INTERVIEW TO AN EXPERT ON TEACHING

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.