La educación no consiste en llenar un cántaro sino en encender un fuego

So since coming to Málaga, I have been tutoring! When I first started taking the Spanish courses back in February, I saw a lot of advertisements from Spanish students looking for native English-speakers for tutoring. I found it quite interesting considering that for a native English-speaker, tutoring is just simply speaking and practicing English. Anyway, most of the adds said things such as "Looking for English speaker. Will trade my Spanish for your English", but I never pursued them because I was not looking to take Spanish classes.

A week later or so, the lady that picked me up from the airport called me to see how I was doing and adapting to life here in Málaga. Then she asked me if I would be willing to help her with her English. She had enrolled in an English program to get certified to be a teacher. The course tests on four areas: listening, speaking, reading, & writing. Since that moment, I have been tutoring her every other friday. She comes to pick me up after class on Fridays at 12:15 and we go to get coffee and speak English. I answer any questions she may have or any sort of doubts she may have when it comes to English, and I get a free coffee and pastry. It is very nice, because I use that opportunity to get to know her and help her improve.

She works as an independent contractor for a pharmaceutical company and has been out of work since January so she is looking to acquire this teaching certification so that she will be able to teach English. She is 34 years old, and I find it admirable of her to make an effort to learn a second language at this moment in her life. I do not charge her because speaking English is not that difficult for me, and I am not really doing anything except dedicating my time. She was tested and passed two of the sections already. Now she is concentrating on the other two and her next exam is in June. At first it was hard for her to understand me, because here in Spain they learn British English and it was difficult for her to understand my accent. I DIDN´T REALIZE I HAD AN ACCENT! lol. But I told her it was good for her to get exposed to American English because then she would not have trouble understanding it in the future.

One thing that I find very interesting is the fact that very few Spaniards speak English. I find that rather strange since my roommates and the rest of the Spaniards that live at the residency say that they start learning English from the age of 8 or 9 until the age of 18. That is 10 years of learning! However, very few know how to speak or understand the language. I started asking around to understand why they don´t speak it if they have been learning it since such an early age. I found out that the educational system does not emphasize practice. They learn vocab, sentence structuring, etc. but the entire class is taught in Spanish. I guess that is pretty insane since it is evident that without practice, there is no way to improve. Spaniards (at least the ones that I have been exposed to) also believe that British English is the best English to learn, because it is the most pure, which is why their ears are not used to understanding American English.

Anyway, it seems as though Europe in general is changing its entire educational system because they are looking to implant which they refer to "Bolognia". I am still trying to figure out what this new system will mean for Spain, but I am hoping to find out and write about it soon. Next week is our break for Semana Santa........it is off to BARCELONA & MALLORCA!