Edgar's video diary for June: transcript - translation from Spanish into English
Hello, this is Edgar again. This is my last video diary, for the month of June.
Well, now all the students of Higher and Advanced Higher are away to study for the exams, so now I don't have to work with them. But I've got a new task now. I have to... Because my school only teach Spanish for the third year, fourth year, Higher and Advanced Higher, so now what I'm going to do is try and promote the Spanish language among the first-year students. Because the second-year students already have chosen all of the subjects they are going to take next year, so now the other Spanish assistant who is working in my school, and I, we're going to go to these classes in first years and try to do something not too difficult with them, some games and some promotion about Spanish language, Spanish culture, Spain and Latin America.
Well, after this year working as an assistant in Scotland, um... I think teaching is one of the things I wanted to do before I was coming here. And now I can say that it's one of the things I really want to do. I would like to do that in my country, basically because the degree I've got already - or I'm going to get next July, hopefully - is modern languages. So I might become a modern languages teacher in my country. But I would like to experience more British culture. I think one year is not enough, so I would like to experience more and improve my English, so when I come back to my country, I could be a... I don't know, a good source of information about cultural aspects and about English. So those students will have a better time when they are taking English or French at school.
Before coming here as an assistant, I thought about doing lots of things, especially travelling, getting to know more people and more places. Because that's one of the main reasons why I studied modern languages - English and French - I wanted to experience British and European culture in general, especially in those countries where those languages are spoken. And yeah, I really wanted to... Because Europe is not that big, in terms of Latin American standards. In South America, we've got such big countries, it's difficult to travel among all these different countries. But in Europe, it's easier. I thought it was going to be easier, and I was going to have plenty of time, plenty of money. But I wanted to do... I realised that if I'm here in the UK, in Scotland, there was a main thing that I wanted to do, to travel around this country and to try to get the most of it. And also thinking about doing the whole of Europe and being stressed about that... I said, 'Well, no, I'm going to take this year to experience, um... British culture, and to know lots of places and lots of people from Britain.' I almost did, but you need to be aware that time passes so quickly, and so you need to try to be really organised and, uh... Do not think that, 'Oh, I'm going to be here one year as an assistant - I'll have plenty of time.' The job's not that difficult in terms of time, because you only work 12 hours a week. But there are lots of things that pushes you off for doing things, so be aware of that and try to focus on the things you've got near you, and then you will have a really nice experience.
For example, first of all you have to look for accommodation. You have to sign up lots of things in order to start working at school. And you need to be aware about the UK, or English, Scottish, wherever you're going to go, education system. And also, before coming here, you think, 'Oh, I'm going to the UK' and you know beforehand how much you're going to earn. If you compare that to the... You think about the currency we've got in South America, so you think, 'That's lots of money,' but you need to be aware that things here are much, much, much more expensive. So this is the things that push you off. You think you're going to have plenty of time, plenty of money for doing lots of things, and it's not actually like that.
So, now that this is my last video diary, I hope you have enjoyed it, and that it has been very helpful for you and it will help lots of assistants that come from different places. And I hope that will help lots of people, lots of teachers from different schools here, cos I think it's very valuable to know what assistants think while they experience the time here.
And, well, this is it. Muchas graçias. Adios!