TEFLees in Spain

Today is a gorgeous sunny day in Madrid. As I chat with TEFLees from the UK, I feel smug about our good weather, as if it is a personal accomplishment of mine during my office admin time. Like blogging and creating facebook networks and soaking in gossip and offering unsolicited advice and secretly giving away chocolate was has been gifted to the office, bragging about our fabulous climate has become an unwritten task of my job.

They (the unnamed smart people who we so often plagiarize) say that sunlight makes you less depressed. I don’t know if it’s necessarily the vitamin D I’m soaking up from the sunshine or the terrace drinking culture of Springtime in Madrid, but I do know that all of the TEFLees’ spirits — and mine — have been high the last few weeks.

The Spanish are attracted to the streets. The first ray of sun streaked through the clouds, and suddenly there were tables of beer and sangria on every corner. And, as is appropriate, people flocked to them.

My other favorite thing about Spring is Semana Santa. I love that Madrid closes down for a week… and it’s certainly great for the teachers. It’s been fun listening to all of our TEFLees talk about the places they are going and the things they are doing. Cheap bus trips to the coast, 15 euro hostels, easyjet to Paris, walking tours of the Camino de Santiago in the north, Geneva, Prague, off to a mountain village of Madrid.

Spring is a time for new beginnings. For travel, for resolutions, for lighter jackets and white sandals. And apparently, a time for calling the course administrator at the TEFL school of your choice to complain about British weather, so she remembers to relish her own:).

This recently happened to one of our TEFLites, Kate, in her business English class:

Scene: 9:25 am, the end of class. Marcos and Isabel, both in their mid-twenties, are the only two students today. Marcos is wearing a t-shirt that says, “I’m not losing my hair, I’m getting more head.”

Kate: Ok, we have a couple minutes left, so let’s talk about Marcos’ shirt. Marcos, could you tell me what it means?
Marcos: (looking at her like, ‘aren’t you the English speaker here?’) Um, i guess it means that my hair is suiciding [sic], and because of that my head is getting bigger. Like i have more head now, right?
Kate: Right, that’s the literal sense, but it also means something else. Do you guys know what a double entendre is?
Isabel: Yeah, when a word has two meanings.
Kate: Right. So the phrase “getting more head” is a double entendre in English. What do you think it means?
Isabel: I don’t know, maybe that he’s losing his hair but he’s getting smarter? Like, more head means smarter.
Kate: Um, no. Ok. “Getting head” in English is slang for having oral sex.
Marcos: Wait, what?
Isabel: (laughing)
Kate: So when it says “I’m not losing my hair, I’m getting more head”, it means that even though you’re going bald you’re having more sex.
Marcos: (shrugs) Well, it’s the truth.

The office is very strange today.

It is strange partially because it is Natasha’s first day of official pregnancy leave. She is now at home incubating baby Jack.

It is also weird because we built teeny tiny rooms into the reception area of TtMadrid.In my mind, they were going to look similar to phone booths, and I wanted them to be red, which i think would be appropriate for an English school. However, if the lack of enthusiasm from other employees was any indication, it was doomed to be significantly less exciting than I had anticipated.

But I like that we’ve built teeny tiny rooms. TEFLees make a lot of noise when in one conglomerate space, and maybe dividing them into smaller portions will make them quieter. In other words, maybe they’ll be less inclined to yell across the room at each other if they can’t see each other. After spending 4 weeks in one place with the same people, TEFLees’ brains often start to turn to mush and they — like children under 18 months — cannot be expected to grasp object permanence.

Or maybe the mini-spaces will provide more ares for TEFLees to tell us secrets. Senida and I are both a bit overwhelmed by the personal information we’ve gotten lately — which is surprising since I don’t think either one of us are particularly empathetic people. I certainly wouldn’t choose us to confide to.

Another option which is consistent with our office’s habits is that we will use the stalls to hide food or stationary. We have an impressive amount of both hiding in our office. In case of hurricane or Basque seizure, we could eat and do coursework in our school for years.

I suppose the administrative reasoning behind this is more practical (and debatably less interesting). We have experienced and expect to experience substantial growth at work, and we need more rooms for classes, TEFLees, students, and employees.

When all else fails, we can build Jack a playpen in there maybe.