell you that you don’t know what you’re doing. The result will be mayhem. If you try option two, and turn your back on the children – the result will be mayhem. You really should know that by now.

              I don’t really want to re-choreograph the whole dance in case the other teacher has a very good reason for going to the right (or left) first, like not knocking some scenery (or younger children) off the stage when it comes to showtime and there’ll be more than a dozen of them up there. So, I ask for hands up for this direction (expertly avoiding confusing concepts like ‘left’ and ‘right’). Then, hands up for that direction. I’ve got a nine-to-three split for this direction first so we’re going to go with that. I mean this. I hit play again.

              ‘Each of us is a flower, growing in my garden, each of us is a flower, we need the sun and rain.’

              There’s a problem now with the ‘growing in my garden’ bit. There’s clearly some sort of a Hawaiian theme as half the class are doing that double-handed, sideways wavey sort of movement with wiggly hips - while most of the others are doing a kind of Jack-and-his-beanstalk climbing mime. You’ll forgive my lack of technical dance vocabulary, I really wouldn’t know an arabesque from a cabbage patch, so you’ll have to make do with my wiggly hips. A frail-looking daisy has wilted into a seated position with a scowl on her face. I stop the music again.

              ‘What’s the matter?’ I ask my sedentary bloom, feeling it best to get her back onto the trellis before deciding whether we’re going to Hawaii or up the beanstalk.

              ‘They do it bad!’ she sighs, waving a dismissive hand in the direction of my weed patch.

              ‘What? All of them?’ I respond. She shrugs, giving me hope that I might be able to pull the voting trick again.

              ‘You have de hairs in your nose,’ says the smallest girl in the room. She’s standing right in front of me and looking straight up so she’s obviously got a great view. Two not-quite-so-small girls scuttle over to check out this wonder of the natural world. They nod at each other, like the small girl has predicted showers later and they’ve just looked out of the window and spotted dark clouds rolling in.

              I mine years of teacher training and decades of experience for a reply that will floor this little minx. ‘It’s normal,’ I finally say. ‘Lots of adults have hairs up their noses.’

              ‘My mum, she have de hairs in here!’ says small girl, lifting one arm high and pointing at her armpit. ‘She cut them off!’ The three of them nod sagely at the odd ways of the adult world.

              ‘Shall we try the dance again?’ I blurt, afraid that we might begin a tour of the hairy parts of the human body if I don’t start doing my job by telling them what to do. We agree that we’ll do the Hawaiian swing the first time through then switch to the beanstalk for the second chorus. (This dance terminology isn’t so difficult after all.)

              We make it through the chorus and move on to the next bit.

              Sun, shine your warmth on me; moon, cool me with your night; wind, bring the gentle rain; earth, take my roots down deep.

              Doesn’t sound difficult, does it?

              The appearance of the sun demands that the flowers spread their petals wide over their heads then bring them down to their sides. (We’ll call that one the ‘rising sun’.) The only problem with this manoeuvre is that the classroom is a bit small for a dozen suns to rise simultaneously, so there are a number of bonked heads and bashed petals to deal with.

              ‘She hit to me!’ wails a small pansy with tears spurting into mid-air. It’s a trick I’ve never seen before and I’m a bit transfixed by the distance she’s able to achieve from a standing start. My shirt is already looking like it’s started raining despite twelve suns rising in front of me.

              ‘I’m sure it was an accident,’ I coo. ‘Shall I rub it better?’

              She nods and turns off the waterworks as I give her head a brief rub. ‘There. Better?’

She nods again. I really should’ve been a doctor - or, maybe the manager of a garden centre.

               Sun, shine your warmth on me; moon, cool me with your night...

              The appearance of the moon demands that the flowers sink gracefully to their knees while flapping their arms slowly, Hawaiian style. I can do the arms, I’m quite good actually, but the slow sinking to my knees ends in a sort of collapse as years of squash-playing take their toll.

              ‘No, no. You must to go down slowly, slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y!’ says a very solemn-looking girl, shaking her head and patting me on the shoulder. ‘You try again.’

              Two of them help me to my feet then stand back to watch my ‘graceful’ descent. It crosses my mind that I’ve lost control of this class. We were only meant to be pretending that I’m learning the dance, but these girls seem to have got it into their heads that I’m a bit of a ‘special needs’ case who requires lots of extra help. I’m beginning to fear that they might keep me in at dinner time.

              ‘No, no!’ the three of them chorus (rather unkindly, I feel).

              ‘Thees no ees very good. You must to go more slowly, s-l-o-w-l-y!’ says another girl who’s joined my group of personal trainers. ‘You do it again.’

              I haven’t the heart to refuse. They’re taking it all so seriously, like they really want me to succeed but think I’m a tap short of a full dance routine. I manage to pass my ‘sink gracefully to my knees’ exam at the third time of asking and pray quietly for the dinner bell, which is only 25 minutes away...

An extract from Cucarachas or Cucuruchos: An English Teacher's Spanish Dilemma. Free sample chapter available HERE

A Boy Called Goat...

 WE’VE DECIDED TO do the year 3 optional SATs. Or rather, management have decided that we’re going to do them. You might (if you’re not a teacher) want to know what SAT stands for: Standard Assessment Tasks. (‘Tests,’ if you speak English.) These ones are optional. That means you don’t have to do them.

By the time this book is published, they might not exist any more, as they’re pretty unpopular and controversial. Sensible people have worked it out and scrapped them. They don’t do them any more in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland. Only in England. (Oh, and Spain.)

Our decision to do them doesn’t seem the smartest idea in the world. For a start, on average, our children are younger than English children. In England, you go into year 3, for example, if you are seven years old sometime between September 1st and August 31st the following year. Here, the dates are January 1st to December 31st. That makes a big difference. It means a third of my year 3 class would be in year 2 in the UK. Also, the third of my children who should be the oldest in my year 3 class are actually in year 4. And sitting the (not very) optional year 4 SAT. And before you say, ‘but it’s only a test,’ I’ll tell you that the ‘Teacher’s Guide’ for the English optional tests in year 3 (not maths or science, just English) runs to 81 pages. But not only is the test not designed for a third of the children we’re giving it to because they’re too young, the test isn’t designed for any of the children we’re giving it to because they’re Spanish.

I’ve already done reading tests with my class. I do one every term, and it takes about 30 minutes. The children quite enjoy it. It’s not complicated. They get a four page booklet with a load of little questions in it. The questions on the first page each show a picture followed by five words. The children have to tick the word that they think goes with the picture. So one picture might be of a tree and the five words might be, cat, door, tree, camel, space shuttle.

The next three pages have sentences instead of pictures. So, the sentence might say, ‘I went to the ____ to buy some suits,’ and the words offered might be, watch, shop, ball, bicycle, asteroid belt. So simple, a child could do it… Even a Spanish child has a fighting chance.

I remember having a new boy join my class a few years ago back in Blighty. I decided to hit him with the reading test to get a handle on his ability. I also thought I’d do a bit of an informal assessment of his ‘speaking and listening’ at the same time, so I got him to talk me through what he was doing.

I explained the game (that’s what I like to call tests), and he set to.

‘Tree,’ he said, looking at the first picture. ‘That’s a tree.’

‘You sure?’ I asked, informally assessing for a sense-of-humour at the same time.

He looked at me as if he thought I was the sort of man his parents had warned him not to speak to. ‘Yeah! Tree!’

‘Can you find the word?’ I said, pointing to the choices.

He scanned them carefully, saying the words quietly to himself. ‘Cat, door, tree, tree! That’s it. Tree!’

‘Do you want to check the other words, in case there’s a better one?’ I suggest, helpfully. Well, you never know. He glanced at the other words, ‘camel,’ and ‘space shuttle’, gave me a withering look, and ticked ‘tree,’ with a flourish. The second picture was a house. The words offered were, book, dog, ladder, house, nuclear submarine. He didn’t hesitate. ‘House,’ he said, ticking with a dismissive flick.

He moved on apace. He was enjoying this and he was especially enjoying showing the crazy guy how smart he was. The next picture was of a letter. You could tell it’d just been posted because you could see the bottom of the door and the letterbox and two of those panels that proper doors have. There was no messing about here. This was a proper door and inside, lying on the mat, was a letter. You could even see the little stamp and a few scribbled squiggles for an address. The words offered were, letter, cup, shoe, finger, electron microscope. He didn’t even look at the words; he looked at the picture, looked at me and then without a hint that he was trying to be funny or cheeky, he said (with a resigned shake of his head), ‘It’s another bloody bill!’

That’s the way to do a reading test. Not like this one. There’s no four-page booklet to fill in here; we’ve got a seven page reading booklet, a seven-page text, a 14-page answer booklet; five pages of instructions on how to administer the tests as well as 22 (yes, 22) pages of guidance for marking. At the back of the Teacher’s Guide, there are five more pages of statistics showing you how to turn marks into levels, and how to get and what to do with age standardised scores. This had better be one hell of a good reading test.

We start with the reading booklet. I skim through the instructions in the Teacher’s Guide. I can’t take them too seriously, for two reasons. Firstly, because the test isn’t designed for children like the ones I’ve got; and secondly because I don’t really need to be told to give out the reading booklets and ask the children to open the first page.

I tell them they can start. The reading booklet is called, The Hunt for the Secret Treasure.

There are hands waving like they never expect to see me again. I pick Macarena.

‘What ees hooont?’ she asks hesitantly, uncertain how to pronounce ‘Hunt’.

‘Now I can’t tell you that, can I Mac? If I tell you what it says then I’m doing the reading test, aren’t I? And I’m much too big to be doing a reading test.’

She’s not entirely satisfied with this but she smiles and looks back at the cover. Her hand shoots straight back up into the air.

‘Yes, Mac?’ I say. I can see what’s coming.

‘What ees sec ret?’ She pronounces it like it’s two separate words, ‘sec’ and ‘ret’. I feel sorry for her. She’s a bright little girl who only wants to do as she’s told and I’ve given her something that’s going to be very tough. ‘Do you think I’m allowed to read it for you?’ I ask, as kindly as I can.

She shakes her head, smiling a little nervously. Half the class have hands up.

‘Vicente?’ I pick at random.

‘What ees… treh-ah-soo-reh?’

We’re not getting very far. ‘The hooont for the sec-ret treh-ah-soo-reh.’ I’m tempted to cut their losses. I steal another look at the guidance for English as a second language. I see that I can use gestures or drawings to help. I have a vision of me hunting around the class for a lost rubber but I know that they’ll only start trying to help me find it. I give Vicente as kindly a brush-off as I can and search for someone who’s made it past the front cover. Pablo the First is waving like his lifeboat’s sprung a leak.

‘Yes, Pablo.’

‘She’s ees called Cabra?’

It’s one of those moments when you don’t know whether they’ve said one word or six, in Greek or in Russian. ‘Can you repeat that, please, Pablo? There’s a lot of noise in here.’

‘Thees boy. She’s ees called Cabra?’

There’s a lot of nodding around the class. Jorge is giggling furiously and pointing at the picture inside. I look over his shoulder and see the issue immediately.

This had never caused much of a problem back at home. I mean, there was a bit of silliness but they soon got over it (after I yelled at them). The two boys in the book are called Jackson and (I promise, this is straight from the Government’s mouth) Goat. Yes, Goat. A boy called Goat. G-O-A-T. Goat. Maybe it’s short for something?

The giggling around the class is now close to pandemic. They’ll know the word because they do farm animals in infants. The surprising thing is that I know that goat in Spanish is cabra (it must be something to do with the cheese we like so much) so it clicks what Pablo is asking.

‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘His name is Goat.’

Uproar. I can’t blame them. A boy called Goat, how daft can you get? These English! What a bunch of clowns they are! I try to calm them. I might as well ask them to make me a roast dinner. Pablo is the only one who can command their attention now. He’s a bright boy, a bit cheeky but I like him. He’s got a sense of humour which always wins me over and he’s using it now.

‘You write eet!’ he says accusingly, pointing at where Goat’s name is written next to his picture, in a sort of childish scrawl so it looks for all the world like I’ve written it on the page.

‘No…’ I start. But they’re all pointing at me now, shouting, ‘You write eet!’ and laughing uproariously. They’ve sussed my little joke. Aren’t I a hoot? English teacher always making the good jokes.

Except it isn’t a joke at all.

‘No, I didn’t!’ I insist. ‘Look!’ I read the first line of the story for them. ‘”My name is Jackson, and my best friend is called Goat.” You see. His name is Goat.’

They’re confused now. While I could conceivably have graffitied Goat on every picture in every one of 26 books just for a little jape, I’m hardly likely to have rewritten the whole text.

‘He has goat!’ Carmen states. It’s not a question. It’s a sort of Manuel assertion. Plausible, but wrong.

‘No, his name is Goat,’ I say.

A third of the class (probably the ones who should be in year 2) are giggling merrily. Another third (including Carmen and Mac) are looking worried. They’re desperately trying to understand if this is a joke or if the boy owns a goat. They just can’t accept that he might be called Goat. The final third are losing interest. I can see the hairdressing school starting up again in the back row.

Pablo has his hand up again. He also has his cheeky grin on, which means he’s thought of something amusing to say. I could do with a break. We all could. ‘Yes, Pablo?’

‘There menee boys them ees called cabra, en Inglaterra?’

I shake my head. I’m pretty sure that Jackson’s friend is on his own. I can sense one of Pablo’s punch lines lurking around the corner. Everyone is listening.

He’s starting to giggle now. He’s got a punch line, I’m sure. He’s just not sure if he dares and uncertain if he’ll be able. He finally gathers his wits and manages to spit it out.

‘Your name eees cabra?’

This is enough to pop the cork. There are children lying on the floor now, crying with mirth. Lledó and Rocío are quite literally dancing with glee. I can see that Pablo asking the teacher if his name is ‘Goat’ is going to go down in the annals of their education.

And I think, ‘Well done, Pablo!’ This lesson was going nowhere and you’ve rescued it. ‘Well done, Pablo… And well done, Goat!’

*

This is an extract from Zen Kyu Maestro: An English Teacher's Spanish Adventure, the diary of my year teaching Spanish junior children, in English, in Spain. What could possibly go wrong...?

“The detailed way Dean has described the atmosphere of this little city in Spain is magnificent.” Salford University, The Salfordian.

Click HERE for free sample chapters:

How to Keep Them Quiet...? Guaranteed.

 This is an extract from Cucarachas or Cucuruchos: An English Teacher's Spanish Dilemma (2019) available from Amazon.

Finally, finally, finally (or, ¡por fin! as a Spaniard would say) I’ve found the Holy Grail: a fool-proof way of keeping my class quiet. And I do mean, absolutely silent. Why didn’t I think of this before? Why didn’t anybody tell me? It will certainly go in my book: Perfect Primary Practice. It’s going to be an international bestseller (this silencing trick should certainly work on children of any nationality). I could become an advisor for Ofsted – or whatever they’re called now-a-days. The Gestapo? I don’t know.

So, What’s the secret? I hear you cry, especially if you’re a primary-school teacher and it’s nearing the end of the summer term and you’ve got another riot brewing. Well, the secret is Blu-Tack, or tacko-blanco as we call it around here because it’s white. Here’s what to do: at the end of term when it’s time to clear the walls of all your timetables; dinner menus; bus-lists; after-school-club lists; pictures, poems or stories drawn or written by the children; and all the other detritus that you’ve stuck up over the last year – just pull them all down. It’ll take you three minutes. What about all the stray blobs of Blu-Tack and torn corners of damp pages? You can’t leave them all up there! Course you can’t. But you do. And you watch.

Before long a child at your desk (it’s María) will start pulling at a stray blob while they’re telling you about their new rabbit. They won’t be alone for long, and poor old new rabbit won’t be the focus of their concentration for long either. María will be joined by Paco and Rodri. Paco and Rodri will be joined by Paula and Laura; and Luís and – and before you know what’s happened the whole class will be engrossed in the most compulsive pass-time since the Rubik Cube took over the world.

I stand and stare (and listen) in amazement as they silently pluck and pull at the minutest pieces of tacko-blanco. They seem hypnotised by the task, showing (not telling) showing each other how it comes off more easily if you use one piece of tacko-blanco in your fingers to capture the smears and blobs on the walls. They work like very-hungry caterpillars cropping the sticky goo until there’s not a micron left. Then they turn and stare at me, looking slightly stunned that half-an-hour has disappeared without any of them uttering a sound. They look almost bereft, as if they have no idea how anything will ever capture their minds so fully ever again…

Tacko-blanco: it has magic powers.

If you like the blog, why not read the eBooks? Zen Kyu Maestro: An English Teacher's Spanish Adventure, (2013 Monday Books) available from Amazon. 

And the sequel: Cucuruchos or Cucurachas? An English Teacher's Spanish Dilemma, 2019 eBook or paperback from Amazon.

Two years in the life of an English teacher, teaching a class of lively Spanish seven-year-olds, in English, in Spain.

What could possibly go wrong?

“The detailed way Dean has described the atmosphere of this little city in Spain is magnificent.” Salford University, The Salfordian.

Click HERE for free sample chapters:

The Perils of the Infant Playground...

This is an extract from 'Cucarachas or Cucuruchos: An English Teacher's Spanish Dilemma', a year-in-my-life teaching Spanish primary children, in English, in Spain. What could possibly go wrong? You'll find another free sample on Amazon.

An infant teacher’s away today so I’m doing her playtime duty. I usually do duty in the ‘junior’ playground where footballs and skipping ropes dominate, although there are often also a fair number of football cards being swapped, dolls being dressed and undressed again, tops spun and cuddly toys dismembered. I know the score in the junior playground – well, as long as Toni hasn’t lost another football.

The infant playground is a whole new dimension. Here, I’m less at ease. Well, to be honest, I’ve not much idea what’s going on. Swarms of ridiculously small children bumble around, bumping into each other, like wind-up toys with pieces of their mechanisms missing. Every so often a bumbling child will collapse onto the tarmac as the wiring between brain and legs gets mangled somewhere near their belly-button. It’s my ‘duty’ to help, as Miss Dolly (who’s on duty with me) has gone to ‘powder her nose’…

‘Are you OK?’ I try gamely.

‘WAAAAAAAAHHHHH.’

‘Shall we get you up and go and see Miss María?’

‘WAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!’

A large crowd of small spectators gathers. ‘Do you know who this is?’ I ask the spectators. I might as well ask the trees. The children look at me like I’m an exhibit in the London Dungeon: they’re hugely interested but slightly frightened. I think it’s ‘cos I’m a ‘man’. They don’t get many men around here. I might not come back in a hurry.

The wailing subsides and damaged child sits up. There’s no blood, but a fair bit of snot.

‘Go to the toilet and bring me some tissue,’ I order no one in particular. They ignore me. Actually, one of them is stroking my head. I have quite a tight crop so I guess it might feel like a hedgehog. I turn to face the child who’s stroking me. It’s a boy. He smiles although he doesn’t have many teeth. He looks at me like I am a hedgehog, or any other dumb animal who’ll let you stroke them for as long as you like. He cocks his head to one side like he’s pitying my inability to sort things out. I smile back at him. Child on floor suddenly gets up and staggers away across the playground into the melee. He’s like a mini-Frankenstein fresh off the operating table stumbling blindly into everything in his meandering path. Now I’m left on the ground with a crowd of ten or fifteen children staring at me. Two of them are now stroking my head. One of them asks me a question. I can tell it’s a question from the intonation and the fact that they’re pointing at my head. The language they’re using, however, is a mystery. A small girl with curly hair has all her fingers in her mouth, like she thinks she’s sucking a giant lolly; I hope she’s not planning on stroking my head in the near future.

Suddenly two or three start to point. And laugh. Before I can say, ‘What the hell are you laughing at?’ they’ve lost all interest in me and are starting to walk behind me. I turn around and see my career disappear.

Behind me is the entrance to the school. It’s sealed by a metal-barred gate, about four-metres wide and two-metres high. Whenever someone wants to enter the school they buzz through to the office who’ll open the gate. The gate is opening now, sliding silently to the left, as a delivery truck waits outside with hazards flashing and engine rumbling. My problem is that six or seven children have climbed onto the gate and are enjoying a slow ride – towards a quite nasty-looking mechanism which includes some pretty large metal cogs and gears. It’s a bit like a James Bond film where James Bond is tied to a board which is moving towards a circular saw spinning at great speed. The children who have been watching (and stroking) me are now pelting towards the gate to join in the relatively-low jinks. Bloody hell!

‘Get off that gate!’ I yell, wondering if any of them are capable of such a feat without risking dislocated joints or broken bones. The gate isn’t moving that quickly but, as I’ve already seen, these kids can fall over if a cloud passes overhead. ‘Get off!’ I yell again, to equal effect (none). I rush over to the site of international incident involving possible death or maiming of dozens of small children under the care of J.J.Dean, and start plucking children off the gate from the side nearest the cogs and gears. While I’m doing this I shout at the other children who are approaching me on the gate as it continues it’s journey. The children are having a wonderful time, smiling and screaming back at me; they must think I’m just joining in the ballyhoo. One boy has a particularly tight grip on the bars. I have to peel his fingers off before setting him down on the ground and reaching for the next laughing child who is inches from death but doesn’t give a monkey’s. Within seconds there’s another boy with an equally strong grip – until I notice that it’s the same boy who’s just found another space on the gate and has jumped back on.

‘Again!’ he shouts, nodding towards his fingers which are turning white with the effort.

I’m finally saved when the gate stops, fully open. I breathe a long sigh before noticing my next problem. Luckily, the driver isn’t planning to drive his truck into the playground (I wouldn’t have bet against it), but what he is going to do is carry his packet to the office while the office staff leave the gate open until he returns. I stand in the middle of the entrance facing into the playground. A dozen children, twenty now, maybe thirty, line up facing me, staring beyond me into the orange groves on the other side of the road. I honestly can’t see what they’re staring at, they come in and out of this gate every day, it’s not like I’ve opened Narnia’s wardrobe for them to look into.

A girl points. I look around. There’s a dog.

Wild dogs – well, OK, strays – are quite common around here. This one is a brown 57 who doesn’t look dangerous. No, it’s worse. Much worse. He looks playful. His head is cocked to one side, a bit like the little boy who was stroking me five minutes ago when my problems couldn’t possibly get any worse. The dog takes a tentative step towards me. Oh god!

‘Get away!’ I say, ridiculously in English. ‘¡Vete!’ I try, which I’m pretty sure means get outa here you mangy mongrel. He prances towards me like I want him to play. ‘Goo on! Get ouda here!’ He jinks past me and is in.

Utter bedlam. Complete chaos. Imagine aliens invade a busy IKEA firing lasers. Kids are screaming in all directions, bumping and bashing into the trees and each other, tripping over balls and ants. Within seconds there are half a dozen on the floor nursing cut knees and god-knows what else. I’m powerless to do anything except guard the entrance to make sure none of them run out onto the road. Where the hell is Miss Dolly?

I spot the van driver coming back across the playground looking bemused at the carnage that is underway.

‘Perro!’ (dog) I say as he passes me, like this will explain everything. He raises his head in an ‘Oh, right,’ sort of expression. Then he puts his fingers in his mouth and whistles the loudest whistle I’ve ever heard. The dog appears from the mayhem and pelts towards him provoking another epidemic of tripping and bumping into each other. Driver gives me a little salute as he climbs into his cab. The gate starts to close.

Dolly saunters out as the bell goes and the gate clicks shut. She’s not exactly hurrying to begin with but her pace slows as she takes in the battlefield. There are children hobbling towards her pointing at their grazed knees and elbows and wailing like zombies. She looks at me. Her look says I leave you alone for five minutes…

Next time they’re looking for some sucker to do duty in the infant playground? I’ve got a dentist’s appointment for root canal.

If you like the blog, why not read the eBooks? Zen Kyu Maestro: An English Teacher's Spanish Adventure, (Monday Books) available from Amazon. 

And the sequel: Cucuruchos or Cucurachas? An English Teacher's Spanish Dilemma, eBook or paperback from Amazon.

Two years in the life of an English teacher, teaching a class of lively Spanish seven-year-olds, in English, in Spain.

What could possibly go wrong?

“The detailed way Dean has described the atmosphere of this little city in Spain is magnificent.” Salford University, The Salfordian.

Click below for free sample chapters:

Zen Kyu Maestro      Cucarachas 

eBook paperback

Yo Me Vacuno Seguro

You might find these three health education videos (from the Spanish Ministerio de Sanidad) useful for your students to translate:

Vera Enfermera

Juan Jubilado

Sonía Viróloga

If you like the blog, why not read the eBooks? Zen Kyu Maestro: An English Teacher's Spanish Adventure, (Monday Books) available from Amazon. 

And the sequel: Cucuruchos or Cucurachas? An English Teacher's Spanish Dilemma, eBook or paperback from Amazon.

Two years in the life of an English teacher, teaching a class of lively Spanish seven-year-olds, in English, in Spain.

What could possibly go wrong?

“The detailed way Dean has described the atmosphere of this little city in Spain is magnificent.” Salford University, The Salfordian.

Click below for free sample chapters:

  Zen Kyu Maestro      Cucarachas eBook paperback

What About All Those Long Holidays...?

An extract from Cucarachas or Cucuruchos: An English Teacher's Spanish Dilemma. Free sample chapter available HERE

TEACHING HAS ITS DOWNSIDES: one of the biggest always occurs when people find out what you do. Very few blurt it out immediately. They beat about the bush, asking you which subject you teach, or which age group; they tell stories about teachers they remember (for good or bad); they disclose their favourite subjects, the ones they were good at - and they often want you to know the ones they hated (it's usually PE); they complain about the amount of homework they got (too much) and the amount their own children get (not nearly enough).

But if you're a teacher, you know this is all preliminary. The hors d'oeuvre before the main course, the warm-up before the kick-off, the trailer before the feature. You know what they're going to say, at some point in the conversation (nearly always just after you've expressed a slight dissatisfaction about some educational issue or other): they give you a curt little nod of the head and a slightly accusatory fixing of the eyes before finally saying what they’ve wanted to say since they first discovered you were a teacher.

'Ah, but what about all those long holidays?'

They usually cross their arms at this point, like they’ve caught you telling porkies, or filching a couple of extra pencils from the stock cupboard. They might look sideways at another member of the group and nod another curt little nod like they’ve discovered a new prime number or solved the Irish backstop problem. They wait for me to put up a defence, to say that we need to recover from a full-on job, re-charge our batteries, prepare next year's materials. This is all true. But it's never the response I give.

Instead, I shake my head slightly wistfully, like I've just taken the first lick of a rum'n'raisin ice-cream, then I sigh a little sigh and quietly say, 'Yeah, fantastic. Thirteen weeks... How much holiday do you get...?'

They usually change the subject after that. 

Hey, Macarena - the Only Way to Teach the Times Tables...

 This is an extract from Zen Kyu Maestro: An English Teacher's Spanish Adventure, Monday Books, 2013, available from Amazon.

I CLICK THE ‘PLAY’ button on my laptop and my maths lesson is shattered by the chugging drumbeat and incessant bass line of an MP3 file I downloaded a couple of years previously. It’s a lesson idea I tried without a lot of success a few times back in the UK. I have an inkling that I might have more luck here.

A mass of heads jolt upright in startled disbelief as the tune gathers momentum. Pablo (the First) is the first to gather his wits. He joins in with the drumbeat using the flats of his palms on the desktop.

Carmen, Macarena and María Two are swaying rhythmically in their seats and (surprisingly quickly) synchronising a sort of hand-jive which takes them left, then right, then forwards, then backwards (but not yet out of their chairs).

I’m sitting at my desk pretending to be engrossed in the weekly spelling test results. The vast majority of the class are still looking stunned, thinking maybe that I’ve accidentally hit the wrong key on my laptop while simultaneously going deaf.

The vocal line starts, accompanied in perfect timing by at least a dozen of my more brazen flock, many of whom also send their chairs skittering backwards and jump to their feet, arms flapping in unison, hips swaying and gyrating in time.

My numeracy lesson begins. We’re (well, they’re) dancing the Macarena. Mac herself is blushing slightly as a dozen fingers point as they sing the chorus: ‘Hey, Macarena!’ But she’s safely flanked by Carmen and María Two so she dances on undeterred, her Latin blood obviously too strong to submit to any minor embarrassment.

I don’t really know the moves of the Macarena. It wasn’t my era, I was much more of a Le Freak man. But it’s not difficult to copy the movements ever so mutedly, as I continue to puzzle over a dozen permutations of the spelling of ‘wait’. There is near uproar. Pablo (the First) redoubles the enthusiasm of his hip-swinging, possibly afraid that I might be about to steal his limelight. This encourages most of the others to join in now, with the notable exception of Jake.

Jake is nailed rigidly to his seat with a look of horror chiselled into his features. He’s probably never seen a teacher dance the Macarena before, seated or otherwise. Not at the start of a maths lesson, anyway.

The song reaches its conclusion. Pandemonium. They’re hopping and squealing and hugging each other. ‘¡Otra! ¡Otra!’ (again, again) they chant.

‘If…’ I bellow, my hands up in the air, trying to regain the smallest modicum of control over this seething mass of junior excitement. ‘I’ll play it again if…’

‘Yes, yes, OK, vale!’

‘…if I can teach you some new words. Very easy words.’

‘Vale, OK!’

‘Right! Now watch and listen.’ I put my hands behind my ears and mime being unable to hear anything. This isn’t brilliant acting, the noise would drown out The Who jamming in the corner. Their furious shushing for quiet increases the volume by 10% and showers me with spittle, but they finally quieten. I grab a marker and scribble across the board, ‘3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, Hey MACARENA!’ Then I hit the play button and they burst into life.

I quickly carve my way through the disco and crouch down in front of Jake. It’s clear this is never going to be his style. He’s got about as much Latin blood in him as a Pukka Pie. I could just about imagine him singing and dancing if Sheffield Wednesday were to win the Champions League, but we’d have a long wait for that.

‘Listen, Jake,’ I plead. ‘I need someone who’s brilliant at maths!’ He’s not, but that’s not the point. ‘Could you point at the numbers on the board as I sing them? This lot are never going to get it right if you don’t help me.’ I flick my eyes towards his gyrating classmates with a look that says, ‘Look, they’re crazy. I can’t manage them on my own!’

‘I no ’av to dance?’ he checks.

‘No, you don’t have to dance,’ I reply.

‘Vale!’ he says, making disturbingly better progress with Spanish than with his English.

We just about make it into position as the vocals start and I boom out the three-times table, drowning out whatever it is the singers are singing and nailing each number to the incessant beat that the hand (and hip) movements follow. Jake tries gamely to keep up with his pointing duties but he’s only made it as far as ‘18’ as the rest of us are bellowing, ‘Hey Macarena!’ and doing that neat little two-footed jump with 90 degree turn included. Luckily, Pablo (the First) is a whizz at maths, so he picks it up instantaneously. Carmen, Mac and María Two are also pretty sharp cookies, so I’ve soon got the three-times table drowning out anyone who is still trying to sing the original lyrics.

We reach the end and again, I have to use every trick I know (short of a large tin of Quality Street) to get them off cloud nueve and ready to listen. I’ve got an unforeseen problem when we get to 21. All the numbers before 21 have one or two syllables, perfect to fit in with the beat of the song; 21, sadly, has three syllables and the ones who know their three times tables this far can’t say it quickly enough for them to be ready to say ‘24’ on time, which is another three syllables. By the time we get to 27, a four-syllable number, they are so far off the pace that it’s degenerating into a fine solo performance (guess who) until we reach the punch line of ‘Hey Macarena’ when everyone joins in lustily, including, I’ve noticed with some surprise and pleasure, Jake.

I pray that Ofsted aren’t in the vicinity, as I do a quick demonstration of how boys who were brought up in Cricklewood learned how to say ‘Twenny’, using only one syllable, instead of ‘twenty’, using two. Before long I’m chanting, ‘Twenny-one, twenny-four, twenny-sevn,’ at them and they’re parroting them back perfectly using only two syllables for each. I do a similar, slight adjustment to 33 and 36 and we’re off and running again.

They barely miss a beat, although I manage to crash a verse by putting my hands on my hips when I should have put them on my head, but they give me pitying, raised eyes and we regain our composure and carry on regardless.

‘¡Otra!’ they yell.

‘It’s too easy,’ I yell back as I rub the 6, 12 and 18 off the board.

‘Eeeeesss EEEEEEEEEEZZZZZZZZEEEEEE!’ they respond and we start again.

It’s playtime but they don’t want to go out. Even more remarkable, it’s snack-time and they’re not interested.

‘OK, OK,’ I concede, feigning great reluctance, ‘We’ll do it again tomorrow, but only if you can sing it without any numbers written on the board!’ I clean the board theatrically. ‘Tomorrow, no numbers on the board!’ I repeat, for those who seem slightly to have lost the drift.

Bedlam. ‘¡We do eeet!’ they yell, leaping up and down and hugging each other.

I escape to the staffroom for a saline drip and return to the class to find a huddle of a dozen or so around a table. I edge closer to wig what they’re saying.

Macarena (appropriately) seems to be in charge. ‘Next ees 24 but you say twenny-four, den ees 27 and you say twenny-sev’n quickly, quickly, quickly!’

Scraps of paper are being scribbled on hurriedly. I mosey across.

‘What’s all this?’ I bellow, nearly sending Carmen into Earth orbit. ‘That’s cheating! You can’t take it home and practise!’

‘You no say we no can!’ Pablo (the First) responds dismissively. If I’ve not said they no can then I guess I’ve got no argument. I bluster on a bit but they quickly see that I’m not really going to try to stop them.

Then I notice that even Jake has a damp scrap clutched in his palm. And as they head for the playground, humming the tune and swinging their hips, even he makes a rather stiff-limbed attempt to join in.

It might not always be clear what I’m teaching them, but it’s becoming obvious what they’re teaching me (and Jake). They have such energy, such enthusiasm, they love to be involved. Linda and I are seriously doubting whether we’ll stick it out here for two years, but at moments like this I feel sure I’ll want to. They might have been learning the three times table; I’ve been learning how to teach, all over again.

I have used this lesson before, but never with such a response. It makes me think that, as well as needing a lot of spoken work, these children really do respond well to a more active style of learning. A second year would be an opportunity for me to develop things more in that direction.

I hear the three-times-table Macarena starting up in the playground, so I look out of the window. A dozen of them are in two lines (Macarena out front) swinging and jerking in perfect time. Well, nearly perfect time. For in the back row, at the far end, moving a split second after all the rest, is Jake. (He even seems to be having a good stab at the words!)

A note on copyright. While I’d love to be able to pretend that the idea for the Macarena Times Tables lesson was mine, sadly I can’t. There are very few primary lessons with a copyright attached. I saw this lesson idea in the Times Educational Supplement around about 2004 as a suggestion sent in by someone, somewhere. Whoever you are, thank you – and if you haven’t already had the chance, I hope one day you’ll be able to teach it to a class of Spanish children. But a word of warning… Make sure you fully warm up the muscles around your hips before you start!

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