ELISENDA MAROON
Elisenda
Maroon was born in Barcelona, Catalonia. She is Catalan, and is trilingual in
Catalan, Spanish, and English. She graduated from the English philology
department of (UB) Universitat de Barcelona. After graduation, she has
taught English in five different high schools. After passing competitive and
rigorous government exams in 2011, she became a public high school English
teacher. At present she is a “provisional” teacher; it means that she has not
been assigned to any particular high school permanently, though she will always
be assured of a position in some high school. So far since she passed the exams
in 2011 she has taught at two high schools. Last year she taught students
aged 11 – 16 in INS Roda de Berà in the village of Roda de
Bera. She hopes in the next school year that she will be assigned to a
high school nearer to Reus in Tarragona, where she lives at present. Elisenda
has been teaching English in primary and high schools for ten years. She
has also taught adult classes in private academies from time to time. She
also volunteers at eTwinning which provides great opportunities for her
students to use English. While she has never lived abroad, she spent 15
days participating in a government-supported program for teachers in Totnes,
United Kingdom. Elisenda participates in one or two EVOs organized by TESOL
each year. In 2009 she participated in the NNEST EVO.
1)
Welcome Elisenda! I’m glad that
you have accepted my invitation to be interviewed. First, could you please tell
me about your linguistic and educational background? What led you to your
decision to become an English teacher?
Thanks
for inviting me! I was born in Barcelona. At home I spoke Catalan, and I
watched TV both in Catalan and Spanish. When I was 3 years old, I started
school where my lessons were in Catalan, but my friends used to talk to me in
Spanish, so I could speak both languages. When I was 12, I failed
one of my English term exams, and then I felt a bit uncomfortable and worried
about my English level. It was the following year that I decided to take
private lessons in a private academy near my home. I continued learning there
until I was 18. Then, I took the FCE (the Cambridge English: First or
First Certificate in English) exam, but I failed it. However, that was in June
and in September I started my studies at the University in Barcelona. There I
studied English Philology, where almost all the subjects were in English. I
didn’t take the FCE again because I thought it was just a big business and I
didn’t need to pass this exam in order to find a job. I can say that I became
proficient in English through studying hard and practicing this language one
day after another at University.
About
being an English teacher… when I was 17, I had a plan to study
either Economics, English Philology, or Social Studies to work in a mental
hospital. Those were my favourite options… But finally, I decided to become an
English teacher and also in my free time to do some kind of community
volunteering, which I would always be able to do. However, I wouldn’t have been
able to work in a high school if I hadn’t studied to be a teacher. That was my
thought then, and I think now I chose the correct option. I’m volunteering now…
but with senior citizens, not with people with mental illnesses and so on.
2) You
have been teaching English in public primary and high schools for about ten
years. Could you tell me more about public schools and the process to become an
English teacher? What are your main responsibilities in this job? What aspects
of your job do you enjoy the most?
I
was very lucky because I finished my degree when I was 22. It took 4 years, and
I finished it just as I had planned beforehand. After graduation, I sent out a
lot of CVs and in October, I started working in the Public School where I had
been a student. I was substituting for one of the teachers there, who had had a
child. Although it was the first time I worked as a teacher in a curricular
school, I had given private lessons at home and some lessons in an academy, so
I was able to succeed and enjoyed this job very much. I have wonderful memories
of that year, and of the following one, when I substituted for another English
teacher who was pregnant, too. The name of the school was Josep Tous in
Barcelona. I was there almost two years. When I finished substituting for these
two English teachers, I received a phone call from the State School. One has to
put his/her name on a waiting list and wait some time until they phone you to
work as a substitute teacher. Until then I had worked in different schools
for short periods of time until I passed my public examination (oposición). I
had to study very hard for two years to pass the exam but finally I passed it!
Passing this exam enables me to have a stable job in a High School forever (so
long as the law doesn’t change!). I am working now in INS Roda de Berà, in the
village of Roda de Berà in Tarragona.
I
have also always been a tutor. Tutors are always in demand, and I always want
to do this kind of work because I like working with teens and their families.
The main responsibility in this job is to be able to work with teens; they can
be easily affected by your gestures and words, so you have to be careful to say
what you mean in the proper way. Also, they are sensitive and their education
is put in jeopardy by a lot of things: TV, different sort of parents,
classmates, the type of village they live in, etc. You have to be a good
role-model for them. You should not get too close to them, nor should you be
too distant. It’s difficult sometimes.
I
just enjoy all my work: working with people, especially with pre-adults, how
people can be so different, how teens make their way to become adults, how I
can help them and teach them to be strong in life and have values. It involves
much more than teaching English. In general, their English level is very low, I
must admit.
3)
What can you tell me about NEST / NNEST-related
issues?
I
can tell you that in my case, working in State Schools, it is not a problem if
you are not a native speaker of English. In fact, most of the teachers are
Spanish. There are no teachers or professors interested in NNEST issues in my
city.
I
can also add that if I wanted to work in a private academy, then, maybe there I
would need to be a native speaker of English, as it is something students like;
these students prefer to enrol in those lessons because the teacher is native.
I was told once that I could not work in a certain private academy because I
was not native speaker of English. I totally disagree with this practice.
In fact, I once had a native teacher who was “a disaster”. I think that
not everybody can be a teacher, and not a language teacher, but it has nothing
to do with nativeness.
4).
What do you feel is or are your greatest strength(s) as an English teacher?
What strategies have you used to develop these strengths?
As
a non-native teacher I continually want to keep learning and practicing
English, not to lose my current level. As I don’t like travelling, I read books
in English, I follow websites in English, and I watch TV series in English from
time to time (right now I’m addicted to “LOST”). I also join an English corner
meeting every Thursday. I’ve been doing it for three and a half years, and I
love it. It’s a way to get to know new people as it’s an open group, and we
really have fun speaking in English. After three years some of the regulars
have become good friends, and that’s great.
I
feel that the greatest strength I can develop is my ability to use different
strategies to be able to get to all kinds of students. It’s important to use a
variety of activities (oral, written, games, summaries, kinaesthetic learning…)
to get all the students involved in class. Therefore, I constantly use a
variety of activities, depending on the various students and their particular
learning styles.
5).
In your school and in your English classes, do you use the three languages you
know while teaching?
When
I teach, I use English and Catalan. But if some student usually speaks in
Spanish, I just reply in Spanish. My Catalan linguistic background helps me to
make the learning of English easier for my students because whenever I consider
it necessary, I compare the two or the three languages.
6)
Teaching is a very rewarding profession. What memorable experiences do you
have as a teacher?
Yes,
I agree that teaching is a wonderful and rewarding profession. I wouldn’t
change my profession for any other so far. I could tell you a lot about nice
students, nice parents, nice presents and so on… But for me, what is
really rewarding is what happens on any ordinary day,… when I leave my school
and I see I have helped some student with something personal, when I prepared
an activity and it has been a success, when I talk to a student and there’s a
good feeling between us (as a person, not as teacher-student)… For me, it’s
just good work, well done, and I feel so happy that I can explain something in
accurate words. On the other hand, there are also awful days when a student has
been rude, when I am very angry because s/he hasn’t worked… But, it’s OK,
and I can manage these bad days and just disconnect once I’m out of
school. The good thing is that the good days and good moments far
outnumber the bad ones.
7)
I would also like to become an English teacher in the future, what advice would
you give me?
You
need to have a strong personality and you have to like the job. Also, you not
only have to be good at teaching the subject (being a good communicator and
being proficient in the subject), but you also have to be able to work with
PEOPLE. It’s social work. Therefore, I think that teachers should be able to
enrol in psychology classes at University because that’s part of your day as a
teacher. For instance, some years after having finished my degree, I
thought about studying “psico pedagogia” (psycho-pedagogy), but how strange…
you have to have graduated as a Primary school teacher to be able to enrol in
courses on “psico pedagogia”… I don’t understand why! What about Secondary
School teachers?! I think that nowadays there must be some tutors who could
teach me this, but they are too expensive. However, psychology is really,
really very important for all teaching levels, so I still hope that I will have
a chance to take courses in this area.
Thank
you very much, Elisenda, for your interview, it has been very interesting and
informative. I have learned a lot about the things you said and I hope they
will be useful for my future as an English teacher.
