Marcel Penarroja is an inner London Primary School Teacher. He teaches children from a wide range of background.
By Ros Lucas
I’ve lived in London (apart from when I went to University) since I moved here from Spain when I was 5 years old. My father is Catalan and my mother English.
Originally, I wanted to be an actor but it was very difficult and it wasn’t paying the rent! I thought teaching would be something I would be good at and would enjoy.
I teach in an inner London Primary School, a Catholic school, near Waterloo. The group I teach are 9-10 year olds.
Teaching ininner London has many challenges, apart from the normal challenges of teaching, in my class only 2% of the children have English as their first language. They come from all over the world. I have children from West Africa – Ghana, Nigeria, South America – such as Bolivia, Equador, Columbia, the Philippines and Eastern Europe. Mainly children come from catholic countries.
With a diverse group like this one I have to give more visual clues and rely less on the spoken word as, although some have reasonably good spoken English, others have very little.
The majority of the children appear to come from families recently arrived in the area – for example, the south Americans and the portuguese. It has a lot to do with where these communities have settled in London.
Many of the children don’t get help at home from their parents as often their spoken and written English is poor. Their parents find it difficult to read to them in English.
We’ve also stopped doing written notes and journals for the parents due to their level of English and the school provide extra help; there is what is called “intervention support” which is extremely valuable and when necessary children are taken out of the classroom for additional help or supported in class. It depends on the numbers of children in the class that need support. The parents are also not actively involved in the school as much as we would like but that it probably due to their poor language skills.
The children mix well with each other but due to language and cultural differences, I notice that the south Americans group together as do the Africans and Eastern Europeans.
The school doesn’t celebrate different festivals as much as my previous school because it is a catholic school and therefore we mostly celebrate Christian festivals.
Working with children from such a wide range of backgrounds is challenging but really rewarding. I love to see just how much the children improve and learn about each others cultures.
My name is Spanish but all the children pronounce my name well but the parents don’t.
Now I’m off to Japan to teach in an International School in Kobe, which is south of Tokyo. I will still be teaching primary school children aged 9-10 and I understand that they will be from the USA, South America, the UK, Asia and Japan. The challenge for me will be learning Japanese!
