Eissa Albinali

I started school in Spain. In the US I would be going into 8th grade which is middle school but here in Spain I start secondary school which is basically high school. I woke up at seven o’clock, washed my face, changed my clothes and had my breakfast. I already had my backpack packed, preparing for my first day. I checked my bag, making sure I had everything with me and did not forget any books. I walked out with my dad and started to walk to school. While I was walking to school I started to think about what would happen when I arrived. I was not able to speak Spanish well, so I was wondering if I would be able to understand what people were saying and would they even be able to understand me!

I soon arrived at the school. I said bye to my dad and headed in. I was greeted by the assistant principal who told me to go to the auditorium for the assembly. In my limited Spanish, I was able to tell him I was new to the school, didn’t speak much Spanish and didn’t know where the auditorium was. He walked me down to the auditorium and showed me where to sit. When I opened the door all the students were already sitting down and looked at me. I felt my face turn red and just wanted to get a seat. On the stage a teacher was standing and speaking in Spanish, of course. I didn’t really understand what she was talking about so I hoped it wasn’t anything really important. Towards the end we were assigned to our homerooms. Luckily, that part I understood!

We met our new teacher and classmates. Most of the students went to the same school last year so they knew each other but some students were new, like me. We all walked down to our homeroom class with our new teacher. We entered the class and everyone quickly started to sit down choosing the seat they wanted. I didn’t know we got to choose where we wanted to sit so I ended up getting a seat in the front of the class where no one wanted to sit.

When we were all seated the teacher introduced herself and called up one student at a time to give each of us our textbooks for the year. I was the first one to go up since I am always at the beginning of the attendance list since my last name starts with the letter “A”. After I got my books I sat back down in my seat and looked through a few of the books while everyone else was getting their books. Since all the books, except the English class book, was written in Spanish I tried to understand what I could. After everyone received their books the teacher then told everyone their weekly schedule. She told us, verbally, every class we would have each day. I noticed the students around me were taking notes, but there was nothing on the board, so what were they writing down?

Now this is where lost in translation happened…I didn’t realize she wanted us to write it down. She was telling us our Wednesday schedules before I realized I should have been writing down everything, there was no printed schedule.

After writing down what I remember from the schedule, the first part of the day was over and it was time to go to recess. Unlike the US, in Spain we go outside and have snack and recess at the same time. While outside a kid from my class walked up to me and started to talk to me. Like me, he had also moved to Spain to learn Spanish, however, this was not his first year in Spain, so he was pretty fluent in Spanish already.

We talked through recess and I asked him a few questions about the school and how fast he learned Spanish while living here. He told me he was able to talk to people and understand most conversations within six months of living in Spain. He introduced me to another student in the school who was also from the US and came to Spain to learn Spanish. The three of us hung out the rest of recess, and have since become good friends.

When recess ended we were told to go to our normal classes based on the schedule our teacher gave us. However, since I didn’t write down Monday’s schedule I had no idea what class I was supposed to go to. I followed a few kids who were in my class and just went to the class they where going to, not knowing if it was right or wrong. The class I followed them into was music, and since I saw many kids from my homeroom class, I just stayed, and turned out I was right.

The teacher was talking the whole time and I not idea what she was talking about. I caught a few words like opera and Italiano. At the end of the class the boy I met during recess asked me if I understood what she was talking about and I told him I barely caught a few words. He told me during the whole class she was just talking about Italian opera. So I guess the only two words I understood, was enough.

The last class of the day was Spanish language class. I knew I had this class because for the five main subjects in school you have them with only students in your homeroom class. In the class the teacher told us to take out our Spanish books. We looked through all the lessons we would be taking through the year. She then started to ask some basic grammar questions to each student and when it came to me I told her I didn’t know Spanish very well and that I had just come form the US to learn Spanish. She assured me that this year I would be able to learn Spanish very well.

My first day of school in Spain was a new experience from what I am normally used to. I learned a lot about the school day in Spain and met a couple new friends. I am excited for the rest of the school year here in Spain and everything I will learn by going to school in a different country.