In the frame of the language assistant program, I stayed for 8 months in Laredo, Spain. There I worked in a language school, called EOI Laredo, in the German department. The school is quite small, but has following language courses to offer: English, French, German. The atmosphere between the colleagues was very nice and familiarly. My general task was teaching German to Spanish people at different ages, who want to learn the language. In combination with that I assisted the German teachers with their work. I helped them with preparing their lessons and examen. Furthermore, I held my own lessons in different classes. The levels were A1, A2, B1 and B2. The number of students in the courses was very small due to the size of the city. Mainly I did conversation exercises with the students, so they could practice their German with me as a native speaker. In these lessons I learned a lot about teaching in general but also about different aspects of language. Because of the small number of students, every student had the possibility to talk a lot in German. Moreover, the relationship between students and teachers was very important in this context.

I also lived in the city of Laredo, where I worked. Laredo is a summer residence for nearly 90 000 people. In the winter months, when I was there, there are only around 12 000 inhabitants. So, there are a lot of houses and rooms, which are empty during this period. Therefore, it was no problem for me to find a room to stay. I lived more at the north end of the city, very close to the beach. My flat had 70 m², so I had enough space for all my stuff. At this point it’s also important to mention that I lived alone. In the area around of my house there were not many people during my stay. To have social contact I had to go to the school, or the two closest cities Santander and Bilbao. But in general, it was no big problem for me.

In summary I really enjoyed my stay in Spain. I did a lot of different activities and made some new friends. I also gained important experiences for my future work as a teacher. Furthermore, I learned the Spanish language a little bit and the culture as well.

Report written by Michael Lieb