I’m currently working in a school in Barcelona teaching English and learning Spanish. This has been a lot of fun so far, and in many respects has been a bit of a ‘fake it till you make it’ scenario. When I initially joined, I was working as an English Language Assistant and now 2 months into the role, I find myself teaching several classes alone whilst the rest are supervised by a native language speaker. The subjects I teach are English, Science and drama, at primary and early secondary level, it’s been an interesting experience so far and I have developed a thirst for the Spanish language. The experience has certainly opened my eyes to the idea of moving and working abroad after graduation.
The idea of the English assistant internship is to immerse yourself in Spanish culture, for instance throughout my time here I will be living with several host families from the school. This is great, as it means I don’t pay rent and I’m surrounded by native speakers who are constantly helping me learn the language. So far, both families I have stayed with have been amazing and extremely welcoming. Initially, I was sceptical about taking this internship, as obviously the DPS year is meant to be creatively led and instead I find myself teaching English and Science, not working in a swanky studio, which I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t concerned about. I’d applied to the internship abroad early in Summer 2019 and continued to apply for other internships/roles while working from home. For instance, I volunteered and worked for a week at the Unseen festival in Amsterdam, Holland and secured some work experience with Penguin Random house in the Winter. I also had several interviews to work in studios and galleries, it was at this point that I found myself with time on my hands, stewing a little at home and itching to get back to London or anywhere. The more I thought about it, much of what I wanted to do was either freelance work or self-initiated projects. I also know for a fact that I need a bit of routine in my life, without which it can turn into a bit of a mess. Because of this, I saw the English teaching assistant internship scheme as the perfect way to balance doing freelance work and self-initiated projects, whilst earning good money to fund my final year, whilst also seeing a bit of Spain and attempting to learn a new language. Basically, it made a lot of sense. Sometimes, I think I could have waited longer for other opportunities to arise, I did turn down some interviews in order to move to Spain and maybe if I’d waited a month or two longer something more ‘creative’ would have popped up which potentially, could have changed my plans. But everything’s easier with hindsight. After arriving in Spain, straight away learning Spanish became my main goal and much of my free time was being spent studying and practicing Spanish. Along with this it was important I got to know my host family well and meet new people/colleagues, as this is a crucial part of the internship’s success. However, I knew it was important, that I put aside some time to continue my practice. One of my main goals during this year is to translate some of my illustrations into physical objects and products to sell online. I’m hoping that this will be one way to fund a career in freelancing, for instance the illustrator Kyle Platts says that by doing and selling a run of t-shirts, it allows him to take a mini sabbatical. Initially I had wanted to buy a tufting gun and begin working with rug making, as at the time, I had been working with punch needle embroidery. A tufting gun is the same concept as a punch needle, but on steroids. Using electric it’s a much quicker and more efficient way of working. Unfortunately, living with a host family this means this isn’t an option (for the time being). As it’s a loud piece of machinery and because of the size I want to work in, it would take up a lot of space. Because of this, I’ve decided to downsize to classic embroidery. Recently I have been really inspired by the work of @ffembroidery and @handmade_by_night. I’ve quickly become addicted to this way of working and find it very relaxing and a good way to chill out, particularly after teaching large groups of primary school aged children all day. I hope to have a few large pieces completed in this medium in the coming weeks, but it’s proving to be a very long-time consuming process. What I’m going to do with the patches after they are completed, I don’t yet know, but I have some ideas which I’m excited about. As I’ve started teaching more of my own lessons, I have had to begin sourcing my own materials for classes. This ranges from making simple PowerPoint presentations and worksheets to games. It’s straight forward stuff, but I’ve noticed that more often than not, if the imagery used is in some way funny or illustrated, the class often interacts with the information a lot better. Because of this and as some of the materials online can be very boring and pupils don’t always engage with them that well, I’m going to venture into illustrating my own class materials. This is a self-initiated project and I’m yet to use any of my illustrative work in any lessons, but I have begun planning and set myself a deadline of 16th December, so we’ll have to wait and see.
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AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. Archives
March 2022
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