Hey guys,
I was going write about this aaaaages ago, but for some reason I never got round to it (read: I am extremely lazy and procrastinate from EVERYTHING).
Basically, it’s about my experience of being a babysitter here in Toledo. If you’re reading this and you know me well, you’d know that I was an au pair in Barcelona for two months during the summer of 2009. I’m not going to write about that right now because that would be, well, not even another blog post; there are far too many stories from that time....
Anyway, as I’d had that experience, I thought it would be good to do something similar here in Toledo, even if it was just a boost of cash (which God knows we all need!)
Sadly, I only did it for a month. I started early January, and it finished early February. Nothing to do with me (I hope), just that they only really needed me to fill in the gap between Mummy leaving for work and Daddy getting back from work. As a lot of people have experienced during this hard time, the Mummy no longer was working and therefore there was no need for me.
However, my time there did add to my Spanish experience, and my experience working with children. I was with them for a couple of hours twice a week, and attempted to teach them some English.
This is my observation for Spanish parents (I can’t say parents in general because I only have experience with Spanish parents trying to get their children to speak English)- they expect a LOT from their children. Most parents want their children to reach their potential, obviously, mine did too. However, when it comes to languages, it takes a very specific attitude to actually want to learn it. Unless you have been raised in a multti-lingual household and it’s second nature to the point where you don’t really realise that you’re speaking different languages, it’s going to be hard for you to learn another language.
Coming from the UK, where there is such a poor attitude to learning other languages (although, not quite as bad as the Spanish attitude, as I have come to realise), you have to really push to get yourself into the position where you can speak properly. I’ve loved Spanish since I started it in my first year of senior school, but I barely learnt anything until year 10, where I had taken the iniative and started listening to what my mum calls “eurotrash”- basically foreign music, a lot of which was Spanish. Then I started college and I actually started to learn how to conjugate verbs, and within the next two years I’d progressed to watching Spanish telenovelas and actually understanding them (well, most of the time). Although my mum doesn’t always approve of my music taste, I can definitely say that it helped me to learn Spanish and to speak with a proper Spanish accent.
Anyway, back to the Spanish parents. These children were being raised in a purely Spanish household, and the only English they were hearing was that taught in the school, or from learning Cd’s. When they brought in someone like me who speaks English fluently and with a (British) English accent, the children couldn’t really understand. They didn’t want to try to repeat the words to gain the proper pronunciation.
Perhaps it is simply that I am a poor teacher (which could well be, I’ve had no training for it). But I know how hard it was for me to learn Spanish and I WANTED to learn it. Most of these children just want to play; they don’t want to come home from school and have to do yet more classes.
I love children (in theory), although seeing as children are quite simply miniature adults, there are going to be some that are going to be difficult to handle. It’s also very hard to handle children that are in no way related to you- I am very good with my two brothers, and helped with the youngest a lot as he was growing up, but when it’s blood I think it’s a lot easier be involved. If I did something wrong my mum would tell me off and that would be it. I wouldn’t be fired or, worse, arrested or sued. In Barcelona it took a lot of my patience to not snap at the children, I’m not quite sure how I survived that....xD
Anyway, the two that I babysat for here were characters. A 9 year old boy and a 7 year old girl, they behaved well (most of the time). When they weren’t trying to wrestle each other, the girl wasn't shoving things down her trousers and the boy wasn't avoiding doing his homework (which was every single time). They both loved Spongebob, which was a great topic of conversation and was one way I incorporated English into the conversation without them really realising it- draw pictures of the characters and then write down the English names, and explain what the different parts of Spongebob’s world were called in English. To be honest, I’m not quite sure who enjoyed that part more, me or them. They had some of the best Spongebob things- even a Spongebob cheese-toastie maker.
I’m 20 years old and I’m impressed by those things.....I’m a bit worried.
Anyway, even though it came to a pretty abrupt end, I’m glad I had the experience. It’s experiences like those that make me realise what I really do (or don’t) want to do when I’m older. I’m not sure nannying is quite my thing. Going to Barcelona was without doubt one of the most challenging things I’ve ever done, but in turn it was one of the most rewarding- it was the longest I’d ever been out of England for at that time, the longest I’d gone without seeing my family, and the first time I’d ever lived abroad. All at 19. Working with these two children here in Toledo just cemented the fact to me that I couldn’t do that as a full-time job. I’m not totally rejecting the idea of teaching a class of young children, because I think there are a lot less pressures on you (that might sound paradoxical, as there are many more children and many more parents, but at the end of the day the parents have a lot less control over what you do, or what they want you to).
I’m sure this seems very unorganised, and that would be because it is.....
xD
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