Language Assistant

Since moving to Catalunya in 2020, one of my main jobs has been working as an auxiliar de conversa (language assistant) within the Catalan education system.

Most of my work has been in Formació Professional institutions – similar to Vocational Educational Training colleges in the UK, or TAFE in Australia – in which students learn a profession, usually either as an alternative or a stepping stone to university.

The role of the language assistant in these environments is to provide linguistic support to both the teachers (who may be teaching a ‘Technical English’ module, or grappling with delivering a complex subject in English, but are neither native speakers nor, in many cases, trained as English teachers) and their students who are learning in English.

The challenge is finding multi-linguistic bridges to help both concepts and vocabulary hit home in a meaningful way; the reward is seeing that spark of understanding ignite, and the resulting confidence bloom!

To date, I have worked as a language assistant in subjects ranging from Aged Care Work and Social Integration, through Childhood Education and Tourism, to Healthy and Beauty, Dental Prosthetics and even a course on Social Protocol: so if you ever need guidance about which fork one uses with which course of a meal at a state dinner… I probably don’t remember – but I can help make your conversation skills so enchanting that no-one will notice your dining etiquette at all!

Within the Vocational Educational Training context, I have taken part in a number of EU-funded projects as part of the NextGenerationEU plan, given presentations on entrepreneurship for the Aula Emprenedoria program and taught a course sponsored by the Catalan Department of Education aimed at improving the classroom English of VET teachers who are not native speakers of English.

I have also worked in secondary schools here in Catalunya, which provide a different set of challenges and rewards. As part of my work with first- and second-year batxillerat (non-compulsory high school, like A Levels in England) students, I have helped some of them to prepare for B1 and B2 English exams – which they passed with flying colours, the absolute legends.