1) The document is the author's journal from their time studying abroad in Bognor Regis, England. They discuss adjusting to their host family's rules of removing shoes inside and wearing slippers, as well as learning about British time management and punctuality. 2) The author reflects on conversations with their host family where misunderstandings around vocabulary like "daughter-in-law" come up, highlighting differences between Spanish and English. They make efforts to improve their listening and speaking skills. 3) On a trip to Sussex villages with other teachers, the author enjoys learning about the local landscapes and history. They practice conversation skills at a pub over drinks and discuss the British education system.

1. MY JOURNAL
Tuesday 13th
October
Part One
The first day I got to my house in Bognor Regis, the lady in my host family asked
me to take my shoes off every time I get in the house and put on my slippers. She also told
me that I should get changed and wear some wellies to go to their garden. She explained
to me that our soles from our outdoor shoes are dirty and muddy and so we do not get the
floor and the carpet dirty. I noticed the carpet it is not damaged and it is clean. I found it
really practical and comfortable. On one hand it is practical because they have all shoes
ready next to the door, and they have some wellies next to the garden’s door too. On the
other hand it is nice and I feel so comfortable when I get into the house and the first thing I
do is to take off my shoes. I am definitely going to respect their home rules because it
makes me feel part of the family and I love it.
Part Two
Today I rushed to my classroom at University and when I got inside the class I
noticed the teacher had started the lesson. She asked me very politely if everything was
right. I think the teacher asked me because she considered that if someone is late is
because something unexpected and maybe unpleasant had happened. I felt
uncomfortable because I interrupted the lesson, but it reminded me that I should manage
the time better, for my personal life and professional life at school. Every time I am late
there will be someone waiting and honestly I do not like it.
Yesterday, it was our first day at University and we were given a daily timetable with all the
activities for the day. I also noticed the English people we talked to my first day (the
librarian, Simon, David and Charlie) emphasized the activities and the precise time the
next activity was going to start. It is known that English people are always on time. I will do
my best with time management.
Wednesday 14th
October

2. Part One
Today my host family seemed to me really nice and friendly. They asked me about my
family in Spain and after that they talked about their family. They also showed me some
pictures. I felt so glad because they told me a lot of details about their personal life and
that made me feel they trust me. On the other hand I am aware I couldn’t understand
everything they told me and I couldn’t tell them everything I wanted. I would love to
improve my listening and speaking so the next time I talk to them I can understand more
details. In order to do that I am trying to activate my listening. I have been thinking about
the strategies to work on these aspects. I will talk to myself aloud when I am alone,
repeating difficult words and structures, trying to work on the right stress of words as my
teacher Kathy told us, a kind of a Mumble drill. As I am living with other Spanish teacher at
home, we speak English all the time to make the most of being in an English context.
Part Two
Today I talked to the man in my host family and I asked him about his daughter in
law. He told me her name and also he said she wasn’t his daughter in law because his son
and the woman were not married. I was surprised to hear that because in Spanish we use
that word even if there is not a marriage just to explain the relationship. He told me that
they do not normally use it with that meaning.
I think this is interesting because it reminds me how languages have different
interpretations of a word.
Thursday 15th
October
Part One
In this part I am going to talk about my experiences about how to start a conversation.
Today I have been thinking about what has happened over the past few days when I have
met an English native speaker. They started the conversation in the morning by asking
questions like “Did you get some sleep yesterday?” or “Did you sleep well?”. I find these
questions quite polite to start a conversation and to show the other person you are really
interested in talking to. Also I noticed that the answer to the typical question “How are
you?” is never “I’m fine thank you, and you?”. As I said before they tended to use more
natural questions that reminds me to enrich and expand my vocabulary and also that I can
teach that to my kids.

3. Part two
Today I have been talking to my host family after dinner. They invited me to go with them
to visit their son. We went there by car and so we spent some time talking on the way to
their son’s house about the differences when driving in Britain. I told them I am used to
driving in Spain a lot, but here I would need some practice I explained. The man of my
family was driving and I asked the lady if she had her driving license. She answered with a
kind of joke “I do not drive but I drive my husband mad”, we all laughed a lot. I felt so glad
because I was able to understand a joke, I felt so motivated to go deeper into the British
sense of humor. I thought it was an easy way to play with words and even my students in
Spain will love it.
Friday 16th
October
Part one
Since I came here my host family has been taking on the responsibility of hosting two
international teachers at home very well. They always do their best to make us feel in our
own home. The lady has been cooking a pudding almost every day to please us. I am
aware because I remember I told her the first day that I loved apple crumble and cakes.
Today she has made a delicious cake with sultanas. The cake is called Bread Pudding. I
have enjoyed a lot my piece of cake. I am getting used to eating a British pudding after
dinner and it is also a way of easing into conversation because we were chatting a lot
about British pudding we had eaten so far.
Bread pudding
Part Two
Today in class I learnt how to disagree in English in a polite way. This made me think about
English politeness in general so I tried to pay more attention to that. At lunchtime when I

4. was in the canteen and I asked the lady for fish a chips she answered “thank you” as she
was giving me the plate, kind of thank you for choosing my food. That makes me think
about politeness and the way I asked her, it wasn’t polite, so I will do my best for tomorrow.
I also noticed people say “Cheers” as they get off the bus, and so I did it, it is a very good
start to improve my politeness when speaking.
Saturday 17th
October
Part one
What a wonderful day! We went on a trip to some Sussex villages. This experience made
me feel like a kid. We had some fun all teachers together. Simon and David lead the group
and explained a lot of details about the places we visited. First we stopped at East Head
and West Wittering, the most popular sandy beach in this area. After that we went to
Bosham, we visited the Harbour and the church of the Holy Trinity. Later we had lunch in
Midhurst and finally we were led to The Trundle. The scenery was outstanding, green hills,
and what is more, we could see roof of the Cathedral in Chichester from there.
Everywhere we went that day, there were people, even if the weather was not good. I think
British are lucky because they are surrounded by beautiful green hills, the sea and
amazing landscapes that are well worthy to be enjoyed. Maybe that is one of the reasons
why British people love pets and it is also a way to enjoy the nature with them. I took nice
pictures I think I can use them for my Science lessons about the landscapes. It will
motivate my kids because they will see their teacher in those pictures.
Ruins at Cowdray Park

5. Part two
The itinerary ended with a milk tea in the pub The Fox Goes Free. It was incredible,
because you don’t expect to go in such a homely pub in the middle of nowhere. And then
when we were and we had something to drink, we didn’t want to leave. Simon and David
were very friendly and asked our opinion about the places we visited. As we have been
talking about the British Educational System, I started a conversation with David about that
topic. It was a helpful conversation because I practiced the vocabulary related to
Education. I tried to find out the name of the school I am going to, but he didn’t tell me. We
had a lovely time and we laughed a lot with David jokes.
Sunday 18th
October
Part one
Learning new words from a piece of news. This is one of the new things I did today. I got a
piece of news from the Daily Mail as Kathy told us. I read the article and tried to get the
general meaning. I didn’t focus on the words I didn’t understand but generally speaking I
got the idea of the text. After that I looked up some new words in the dictionary, some of
them are: fang, ranger and prowl car.
Part two
Today I went to Chichester. I consider it is a lovely town and I haven’t had time this week to
go there and explore. Some Spanish teachers decided to go together and visit different
places, as far as I am concerned some went to Arundel and others went to Brighton. I
believe it’s is easier to go with the Spanish teachers, because there is no need to make an
effort to communicate in English. I mean, if anything happens, because you cannot find the
right way to get to a specific place for example I figure out we will help each other instead
of asking someone in English. I had this feeling several times along this week, I was just
following the group, in a passive role, however I want to take an active role. For these
reasons I have mentioned, I went to Chichester on my own, on purpose. I needed to buy
some things for facial care so I found a great opportunity to speak English about a topic
that involves using specific vocabulary. It was a very satisfying experience because in
spite of my pronunciation the lady in the shop understood what I wanted. I noticed it is very
important not be shy or/and talk loud enough to be heard.
Monday 19th
October
Part one

6. Today Kathy gave us back our journal to reflect on our mistakes. At first sight I realized
there were a lot of marks and I was a bit worried, that made me think I need to improve
also my writing. Then I thought “There is no learning if there are not mistakes”, so the best
thing to do is just learning, that’s the positive thing. After that Kathy told me the reasons for
those mistakes. I am excited about the improvement of my writing skills, I am sure I will be
proud of myself in four weeks. I will do my best writing my journal.
Part two
I am trying to incorporate new vocabulary we have learnt in class. Today, after dinner we
had an interesting conversation about British Education, it was very motivating because
obviously I love the topic and it helped me to stick the concepts we had talked about in
class. Finally, I wanted to go to bed so I said to my host family that it was time to stop our
chatting and time to leave them and rest in peace, suddenly we all laughed because they
understood what I meant even if I didn’t use the right words. After our laugh, the lady in my
host family explained to me that it is better to say “Stay peace and quiet” to express what I
wanted.
Tuesday 20th
October
Part one
I have kept some pounds since I was in England the last time five years ago. Today I had
to pay 30 p for lunch so I used that money. The lady, the cashier, told me she couldn’t
accept that money because it was old. The lady in my host family told me that I can
change them in the bank, but I am going to keep them so I can use them with my kids in
Spain. It is realia and I am sure I can use them in a role play, playing British shops.
Anyway, I will try to find some play money in a toy shop.
Part two
As Kathy suggested to me some aspects I have to focus on to improve, I am going to
make a personal language notebook. I am going to organize it with different sections. I am
going to write down words that I know but I don’t use, words I have heard along the day,
and also expressions that Kathy use to manage the classroom.
Wednesday 21st
October
Part One
Today was my first time staying in a treehouse!. There is one at the top of a tree in the

7. garden of my host family. I loved it. It is a British mini cottage. My pupils in Spain will love
it, I will bring them some pictures, the lady in my host family took a picture of me, inside
the house having a tea party!. Their grandsons’ toys were there and we had such a good
time. British cottages and detached house are part of the culture, they are traditional here
and very different from the kind of houses we live in Spain.
Part Two
Today I was on the way home, on the bus. I was the only one person on the bus apart from
the driver. The lady who was driving stopped for three minutes she explained to me that
the bus stop we were at that time, had a departure time and she had to respect it. As she
seemed she wanted to chat, and there were nobody I tried to practice my English. We
were talking about the traffic, how practical and healthy it is biking, I learnt “Two way road”
and I also used busy road because I had heard David to use it. These words are now part
of my personal language notebook.
Thursday 22nd
October
Part one
I have decided to set a challenge. I will focus on a particular British topic every day. I love
the library at the University, I wish I could have more free time to find out, there are a lot of
interesting resources I will not find in Spain. Yesterday I was looking around the library and
I borrowed a book “Vocabulary in use”, and it is divided in different topics. I am going to do
a quick revision on a particular theme every day, I will talk aloud at the bus stop while
waiting, and I will write down new words about that specific topic. Or even better, if there is
someone waiting for the bus I will try to start a conversation, this is what it is called “going
out of the comfort zone”. Maybe I wouldn’t do it in Madrid, I mean starting a conversation
with someone I don’t know, but if I am polite, I don’t think nothing wrong can happen.
Part Two
Today we have been working in groups about our language development project. We are
working on idioms and expressions British people use to talk about romantic love. As part
of the research we did a questionnaire to ask some people in the campus. At the beginning
it seemed an impossible mission because nobody was giving us appealing or new
information, also all students were busy and in a hurry to go to a lecture. In the end we
went into The Hub. We started to talk to one person and then two friends of that person
joined in. But in fact our questions turned into an interesting conversation. They gave us

8. really nice expressions; “lovey dovey” or “the third wheel” to mean the person who
interferes in a romantic relationship of two people. The expression is a metaphor based on
the romantic relationship seen as a bicycle, and that’s why the third wheel is left. I will
always remember that expression because I learnt it in a very natural context. I think it is
curious how the expressions we use reflect our culture, I will definitely write them down on
my language notebook.
Friday 23rd
October
Part one
After the lessons, this afternoon I wanted to go to the town centre and get something to
drink and reward myself for working hard along the week. I asked one of the Spanish
teachers to come with me and so we walked up to the High Street in Bognor. We had
some fun. We popped into some of the shops there, and then we bought something to
drink in the supermarket and a container with fruit to take away. We sat down on a bench
on the street and ate the pieces of fruit while we were chatting. Once we finished we
wanted to go into the shops again but we couldn’t because they were closing, it was half
past five. The next 15 minutes we could see how the street cleared out, so we carried on
walking to the nearest bus stop just around the corner. Unfortunately the streets were not
so lively as fourteen minutes ago, even if it was Friday. This situation made me felt a bit
down, because it reminded me of how a Friday after work is in Madrid for me. Compared
to Spain, and generally speaking I think British start the day very early, they get up earlier
than in Spain, and as a consequence they also end the day before we do. They normally
have dinner around half past six, while we normally have dinner around ten in Spain.
Part two
After dinner the man in my host family asked me if I wanted a cup of tea. I accepted and
so I headed to the kitchen to see how to make a tea British style. I had a very interesting
conversation with him. I enjoyed a lot and I leant because he made me repeat some words
he could not understand because of my Spanish pronunciation. The words I practised
were: pub, herbal tea, caffeine, weak tea and brew.
Saturday 24th
October
Part one
I visited Portsmouth today. I went on my own by train. When I got to Portsmouth Harbour I
started walking looking around because it seemed to me very lively. While I was walking I
met the Spanish teachers. First we went to the house where Charles Dickens was born,

9. the house is a museum but it was closed. Then we walked around the city centre to go up
to the Spinnaker Tower to see the Isle of Wight and the beautiful landscape. Suddenly it
started to rain so I decided not to go up to the Tower. We walked around the Millennium
Promenade but as it was also very windy we had a coffee in one of the coffee shops in the
outlet shopping centre. Later we also spent some time shopping there. At the end of the
day I was disappointed because I could not enjoy the city. There are some places I would
like to visit. Definitely I think I will come back, I would like to find out more about Dickens
birthplace for example and some of his work, it may help me to plan interesting activities
for my kids about English literature.
Part two
I have learnt something new about rubbish collection and recycling, my host family
explained to me how it works. I noticed British people are aware of the importance of
recycling and the commitment of separating food waste from plastic and paper. I was
explained that the Council gives each family the containers for rubbish and recycling.
Families must keep their own waste and rubbish in the garden till they are collected. I see
a lot of differences in contrast to Spain. In Spain some people do not respect the rubbish
collection times, and some people do not care and throw the rubbish away in the wrong
container or litter. As a result some streets get dirty, I have not seen this here, at least so
far.
Sunday 25th
October
Part one
The Sun was shining and the sky was clear so it was a fantastic day to do something. I
went to Arundel with some Spanish teachers. First, we were walking around the town. After
that we enjoyed the walled gardens of the castle and the inside as well. The most
impressive part was walking around the Keep Tower, where we experienced how the
guard lived there and what he used to do to when there was a danger We visited the
cathedral and walked along the river promenade. While we were walking we saw a
beautiful basket full of golden apples with a sign saying “Help yourself”, suddenly we
thought of picking one up, when the owner came. He was so kind that made me feel so
lucky .He explained to us that he had just picked them off the tree, and that they were too
many for him and so he decided to share them. This was something I really appreciated. I
think kindness and politeness are part of British culture.
Part two
After dinner I talked to my host father. We were talking about animals that we may see in

10. the surroundings of our neighbourhood. Every day I can see a lot of squirrels which I love,
but today I was very surprised and I told him I had seen a fox on the way home. He didn’t
seem surprised at all, but as he understood I was a bit worried, he calmed me down telling
me they are harmless (as long as they don’t get into your house and you have young kids).
Monday 26th
October
Part one
I have been told the name of the school where I am going to do my teaching practice. I am
very happy because it is just five minutes walking from home. It is a Junior School, Key
Stage two. I am not very familiar with this age, because mostly I have been working with
young kids, from five to eight, but I am still happy because since it is a challenge and I am
sure I am going to learn a lot. I have started to find out more about this school, I did some
research on the internet and I noticed I knew what I was reading, I mean, there were a lot
of acronyms, and terms that I have learnt in the lessons with Kathy and Simon last week. I
am excited about my school and I feel confident enough to start this new experience.
Part two
Today I was talking to my host mother I told her that I hadn’t seen a lot of students as
usual, after that I tried to remember the word “Half term” but I couldn’t. I felt so happy
because she understood what I meant even if I didn’t use those two words. I think it is a
good strategy to keep on talking despite the difficulties. Using a description of what you
want to say helps too.
She explained to me that there are three terms, autumn, spring and summer and that “Half
term” is a week for holiday at Primary, Secondary and at University. It is something that
doesn’t exist in Spain.