When Weyburn students Ambria Mainil and Kelsey Pragnell prepared to graduate with their education degrees from the University of Saskatchewan last year, they came across an opportunity to go teach in London, England for a year, and jumped at it, seeing it as a great chance to get some international experience in an English-speaking country.
The two long-time friends went over together and live in a flat with a third Saskatchewan girl, Kim Hassard of Saskatoon, and halfway through their teaching experience they are both enjoying it a lot, as they shared in an interview while visiting back at home for the holidays.
Living in the city of eight million in the northwest part of the city, the girls have found there are many Canadians living and working there from all across the country, although as Kelsey pointed out, aside from their room-mate, they haven’t met anyone else from Saskatchewan yet.
Both girls worked for an agency as “supply” teachers for primary grades, or as substitute teachers; once they return in January, Ambria will continue as a supply teacher until April, while Kelsey will take on a Year 5 home room of her own, and will stay through until the school year ends in July.
As Ambria explained, in their school system, Year 5 would be the same as Grade 5 here, except the students are one year younger, as they start school a year earlier than in Canada.
Asked what some of the challenges have been in teaching in England, both girls indicated there were a number of surprising differences, in spite of speaking the same language.
“Just getting used to how they teach has been a challenge. They said they wouldn’t be much different, but they are. They have at least 30 kids in every classroom, and most of them are foreign, from India and Sri Lanka and other places. The hardest thing going in as a substitute is having to say their names with the roll call,” said Ambria. “There’s so many cultures, so knowing how to teach them was a big adjustment.”
Kelsey added that ESL or English-as-a-second-language is very big with so many students from foreign cultures.
Both girls also indicated there are different terms and ways of talking that they had to get used to. For example, Kelsey noted when they ask a question, their voice doesn’t rise at the end the way Canadians say it, but their inflection goes down.
Ambria pointed out some of the different terms they use, such as “jumper” instead of sweater, and “trousers” instead of pants, as pants refers to underpants or underwear.
She laughed as she related asking a class of young students to change for PE or Phys.Ed, which they did in the classroom; she told them to take off their pants and change, and with a shrug, the students took off their trousers and underwear, to her great shock and surprise.
“You have to be careful sometimes,” she added.
Another different reference is using the word “bin” where we would say “garbage”; this was encountered when Kelsey asked the children to put their crayons and materials away in the bin at the end of class, and some of the children responded by throwing their things into the garbage can.
Even in grammar matters there are differences, said Ambria. “They have no idea what a period is; to them, it’s a ‘full stop’.”
One expression Kelsey has had trouble with is in greeting other people.
“They don’t say ‘how are you’, they ask, ‘are you all right?’ I just can’t do it, I keep asking how they are,” said Kelsey, chuckling.
The girls pointed out that the Brits are fairly familiar with American movies, but that Americans and Canadians don’t get a lot of British television or movies, so the British references aren’t as well known as North American ones are.
In spite of the NFL holding the occasional game in London, said Ambria, “Football baffles them. They think it’s rugby — and you don’t call it soccer, it’s always football.”
From their home in the borough of Harrow, it’s about 45 minutes by “Tube” (or subway) to central London, and between the Tube and the buses they have no trouble getting around the city as needed.
“Everything thing there is squished together. Like hairdressers, there might be one or two in each shop and they’re all together. Even in the flat we’re living in, everything is small. They don’t have back yards, and just little gardens,” said Ambria. “After growing up on a farm, I crave open spaces.”
Both girls said this was one of the first differences they noted when they came back to Canada for the holidays, the open spaces, and being able to see the stars in the sky, not to mention sunsets.
“It was amazing to see the stars; I never saw them while I was in London,” said Ambria.
The school system is much different from how education is run here, Ambria pointed out; the schools are not under a central school board as such, but each one operates more or less independently, and each one has tight access controls. Not even parents can just drop in at school to see their children; they have to be buzzed in by the secretary to the locked front doors.
In addition, for the girls to work there, they work for an agency, telling them what sort of teaching they’d like to do, and the agency searches the schools around London to see where supply teachers are needed.
“We’re guaranteed four days a week of work. Usually you can get five days if you want. I might take a day to go sightseeing once in a while; it’s usually better to go during the week when it’s not so busy,” said Ambria.
One of the sights the girls went to was Buckingham Palace, which they toured in September. The tours are only offered for a few weeks, until about the end of September.
“We got there just in time, and we did a whole tour. It was very cool,” said Ambria.
Another famous place she’s seen, going with a friend who visited her, was to the London Eye, the huge Ferris wheel on the Thames River right across from Big Ben.
“Every pod holds 30 people, and it takes about half an hour to go around. I did it on a Saturday, and it wasn’t bad,” said Ambria.
Asked what things they missed from home, Kelsey said Kraft Dinner macaroni was one she missed, and noted, “their coffee is awful.”
The food isn’t always enjoyable either, as Amber pointed out, “Everything is wrapped in pastry, and their sausages all taste like breakfast sausage here, which I’m not a big fan of.”
“They have really good chocolate,” added Kelsey with a smile.
At Thanksgiving time, they made a chicken dinner and had some Canadian friends over to help celebrate. They said they were able to find most of the ingredients needed for a traditional supper, other than substituting chicken for turkey.
Holiday-wise, they go in big for Guy Fawkes Day on Nov. 5, and Christmas especially.
“They don’t do Halloween, but they are obsessed with Christmas. They start having decorations up in September, and every month they add to it,” said Ambria.
