Fiona is an English teacher  who works at the British Council in Valencia, Spain. 

 

Now listen and answer the questions

 

 

 

Now listen to the above vocabulary in context:

 

https://soundcloud.com/mansioningles/vocab-in-context

 

Listen to the interview again and read the complete transcription.

 

Transcription

Where were you born?

I was born in Pembroke, which is a small town in west Wales which is famous for its castle, and because Henry VII was born there.

I’m not very sure of the geography of Wales, is that near Cardiff, near Swansea?

No, no, no west Wales, west, right at the end. Once you get there you can’t go any further, you fall into the sea. It’s opposite Ireland.

Ok, ok and what was it like growing up there?

Well, I didn’t really grow up there because my father was in the Royal Artillery, posted there at the time in a beautiful place called Manorbier..er..which had a camp, and the next posting was in Germany, in Paderborn but I don’t really remember that, I was very small.

So you moved from Wales to Germany…..

Yeah.

…with the family.

Yeah, and then we went to Malaysia and we were in a town called Sumi Besi, just outside Kuala Lumpur.

I never knew that.

Yeah, for two…two and a half years. My dad, interestingly, was sent off to Borneo, Sarawak…and he was training Malaysian troops in…in…in artillery because Malaysia had just become independent, and they asked the British Government to provide them with officers to train up their men.

And he was working for the government.

Well he…he was working for the British army training..erm…Malaysian soldiers.

Do you remember that period? How old were you?

I was maybe five, six. We came back just in time for me to start proper primary school. I…I …maybe I was about six. We came back in ’66, so I would have been just…. no, just seven when I came back, and I don’t remember very much about it now. I can remember certain things. We had…erm…we lived in a lovely house and we had servants. We had a Chinese cook called Ahowl, and my father had a batman.

A batman?

Yeah, in the army a batman is a… a person who looks after your uniform, and your shoes and drives you around. He’s like a… an officer’s ..er…servant…batman…they’re usually Chinese. So it was a completely…

Different world

….different lifestyle, yeah.

So, when you then…you went back, did you go back to the same place in Wales?

Yeah, he was posted back to Manorbier and we went back to…we lived in Pemboke, and then he finally left the army when I was about nine and we moved to a very nearby town called Tenby.

Oh, I’ve heard of Tenby.

Yeah, and then they bought a beautiful old Georgian vicarage, which was running as a hotel, and they ran it as a hotel for a while and then they stayed…they did up all the outbuildings and ran it as a self-catering..erm… business…this beautiful old house in Wales.

And what are your memories of growing up from 9 onwards, in that area?

Oh, I mean it’s just a beautiful, beautiful area. I mean, I went to primary school there so I was, I was..erm…I was there all the time. Th…the change came when I was 11, I was packed off to boarding school so I was only home for the holidays.

Where…where did you go?

To Bristol.

Bristol.

Clifton High School for girls.

Was that a good time, or were you….

Yeah, yeah, I was a bit homesick at first, but it was alright after that. You…you make friends for life, and you learn so much.

Where did you go to university?

I went to Bath. I very much like the West Country. I wanted to do languages and Bath was the place for me.

So what did you study?

French and Spanish.

You studied Spanish at university. So were you then thinking of spending a life abroad, or….?

No, what happened, in my second year, my mum and dad had booked a…a holiday, a fly-drive holiday..erm…to Malaga and then touring Andalucia, and my mother, I don’t know why, chickened out at the last minute with some excuse, like the carpet layers were coming or something, and my dad said, “Well, do you want to come with me?”. And I must have been about 19 at the time, and off we went. We argued every single day, but we had a wonderful time and I was just amazed by Andalucia. I fell in love with it, and I thought, “I’ve got to go back. I’ve got to go back. I’ve got to go back.” And in third year at uni you get to go abroad: Erasmus years, y’know…th…they didn’t exist at that time, but because we were doing languages part of th..the degree course is to spend a year abroad, either as a language assistant in a secondary school or you could go to university and at the end of the year do a dissertation and I decided to do that, and I got myself…erm…permission to go to Granada university for a year, and that was the life-changing experience, it was absolutely amazing, it was fantastic.

Is that how you got…got into teaching?

Erm…well, teaching became a means to an end. When I graduated I went…..after Granada I had to go back to Bath to finish my degree course, but I had itchy feet and I wanted to get back to Spain. And the only way I could get back..and…and have some employment was to…to teach. So I did a five-day Inlingua course to learn to be a teacher….

In five days?

…in five days, yeah.

Did it work?

It was a pretty scary experience going into that classroom for the first time. 

I think every teacher remembers their first 10 minutes in a classroom.

Ohhh…It was….I didn’t even know what an adjective was, y’know.

Neither did I.

And, I had a job…I had this job at Inlingua, Santander which was…it was…it was ok…erm…it wasn’t particularly exciting. I met some nice people. But, I got the bug. I thought, “I like teaching. I’m good at this, I can do this.” So, I thought, “How can I improve my skills? So I applied to do a PGCE which is the equivalent, now they’ve got this in Spain now, it’s the….I think it’s called the grado, is it the grado or the master?

I’m not sure.

It’s the equivalent.

It’s a similar qualification.

Yeah, you…it’s a…it’s for graduates who want to go into teaching and you spend a year learning about methodology and…and doing teaching practice.

So, how long have you been teaching?

Probably about thirty….no one, two, three, four…thirty…thirty-one years.

Do you still enjoy it?

Yes, I wouldn’t do it otherwise.

What do you enjoy about it?

Erm…I like the feeling of going into a room and leaving everything else outside, that’s really important to me. Once I’m in the classroom it’s the classroom, and everything else is…is less of a problem. It just disappears.

Is it a bit like an actor going on stage for you?

Absolutely! Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Erm…I…I find it very satisfying working with people. I like communicating with people. I like seeing people enjoying themselves, and I think they do enjoy themselves. I can’t imagine doing anything else. I really enjoy it.

Is there anything you dislike about it?

The hours, I..I’m beginning to feel now that I could do with working a little less late in the evening. That’s…the…that’s…I’m finding that a bit difficult at the moment.

Wha…what do you do when you’re not teaching….hobbies?

I enjoy chilling out with my friends.

I know you have….I know you have a cat.

I have two cats.

Two cats.

Yeah, yeah…I…I’m..I very much enjoy being at home…erm…I use internet a lot…erm..I enjoy watching British…erm… television programmes, documentaries etc. I’m into that. I don’t watch Spanish television at all.

Me neither. That’s something in common with all the interviews I’ve done with teachers here, very few actually watch Spanish TV.

I’ve got a beautiful TV, but I never switch it on. And, as I say, I enjoy chilling out with my friends. I’ve got a group of great friends and we like going out, having a nice meal…bottle of wine. I like reading. I like doing nothing.

Well, why not?

I love being on my own. I love having quiet moments at home on my own.

Fiona, what advice would you give to Spanish speakers who are trying to learn English?

Well, the biggest problem that my students seem to have, and it does seem to be a common denominator particularly with the older students, is understanding English. And, when they come to me and they say “Oh, how can I improve my listening?” I..I try and tell them that there…there’s a wealth of stuff out there they can use, and to expose themselves as much as possible to English as it is spoken, whether it be a documentary on television in British English or American TV series. Go with what you’re interested in and follow that up. I…I recommend that they use the BBC a lot, ‘cos the BBC’s got loads of…erm…interesting listening material. To get out and about in Valencia there are lots of opportunities for them to practice their English, but that’s the biggest….and use the class for speaking English…

…not Spanish.

…not chatting in Valenciano with the person next to you. That really annoys me.

….or texting on a mobile phone.

Well no, I’ve got a new position in class, it’s ‘hands on the table’, because…

That’s very wise.

…yeah, because you get some people with their hands under the table.

But I think there’s no excuse these days, there used to be, but now there’s…there’s such a wealth of accessible material on the Internet to practice listening with; podcasts and…erm…live TV series from the UK…so there really is no excuse not to…not to spend a bit of time and improve their listening online.

And I do actually have a few dedicated students who every single day will make the effort to listen to something in English for 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and little by little their listening skills will improve.

Exactly, with practice.

Erm, I think you may have partially answered this question, but I’ll ask it anyway. Everyone who’s been in your class, including my girlfriend, has said how much they enjoyed it and how much they’ve learned. So, you’ve already said how much you enjoy being in the class, but what’s the secret?

I think that is the secret, going in there and making your students aware of the fact that you are committed to what you’re doing, that you’re enjoying what you’re doing. Having a smile on your face is really important, being cheerful is really important. There’s no time for, y’know, bad moods and…

But it’s hard, isn’t it, when you…

It is hard….

….when you haven’t had a good weekend or a good….. and you have to go in and put that smile on your face.

…but you just go in and do it….erm….a sense of humour, I think, is absolutely essential, but also the ability to…er…to control a class. In other words a sense of humour and a laugh is great, but that mustn’t take over…

…to a point.

Yeah. Try and make sure that everybody gets some individual attention during the class, that is of vital importance, and give students the feeling that they leave the classroom having learnt something new. That’s really important. And I work really hard on pronunciation, which is fun. I mean, that’s the best bit.

What do you use? Do you model your own voice and then drill, or do you use any particular material?

I use the dialogues on..on the…y’know from the course book which we have in..on the iTools, so they’re very easy to access and to use, but very often I just use my own voice and I do do the drama bit, like stressing the adverbs and the adjectives and doing the up and down intonation.

They do enjoy that, don’t they?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Do you teach the phonemic script?

I don’t teach it explicitly…I mean, it comes in the course book. I…I feel quite sorry for students who…who come to third year or fourth year and haven’t used English File before and they think, “Oh blimey, what’s this, another language?”

Looks like Greek!

But the ones who start off with it in level one, by the time they get to level three or level four it’s really, really good because they’re able to…to learn the pronunciation of new words practically immediately without any help from the teacher as well, y’know. And also we’re so lucky that the..that the…the books we’re using at the moment come with a CD where all the vocabulary is accessible, and those who are having problems who can’t get their head round things like….what were we having fun with last week? Words like vegetable and cucumber, all the food vocabulary from level 3. Well, you know, go home listen, listen, listen. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

Practise, yeah.

And they say, ‘cucumber’, ‘vegetable’, they can say it perfectly. 

It’s fun, yeah.

Ok, let’s move on to the ‘Quickfire Hotseat’ which is a new thing I’ve got in which I ask you a series of very…er… quick questions and you just say what you think. So, what makes you happy?

A meal out with the girls and a bottle of wine.

What makes you sad?

Conflict, arguments.

What one thing, if you were to tell someone about yourself, would they find difficult to believe?

That I’m a grandmother.

Congratulations! I didn’t know. That’s wonderful.

Yeah, well I’ve got a little three-year-old granddaughter.

Wonderful, what’s her name?

Natalia.

Natalia.

And she’s a poppet, she’s gorgeous.

Well, congratulations!

In an ideal world, what would your life be like? Would you be working?

I think I would, yeah. Maybe not as many hours, I think maybe I’d…if I could pick and choose the people I wanted to teach…y’know, one to ones with really nice people, that would be lovely. Erm…I..I’m not being disrespectful to my students.

Of course not.

But, y’know, the one to one idea…an…and going to people’s houses, that would be really nice. Yes, I would work. I think I would, and I’d love to be able to spend more time back in the UK. I’d love to have a house or a…. somewhere to go back to.

If you had 6,000 euros to spend on yourself, what would you buy?

I think I’d probably go on holiday.

Where would you go?

Oh, I’m really boring, I’d go back to Wales! And rent…and rent a house for the summer and just…and hire a car and just enjoy myself.

Is there nowhere in the world you…

Yeah, no I would…I’d love to go to Australia, I’d love to go to New Zealand, I’d love to go to Canada, I’d love to go to San Francisco and…erm…I’d love to do the route from San Francisco up to Vancouver, up through Washington state, through Seattle, Portland, I’d love to do that. But I can’t see it happening, but you never know.

You never know.

Do you go often to Barcelona, because I know your daughter’s there working, isn’t she, in erm…?

Yeah, I don’t go as much as I’d like to. I’m going up…er….in November, ‘cause she’s going to be participating in a fair called Barcelona and Cake

Ok.

And it’s a …in Spanish it’s called repostería creativa, I suppose it’s cake design in English, and it’s a huge fair and you’d be amazed at how many people are into this, and where all these people come from.

So, is it designing cakes or baking cakes or cookies…?

It’s….there’s everything.  I mean, the… there…at the fair there’s all kinds of things from people selling their products, their cakes and their biscuits, classes..er..masterclasses there you can go and buy all the things you need to…to bake, everything you need, there are loads and loads of..erm..stores there, and it’s just….I couldn’t believe it last year that it had this…erm…this following. And, she…she doesn’t….she doesn’t…erm…do very much, she just does decorated biscuits, she personalizes them. So, if you have a…y’know a friend has a baby, she will design some beautiful little biscuits and personalize them.

If somebody was interested and wanted to find her and the things that she does, where can they find information of her website?

Oh, the company’s called “I love Cookies”…so…and she’s on…she’s on internet, she’s on Facebook.

Do you remember the…the URL?

Yeah, www.ilovecookies.es

Yeah.

Great!

And…she also teaches people to decorate cakes and she teaches a little bit of sugarcraft.

She does….she runs courses in cake decoration?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

Fantastic!

Yeah, yeah.

Fiona, thank you very, very much.

Thank you.