{"id":1553,"date":"2020-12-10T16:11:23","date_gmt":"2020-12-10T16:11:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/?p=1553"},"modified":"2020-12-10T16:11:23","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T16:11:23","slug":"how-being-an-ambassador-helped-me-on-my-year-abroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/2020\/12\/10\/how-being-an-ambassador-helped-me-on-my-year-abroad\/","title":{"rendered":"How being an Ambassador helped me on my year abroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>It\u2019s safe to say, had I not been a student ambassador in my first two years at university, on the first day of my teaching abroad, I definitely would have crumbled when faced with a class of 25 13-year-old French students who I couldn\u2019t understand (I\u2019m sure they were thinking the same when I spoke English)!<\/p>\n

Last year I set off on my year abroad as an English language assistant in two high schools in France teaching students aged 10-18. Having selected \u2018no preference\u2019 on the British Council form, I was placed in a small cute town named Auxerre, about a 90-minute train ride from Paris.\u00a0 My year abroad was something I had been looking forward to since day one, indeed one of the biggest reasons why I came to university, so I couldn\u2019t wait to get stuck in. It wasn\u2019t easy to begin with. I arrived with loads of luggage and was met by a teacher at the train station. We travelled to the school to pick up the keys for the apartment I was renting with the other assistants only to find, there were no keys left! A three bed flat had been let out to four of us, so I spent 4 weeks sharing a room with a German assistant, who thankfully was lovely!<\/p>\n

\u2018FLEXIBILITY AND ADAPTABILITY\u2019 \u2013 This still rings in my head since hearing Ruth and Jamie saying this in the first summer core team I took part in – two skills we learn and improve, sometimes unknowingly as ambassadors, which couldn\u2019t have helped me more during my time abroad. How do you adapt a PowerPoint presentation you\u2019ve prepared for a class on the royal family when there turns out to be no computer in the classroom? Game of guess the royal charades! How do you teach a class about Agatha Christie and Sherlock Holmes? This was a tricky one, but I had great fun designing a murder mystery with the original title of \u2018who killed the English Assistant?\u2019. How do you teach 30 ten-year-olds to make Christmas crackers without breaking it to them you\u2019ve never made a Christmas cracker in your life?! Can\u2019t lie, this was pure acting skills and I thanked my lucky stars I\u2019d done GCSE Drama.<\/p>\n

Overall, my year abroad teaching allowed me to work with students in big classes and mentor them in small groups, something I\u2019ve always loved doing whilst being a student ambassador. It allowed me to build my confidence and improve my communication skills, again something which you have ample opportunity to do as an ambassador, so you are all already ahead of the game!<\/p>\n

If any of you are planning a year abroad, looking into becoming an English language assistant, have ambassador-related questions, (or just want to speak French!), feel free to drop me an email. Best wishes for the month ahead. Stay positive and stay safe. Ellie<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s safe to say, had I not been a student ambassador in my first two years at university, on the first day of my teaching … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":67467,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[163993],"tags":[92443],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/67467"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1553"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1555,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1553\/revisions\/1555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1553"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1553"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/outreach-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1553"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}