Northgate High School and 6th form college in Dereham is hosting Maria, a Spanish language assistant from Spain. We spoke to Dave Brook, Assistant Head Teacher and Vince Everitt, Head of Languages to hear how a language assistant opens horizons for the pupils.
Hi, my name is Maria and I'm a Spanish language assistant and I work at Dereham in Northgate High school and also the sixth form.
I'm from Galicia in Spain, which is not a part of Spain the students really hear much about. Galicia is quite similar to Norfolk because it's a rural area. Like there's more forests than city! I think the students were able to see the similarities between where I live and where they live.
They usually think we all eat paella and so I liked doing presentations on my part of the country. Last week I brought filloas which is food we eat in Galicia during carnival. So they saw that for the first time ever and they got to taste it and they wouldn't have otherwise. I was able to go to a geography class and I was able to show them how farming works in my part of Spain and through a personal lens tell them how the lives of the farmers are and what the future holds for them. I was able to ask my dad and he was able to tell me things that I could then tell the students and so they could see how real life is for those farmers.
Maria, the language assistant
The best thing about being a language assistant I think is being able to show the pupils part of my culture and Galicia in general because I really love where I live in Spain. I think if they knew more about it they would like it as well. We do have a lot of regional foods and a lot of regional dances and music that they get to know about. I think what I bring is the fact that I live within the Spanish language so I'm more real with how I speak because I speak with other people my age and with other people in Spain all the time. I can show them what the current language looks like because it's continuously changing and we do use new words that come from social media that a teacher may not know about.
I help them with presentations on Spain and I talk about history, I talk to them about Franco and the dictatorship and what my family for example went through which is not something someone from the UK can give them.
I know that a lot of them really like Spanish and want to improve and want to know more things about the country and the language so it's really great for me to know that I'm helping them in any way with that.
I don't see many students because only a few take Spanish, but the ones that do take Spanish take it quite seriously. They start studying Spanish in year 9 and so they have only a few years to really master the language. And I really like our students because they work really hard to get to the level they're at in year 13.
The pupils: Harry and Megan
Our language assistant is Maria and she is from Galicia in Spain.
She helps us in lessons when we're doing group work. Like, if Sir will set us a task and we get stuck on certain words, Maria will help us figure out the words. But she won't just tell you the words, she'll help you figure out certain parts of it and then she'll help you understand how they're pieced together.
We're doing celebrities at the moment, like artists and singers. The other day, we were doing about what ones we like and in the book there was a woman that most of us didn't know but then Maria explained who she was. We were talking about people like Anya Taylor-Joy and Jennifer Lawrence and people like that.
I think it's just a good thing to know, it's good to have another language, I think it broadens the amount of stuff you can actually do outside of school and it's just good to know another language and it helps your brain a lot.
I think that it's really interesting to find out the stuff that happens in other places around the world and it's just nice to have conversations with Maria because she teaches us so much stuff that we didn't know before. I think it's been fun to meet someone else that's not local, get a taste of what's around the world.
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The pupils: Gabriela and Gabriella
Maria is a language assistant and she's from Galicia in Spain. It has its own language, like Spanish but mixed with Portuguese and it's a really lovely language and I would actually one day want to visit Galicia.
I don't know how to describe her, she’s very open and she's more relaxed. She is not very strict, she doesn't shout at you, tell you off for getting things wrong. She's really lovely too, and it's just really helpful having her with us. So when we get into groups, she works with us and when we have a question, we always ask her it and she's just always helping.
I don't know how to describe her, she is just more Gen Z!
She helps us a lot, especially with words that we're not really sure of the meaning, we always ask her, what does this mean? And she always tells us and she explains to us and it's just really helpful.
I’m gonna be a translator or work somewhere for the government. I feel like it will be very helpful when you're traveling to different countries and speaking to different people. You don't have to make people rush around to help. You can just speak the language. I feel like that would be very helpful.
My favourite word is estrella and it means star. And then when we were learning about going to the beach, we would use it as estrella de mar which means starfish.
I like learning about the culture and seeing the way that they act, the way that they dress and the way that they speak is just very like, wow. It’s really good seeing people behave more differently to what you normally see. We also talked about Barcelona quite a lot. I went to Barcelona like two years ago but we learned about Barcelona too when Miss went to a trip. And then we got to learn about her friends too which was really nice, what she did when she went to Barcelona. So I really liked the lesson.
