The life of an English teacher in Spain

EBC course graduate profile of Shelika Baez

A photo and video profile of Shelika Baez, a recent Madrid course graduate from the USA.

The EBC course is demanding and follows an increasing pressure curve that peaks at the end of the 3rd. week. Week 4 is the start of a measured descent back to normality which you'll reach on the last day of the course.

After 4 weeks of intensive training, learning the essentials of how to teach English and teaching 8 practice classes to non-native English speakers, Shelika and her class-mates pose for their class photo.

Shelika's course group photo

Left to right: Andrew, Cassandra, John, Shelika, Courtney, Kelly, Edward and trainer Stephen

Stephen usually organises the first phase of the final wind-down process by getting the group to sing a humorous song.

While the group is winding down, EBC's admin team is hard at work sending out their CV's to language schools.

Shelika's group song

Even though this is a light-hearted effort, we aren't allowed to let you hear the song due to intellectual property laws regarding the tune, but if you want to sing along, here are the lyrics.

Grammar - Gram - ma - mar TEFL TEF - L - LA Oh no I've gone ga - ga I'm an English teacher Grammar - Gram - ma - mar TEFL TEF - L - LA Oh no I've gone ga - ga I'm an English teacher I want your gerunds, I want your tenses You will learn English, drop your defenses Give me your verbs, verbs, verbs, verbs Give me your verbs Use adjectives, describe all you like Use idioms, like get on your bike I want your nouns, nouns, nouns, nouns I want your nouns You know you need feedback, your pronunciation's wrong

Come be corrected, it won't take that long I want prepositions, I want your adverbs You and me could have an English class Your conjugations, mistakes and cock-ups You and me could have an English class Woah - woh - woh - woh - woh - woh We all really need a drink Woah - woh - woh - woh - woh - woh Stephen's pushed us to the brink Grammar - gram -ma - mar TEFL TEF - L - LA Oh no I've gone ga - ga I'm an English teacher Grammar - Gram - ma - mar TEFL TEF - L - LA Oh no I've gone ga - ga I'm an English teacher

After the song, the final practice class, awarding of certificates and a few teary goodbye's, there is EBC's famous end of course party for phase two of the wind-down process. It's a great night out with an open bar in a very Spanish bar affectionately named by our graduates as "John's bar" after trainer, John Magne-Erlandsen as, when he isn't traveling, he lives right across the street from it. It's a true "barrio" bar and everyone's on first name terms.

Shelika's group's end of course party

Shelika at work

Shelika's aim, as it is with all EBC graduates, is to train and then work. Shortly after graduating, the EBC job programme get's interviews for Shelika resulting in job offers. Shelika is now teaching for two schools in Madrid. One of Shelika's classes was "communication" so she got the class to write up, design and present their own advertisements for their company (reading, writing, listening and speaking skills). This intermediate level class decided to video their light-hearted efforts. So here they are:

Shelika gets the last word