Welcome to our first issue of the Language Exepress!

It has been a year since I first arrived in Santander, the northern Spanish city where I spent my year abroad as an English language assistant.

 

Before you go, you are told by lecturers and fourth year students that the coming few months will be the most amazing year of your life. 

 

This is hard to believe when you are planning it in your second year, and even harder to believe on the eve of your departure when you sit staring blankly at your luggage having second thoughts. It is, however, all true. 

 

Naturally the year is not without its low points; but the highs are equal to, or greater than, the lows. 

 

I spent my year working as a British Council assistant in a secondary school. I admit that I was very lucky: my students and I got on very well, and my colleagues were all incredibly welcoming and supportive. I had the privilege of spending a lot of time with my students and fellow teachers, both in school and outside on school trips to the local mountains. Some days, things did not go as planned: the projector would fail to work, or my students would be rowdier than usual. But the year abroad is about overcoming these problems, particularly in your first few weeks. 

 

This was certainly true in my case; arriving in Santander with no connections, no accommodation, and never having visited Spain before, gave me many challenges to face. Perhaps the worst problem was acquiring my NIE, my Número de Identidad de Extranjero: it took me five visits to the foreign office before I acquired this little scrap of plastic enabling me to work in Spain. But once you have overcome a problem, facing the next one becomes increasingly less daunting. 

 

I was also lucky enough to be able to travel in my spare time, visiting cities and towns such as Madrid, Barcelona, San Sebastián and, as pictured, Girona. This last one was perhaps the most interesting: as you can see in the third picture, the Estelada was being hung from many homes. This was in May, several months before the much-discussed referendum in October and subsequent December elections. This experience in Girona is a perfect example of the different ways in which each location that I travelled to taught me a little bit more about Spain and Spanish culture. 

 

I met some incredible people, in both work, my social life and joining a local Taekwondo club, who I have been fortunate enough to stay in contact with now that I am back in the UK. Some of these new friends are English, and as eager to discover the Spanish culture as myself; and some hail from various regions in Spain, including Catalonia and Andalusia. They have reminded me that there is a big, wide world to explore, opened to modern language students by our languages. My year abroad was hopefully the first of many spent learning about these other cultures and other countries. 

 

The three photos I have chosen each represent a different part of my year abroad:

1. Whether you are a teacher, student or worker during your year abroad, you learn as much about yourself as you do about your course or job, and as much as you teach your students. 

2. You never know the culture of a country until you have lived there.

3. The beauty of your city, or town, and the memories that you create there, will linger with you forever. 

 

So, to those in their second year contemplating their year abroad: be prepared for one of the most exciting years of your life.

For those of you in already abroad: make the most of it, because you will not be there much longer, and you will miss it dearly when you come home.