The Devil Wears Zara - Part 2 ✏️👿👜

Hola! 😄🇪🇸 I bet you are wondering what happened with my Mentor on Friday? 

Well, I am going to start off talking about my observation. I taught a Year 4 class about cooking verbs and how to structure a recipe! For the controlled task, I got them to verbally discuss the incorrect recipe that I followed to make 'Tortillas de Patatas'. The class giggled when I said that I put lots of sugar and chocolate in my tortillas! 😀🍫 I loved how passionate they were about telling me the correct way of making Tortillas de Patatas 🥰 Although, I think I am tired of them now and even eggs for every time I say 'Yo soy vegetariano', no doubt, a tortilla would arrive! 😆🥚I also taught my class about British foods too, which was fun 🇬🇧Their English is very limited but nevertheless, they always show effort in their classes! Anyway back to my mentor, it was difficult to know whether she was pleased or not, she was staring at me expressionless 😶. However, in our next lesson with our Year 3 group (yes I had her again 🙄!), she called me over and said 'Good work!', she enjoyed my class and loved how much time I put into preparing my resources 😳 Was that a compliment?! 😱 That gave me a confidence boost, considering that was the first ever lesson I have taught in my life and she gave me great feedback! 😄✏️

After I contacted Caro, Fran from Language Kingdom and Emile about what happened the other day, I confronted my mentor. I made it clear that I need teaching experience because that is the main purpose of my Erasmus+ programme! 📚 Towards the end of the day, I asked her what she would like me to do for art, for all my year groups and I suggested what I would like to do. For instance Year 5 will be learning about flowers in art and I said that I would like to teach them about the Flower Power movement in the 1960s and even get them to discuss their artwork in pairs 🌼🌻🌷 At first, she looked at me in a puzzling way and said 'My head hurts, can you speak English?' At that point, I thought 'wow, was I speaking in Italian or something?' 😂🇮🇹. Then, I spoke slower and she said 'Do what you want', so I think that is the green light for my autonomy in the classroom! 😀

Friday night, my Leónitas and I went out bar-hopping and we had so many types of tapas - what was the point in dinner? 😅 We had a lot to celebrate, we completed la primera semaña in León! 😄 It was super fun and just to take a break from lesson-planning and embracing Leon's dusky beauty was worth it. ✨️😌 I check my phone and my mentor messaged me... I opened the message and it was full of recommendations for Tapas places! That made me smile, either she wants me to get a taste of Spain or she thought she'd sent me a list of Spanish bars to drown my stressful week with her! 🍷

Right now, I'm smiling whilst I am writing this blog. Yes, it has been tiring but I know that next week will be better! 😄 If anything, my relationship with my mentor has shown me the reality of the teaching world. I think it is impossible to always have perfect relationships with teachers! My relationship with my mentor is imperfect but I have accepted that fact and I will work around it ✨️😌

I still have 3 weeks left and everyday is an adventure with unknown possibilities :) It is the little light-hearted things in a stressful day that make life worth living. 💕 Whether it's grabbing 'un cafe con leche' at an authentic coffee shop or just laughing with my Leónites ☺️

Here's to another week ahead, I am hoping there will be no part 3 to my story but you will be the first to know if there is! ♥️

Sending love to the Valencians ♥️🇪🇸 Right now we are heading out to some museums! 😆💕

- Shan 🖤