BLOGMAS #13: Year Abroad First Thoughts

December 13, 2018

If you have read any of my other Blogmas posts then you might be sick of me mentioning it, but ... Guess what?! I'm on my year abroad!! So for today's Blogmas, I thought I would summarise my first thoughts as my first term here draws to a close.

Here's some context. I study Comparative Literature and French at the University of Kent in Canterbury, England. So, like most English universities, I go on my year abroad in my third year. I had three options; to study, work or teach English. I didn't want to spend another year studying if I didn't have to, so I wanted to work. As I had previous experience tutoring English to school kids in England, I thought I would apply for teaching English. So that's what I did!

For your year abroad you can pretty much choose where you want to go in the world. However, for the English Language Assistantship, you can put down your preferences but aren't guaranteed anything.

I fell in love with Switzerland after a school trip to Geneva a few years ago, so I knew I wanted to go there for my year abroad. (Also, I had been to France numerous times and wanted something a bit different.) However, I was told that Switzerland was super strict and selective about applicants, so I wasn't very optimistic about being accepted.

But, lo and behold, I got it!!!

Long story short, I have been working in a school teaching English to teenagers in a small town in Switzerland for the past 4 months.

And here are my first thoughts.

My expectations

Before I came here, I was a mixture of over-the-moon-excited and mind-numbingly-terrified. I always knew I would be going on a year abroad ever since I chose to study French at degree level, but it always seemed so far away and not something I had to worry about quite yet. So when the summer before I left came round, I didn't know what to expect.

The English Language Assistantship selection process is probably the slowest thing to ever exist. I applied in November 2017 and didn't find out where I was going until May 2018. That's 6 months of waiting around to find out which country you will be spending the next year of your life in. No biggie.

Once I knew, I started preparing straight away. I only had 3 months to sort my life out and get ready for the biggest move of my life so far.

I knew it was going to be hard. I hadn't had the best experience moving away from home for university, and I knew this would be twice as huge, so I was worried.

I expected my work to be lots of fun, teaching a bunch of teenagers about British culture.

I knew it would be difficult to make friends - mainly due to the language barrier, but also because I would only be there for a relatively short time to make good friends.

So... what is it like now I'm here?

My job

So far, so good. Everyone at work was very welcoming, trying their best to make me comfortable and explain to me what was expected of me. There are a couple of teachers in particular that I have bonded really well with which makes coming into work everyday lots of fun.

As I'm only 20, some of my students are the same age as me. This can be intimidating at times, but I rarely have problems with respect and behaviour in most classes so it's working out well. I also feel like it works in my favour that I'm close in age to the students - they are more interested in what I have to say as I am more 'current' than their other teachers, maybe.

My social life

Before coming I knew I would find the social aspect difficult. To be honest, however, it's been slightly better than I was expecting.

I had heard that Swiss people tend to be quite reserved and closed off to strangers, and I definitely felt that. Especially living in a small-ish town, people tend to stick with their friends from school or even university for the rest of their adult life. This makes it particularly hard for people like me to infiltrate social groups.

However, after 4 months, I have noticed a change in people's attitudes towards me. My main source of socialising is through my badminton club that I play at twice a week, and I've definitely noticed they have somewhat warmed up to me. Almost everyone knows my name now and will say hello when they see me, which is huge progress since my first day there. Sometimes it can feel quite alienating being the 'new girl' in a situation like that, especially a sports club, but I have found that eventually it will get easier.

My language skills

The main reason for my year abroad is to improve on my French language skills. This is probably the part I find the most challenging on a day to day basis.

I've never been particularly confident in speaking in English let alone French. I'm much more of a listener, but you can't improve on your language skills without speaking it. So I was pretty much thrown in the deep end.

When I first got here, I found every single conversation a struggle. I had to listen super carefully and ask them to repeat every single thing they said. My listening has definitely improved - I rarely have to ask people to repeat themselves nowadays. I think my ear has just adjusted to hearing French rather than English.

However, my speaking skills are still seriously lacking. I find it difficult to effortlessly speak using grammar without thinking long and hard before I open my mouth, and I can tell it sometimes annoys native speakers which doesn't exactly boost my confidence...

Alas, I see every conversation I have as a learning opportunity. I will prepare anything in advance if I know I don't know how to say something, and then just go from there. I know I will keep improving throughout the year, I just need to remind myself of that.