Spanish language assistant speaking with two pupils in class

Northgate High School and Dereham Sixth Form College in Norfolk are hosting a language assistant for the first time. We spoke to Dave Brook, Assistant Head Teacher, and Vince Everitt, Head of Languages, to hear how hosting a language assistant is benefitting the pupils.

I am Dave Brook, Assistant Head Teacher who looks after learning and teaching in Northgate High School in Dereham. 

I realise that some schools who have not hosted a language assistant before might have some concerns about it. From a personal point of view, I didn't have any concerns. Having been in schools in the past that have had regular assistants, I think it's an absolute no-brainer. 

The opportunity to have someone who can come in and work with the students and to be able to take that small group intervention, which might be to help students who are struggling to develop their confidence, or it might be about stretching and extending those students at the top end of their ability to try and gain them more independence and more fluency in their speaking. It's a really important part of being able to provide languages and build for the future.

The ability to embrace other people's cultures and to show an interest and an understanding of what they're doing, it's not only important for making human beings feel valued, but it's important for our own economic performance as a country and feeling we are actually making a positive contribution to the world with sympathy and with care.

The benefits of having a language assistant go beyond the actual linguistic practice. For our students it's an opportunity to talk to someone from a different country about their culture, about their experiences growing up and start to understand about the different viewpoints of the world that are out there. For students it also gives them an opportunity to work with someone who's actually living in a different community themselves and to see that it is possible to live in another country and in another language and do that with confidence and with enjoyment.

Maria this year has been an absolute ray of sunshine. She really inspires our students in terms of developing their confidence but she's also got involved in things with other staff as well. Maria has been coming along to some of the PGC training sessions that we have to be able to develop her skills in the classroom further. That pro-activeness to develop her skills has been really important for other staff to see and to interact with as well.

Language assistant and teacher prepare resources for class

I'm Vincent Everett. I teach Spanish and French here at Northgate High School, where I'm head of department. 

I was a modern language assistant in France in the 1980s and then again in Mexico in 1990. So it's something that I understand as part of the ecosystem, this is how I've come through to be a teacher. And I'm sure lots of other teachers also were assistants probably in their year off as part of when they were learning at university. 

So it's something I've always wanted to be involved in. And in 30 years of teaching, we've never had an assistant in any of the schools that I've ever been in. So this opportunity this year was something I've almost been looking forward to my whole career.

It was a big learning experience for me as well. 

In terms of setting the whole thing up, I did have some concerns, very practical ones. I thought, you know, where are they going to stay? How are we going to fix somewhere for them to rent?

But I didn't need to worry. I mean, the British Council sorted a lot of things and Maria, our assistant, found herself somewhere to live online.

It’s worked out really well. I was there kind of behind the scenes thinking, how can I help? But it never actually came to that. I really had to do very little. I think I signed a couple of forms to do with the visa, but I didn't have to run around chasing things and making things happen in terms of the visa. The British Council sorted almost all of it and Maria sorted it her end and it went very smoothly. 

I think one thing to watch out for with a language assistant is they need to know what's going on. It can be quite stressful for them to just turn up and you go ‘oh don't worry, you'll just do what I tell you’. You have to let them know what's expected, how the lesson's going to go and let them have a role in developing it because they could otherwise just stand around and you say ‘oh, I didn't use you very much today’. You've always got to plan a lesson so that you've got an assistant, and you ask yourself how are you going to get the most out of them?

They've come all this way, they want to be doing something useful and they've got great potential. So make sure you really plan so that you're using interaction, you're doing it as a double act, you're working with different pupils in different ways and there's lots and lots of speaking Spanish. It takes a bit of getting used to at first that there's always this opportunity but it's something you can really make the most of.

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