The Travelling English Teacher - A week in Italy

Having spent 4 weeks teaching English in Scotland this year I decided to have a go at working somewhere other than blighty. I got a job for 1 week in Italy in September. How surprised was I to discover that although all the other 9 Teachers were English (and one Canadian) I was the only Brit who travelled for a week's job from the UK. Three Teachers lived in Barcelona, one in Istanbul, two in Poland, one in Cyprus and one from Canada and heading to Kasakhstan. I felt that they all had glamorous lives working here and working there.

The first thing the DOS said to me was "have you got some chalk there are only blackboards in this school.?" I muttered under my breath "chalk..blackboards!" Actually, I quite enjoyed the old fashioned way apart from getting covered in chalk dust every day and forgetting the speed at which a stick of chalk reduces to dust. Not to mention the other teachers rushing in my class evey few hours saying "chalk chalk I have run out!". I was clever though and kept a little box in my bag and so was the "organised" Teacher.

I had to stay with a host family and at the grand old age of 60 seemed like a daunting task. I was picked up at Bassano and the family asked if I liked Pizza..Of course everyone likes pizza. When we arrived at the house the husband whizzed off somewhere and returned with 2 enormous boxes and we tucked in.

The arrangements with the Company are that the Teachers stay with a family who have a student studying on the English Course. In my house the son was quite nervous when I arrived about the prospect of speaking English . However, at 15 he did very well and for the whole week became chief translator along with my basic Italian, google translate and worksheets from my Italian class we muddled through. We had a music night one night as the son loved to sing (and so do I ) so we blasted out some Bocelli, Adele, Allelullia and some Eros Ramazotti at the top of our voices while the mother videoed us! I hope we don't appear on You Tube.
I wasn't expecting to be living a bus journey and walk away from the centre of Bassano, the School and the Town. At 7a.m the host mother took me and her son to the bus stop and we travelled to Town. At 60 I have have to say it seemed rather strange going to school with a 15 year old..I felt like I was back at school myself. Anyway, the son was very polite and escorted me thorough the winding streets to school.
One of the other downsides about living out of Town was that it was difficult to socialise with the other Teachers. Most of them were picked up by their hosts at 5pm. Some lived even further out than I did. As a result there was no time for a night out to enjoy some Italian cuisine. Having said that, for me the return journey was a little arduous. I had to walk 2 kms on a main road in the heat with a bag of books. Although, there were lost of pretty houses and flowers to see along the way. Thank goodness for Google maps!. On the first day our neighbour came out to look for me and I was so happy to see him.!

I decided to go home with the son on Wednesday at 2pm so that I could get a lift back to the house. It was baking hot and I decided to go to the local swimming lido. I went with the 2 kids from my host family and we had a good time on the water slides and eating ice cream. How sad am I but the thing that interested me the most (so I had to take a photo) was the fact that in the ladies changing room the dryers were at different levels to accommodate people at all heights! How cool is that ..in my local pool there is one hairdryer that the button has to be held down all the time otherwise it cuts off (safety reasons I guess) or, it doesn't work at all!

Our neighbours in San Zenone had emigrated to Australia in the 1960's and although they have a successful business in Australia there was such a feeling of sadness with them because they loved where they lived at the foothills of the Dolomiti. The wife showed me a black and white photo of her with friends with huge bunches of daffodils that they used to pick from the forest. I felt compelled to take this photo of the statue in San Zenone of the couple travelling as it is symbolic of their time but also of the lives of many today.

Bassano del Grappa is situated an hour North of Venice at the foothills of the Dolimites a pretty little Town and well worth a visit. Famous for its Bridge and of course Grappa.

I loved the old fashioned shops selling all kinds of tea or cakes and bread.

Bassano itself had several squares where you can drink a coffee, relax and watch the world go by.

There is also a weekly market on Thursday and Saturday. As with most of Italy there are plenty of churches and religious statues.

Every day in the Staff room the Teachers discussed what they had done the night before. There were many mixed stories.... one lived in a house with a pool so managed to swim. Another lived in a house with an amazing vegetable garden and ate local produce. One had very little food which we were surprised at considering we were in Italy. As for me, I had a good week apart from arriving home with several mosquito bites my host family were fun and accommodating. I had loads of food, learnt a little Italian and laughed a lot!

Well worth the experience and I look forward to going again in 2020..


Ciao