I was already planning to train to be a primary teacher when I discovered UEA’s course - which trains students to be competent as a general classroom teacher as well as offering Spanish and a placement abroad.

I was really excited at this, as I hadn’t received any certification in Spanish since my A Level qualification, but had spent time abroad improving my language skills and enjoyed speaking it. I always enjoy spending time in other places, so this seemed like a good opportunity to train, travel a little and learn about education from a different cultural aspect.

My school placement abroad was a very different experience to placements in UK - far more different than I expected! We were placed in pairs in a primary school in Granada in the beautiful region of Andalucia and our school was very relaxed in comparison to my English placement schools. Teachers were happy for us to choose topics to teach and to structure the teaching ourselves. In addition we got the opportunity to observe teaching and learning throughout the school and so we spent time learning about their curriculum in different subjects.

I taught from their year of entry (6/7 year olds, which is our Year 2) up to Year 7, teaching English, Maths, Science and Music. I really enjoyed teaching the English classes particularly and the children were really excited to be talking to a native speaker of English.

The school experience was challenging - and even shocking in some ways. Seeing the contrast between the Spanish didactic system and ours made me grateful for aspects of our system which I had previously not fully understood. I even missed things like assembly, which they don’t have in Spain! However, there is much to be said for the Spanish system as I noted the literacy and numeracy levels of the children there were higher than in England.

The school day in Granada is from 9:00 – 14:00, so it was great to have some time to plan lessons and of course time to explore Granada! We lived in a central location during the placement which made life very easy and allowed us to walk nearly everywhere. I travelled to a number of places in Andalucia at the weekends and would really recommend this to future students – it is a beautiful area with great cities and villages within easy reach. Going outside Granada allowed me to meet more people and start to understand the Andalucian culture better.

I really enjoy teaching languages and will definitely make use of the skills and teaching methods I have learnt on the Primary course. 

Online Prospectus

Our PGCE Teacher Training Prospectus for September 2012 entry will provide you with further detailed information about all of our course options and programmes of study (online version available shortly).

Please contact us if you wish to request a hard copy version either through email: pgceinfo@uea.ac.uk or telephone: (+44) (0)1603 592855.