ROSA ISABEL GIMÉNEZ VELANDO
MY JOURNAL
UNITED KINGDOM – BRIGHTON AND HOVE –
Hi there!!
I’m Rosa, I work in CRA Los Almendros, Carcelén (Albacete).
Last July I attended to a course in “The English Language Centre” (Brighton). The course was practical and pretty interesting. It included language, methodology and cultural aspects. I had lessons of 45 min from Monday to Friday, which took place between 9:00 and 15:00. In the afternoons, we had the chance to join the social programme offered by the school.
It has been an amazing experience, not only because of the course, but also for having the opportunity of living in the country for two weeks. It has been really useful to refresh my English in a real context, get used to the English life- style, learn methodologies and strategies to be carried out in my classes, share opinions, experiences and activities with peers from all around the world.
Only some pictures are attached, but I received many printed documents from the school as well. “Padlet” was used during the course.
SUNDAY 15TH JULY
I arrived to the Gatwick Airport, so I had a 30 minutes journey to Hove Station. When I arrived there, I first searched for the address where I had booked my accommodation. It turned out to be a nice but small apartment in a very quiet residential street.
Once I had the chance to unpack and enjoy a little rest there, I went out for a walk. I couldn´t wait to discover about my new town!. I walked around the neighborhood, kept on walking further and further until I came across with my first discovery: Both, Brighton and Hove are the same city! It could be said that mine was, so far, just a brief exploration around Brighton and Hove. I had my first and delicious fish&chips =).
One of the biggest differences between Spain and England is definitely food, in terms of nourishment and also hour habits. I realized for the first time about the huge amount of seagulls in the city.
I went to the Lanes street market, walked along the beach and the Brighton pier, visited the amazing Royal Pavilion and its gardens and had a ride in the British Airways i360 tour, where a wonderful overview of the city can be enjoyed.
I visited the BOAT (Brighton open air theatre), where an 80’s music concert was being carried out. The name of the band was “Decadance”, which seemed funny to me. It was a midday concert, so umbrellas and sun cream were provided. Concerts like this one are often celebrated at night in Spain. Afterwards, I went to a typical pub in order to watch the FIFA world cup final (Croatia – France).
Sadly, England couldn´t finally make it and bring home the Trophy. But neither my national team was able to do it! We´ll both have better luck next time!
MONDAY 16TH JULY.
FIRST DAY AT THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE CENTRE.
The ELC is located in Palmeira Mansions, an amazing and lovely Victorian house that preserves all the structure and many beautiful details inside. It has an incredibly important cultural heritage , being a grade 2 listed building with marble walls and a recently restored stained glass windows. It’s an astonishing place.
In the morning, we had the welcome and presentation, a course overview, some cross grouping activities (with teachers attending to other courses) and networking.
My group leader was Jess Finn, although other teachers lead some of our lessons as well. The LMC group was really international, made up by 9 teachers from countries all over the world, including Austria, Poland, Germany, Switzerland, Argentina, Russia or Sweden.
In the afternoon, I went to the Komedia theatre where I attended to the performances of two brilliant stand-up comedians. It was quite difficult for me to understand everything by that time. I guess I was still getting used to living in English! I tried my best and I honestly think I caught the most part of the show.
TUESDAY 17TH JULY
We worked on the lexical approach and speaking activities for the classroom in the morning. As previously said, all the course activities were quite practical, so we carried out and studied every planned content of the session, we thought about alternatives, positive and negative aspects of them, value, importance… etc. We started preparing our SPRE project, setting our situation and puzzle.
The afternoon was quite relaxed. I finished preparing the first stages of my SPRE, and then I had dinner at a typical pub which was already becoming one of my favourites.
WEDNESDAY 18TH JULY
In the morning, we dealt with Education in the UK, comparing with our educational systems. Jess, brought us some real documents that her son received along the term at school. It was really enriching. We had lessons about learner generated visuals and drama in the classroom. As usual, the lessons were interesting and funny.
I was getting more and more involved in the city life. And I had the feeling that an important part of it, specially when it has to do with English culture, is football! So in the afternoon I made a visit to the BHAFC (Brighton and Hove Albion Football club) stadium in order to see it. Its modernity, size and distribution were quite surprising. I had to take a bus because it’s a bit far from the city. Now I’m a Seagulls supporter from Spain! Seagulls are an important part of the city, so they are represented in the town´s club too.
THURSDAY 19TH JULY
We had a session called “What is grammar?” We worked on the positive aspects about writing activities. We discussed about games and their importance in the classroom, shared some of them and played!!
I spent the afternoon walking around the city and the beach.
FRIDAY 20TH JULY
We worked on the Evidence Based Teaching (EBT) for the whole morning. We worked in the sessions first as if we were the students and then also from the teacher´s point of view. It was a History lesson about the Norman invasion. Finally we talked about the EBT itself. I had never heard about it and I think it’s an effective and highly valuable tool in order to prepare our lessons and to develop a successful learning-teaching process.
To conclude the session we had a talk and found out some information related to some icons of Englishness in order to make some posters about them.
SATURDAY 21ST JULY
I travelled to London in the morning, from Hove Station to London Victoria. As it wasn’t my first time in the city and it was a one day journey, I only passed through the main monuments (Big Ben was covered!!) I walked along the streets, I went to Covent Garden, I had lunch in Soho and I went to a musical in the West End (Aladdin). It was such a great experience!! I have never been in a musical in London, so it was really exciting.
SUNDAY 22ND JULY
On Sunday I travelled by bus to Stonehenge. It was a busy day there, so it was plenty of people everywhere. I was in fact told by our tour guide that it might probably had been the busiest day during the whole summer. Regarding the monument itself, it is an impressive place, where you can see a real wonder of the world and the best known prehistoric monument in Europe. I walked around this amazing place with the guide and finally, I also took a glance to the visitors centre exhibition.
Afterwards, we continued our journey by visiting the lovely City of Bath (World heritage site since 1987). This beautiful town receives its name from the Roman Baths built there in the ancient times. I visited the city with a guided group, so it was really interesting. We walked around the city and the guide brought us to the main spots there. Explanations and anecdotes were provided.
MONDAY 23RD JULY
During the morning sessions, we dealt with English in the media, educational technology, and a really interesting issue called “How cool is your English?”, where we talked about new words that are used nowadays in the UK, new meanings to words already used, and language development according to technology and people, since language changes as society does. I had a relaxed afternoon walking down the lanes and the beach, as I was really tired due to the weekend excursions.
TUESDAY 24TH JULY
How to deal with global issues in English language teaching was discussed in the morning sessions. Next, we shared our experience using films and songs in the classroom, talked about advantages when using them to practice grammar, vocab and so on, different skills involved… We talked about resources and activities to be used in this kind of lessons.
When we finished the lessons, Martyn Ford offered an entertaining talk on “How to speak British”; it was so funny! Martyn Ford is a writer, illustrator and teacher. He is also the author of the popular “How to be British” series of books and postcards.
Then, I went to Marina, which is the port area, where I found many restaurants and shops.
WEDNESDAY 25TH JULY
During the morning sessions, we learnt, shared and discussed about creative approaches to grammar and vocabulary, the phonemic chart and pronunciation. Seven Sisters was my afternoon excursion! It is a series of surprising chalk cliffs situated right by the English Channel. They form part of the South Downs in East Sussex, between the towns of Seaford and Eastbourne in southern England. It’s an amazing place where you can spend the whole day. Many people go on a picnic there. I spent my afternoon walking, taking some time to relax and taking pictures.
THURSDAY 26TH JULY
On Thursday morning, we shared resources with our peers and teachers and prepared the response workshop and evaluation for the SPRE too. We had an emotional and fun leaving event in the English Language Centre. It was really funny! We sang and danced typical songs from our countries.
FRIDAY 27TH JULY
Friday was the last day in the school. We finished preparing our posters to be shown in the SPRE exhibition. In turns, everybody could see the other’s SPRE, whilst some questions were answered by the author.
Every group had lunch with their leader, after taking a picture with our teachers and certificates . We went to the “Hove place” pub with Jess, and we really enjoyed it. I spent the afternoon packing and preparing for leaving the apartment.
It was my last day in Hove… I travelled to the Gatwick airport to take a plane to go back to Spain. The end of the adventure had come.
