My name is Natalia Regueiro Leis. When I first arrived at Shannon Academy I was in a panic. Let me tell you why. I am a Spanish teacher from Galicia and came to study here for three months. The idea was to attend a course on Scientific English and to experience life in Ireland. I had everything arranged from Spain. I had gotten in contact with an English Language Centre, enrolled my two children into a local school and rented a house. However, two days before the classes were supposed to start, at this stage myself and my whole family were already settled in Ireland, a problem with the language centre arose which meant that I had to find a new language centre in a day.
Finding such specific tuition in so little time was more than stressful and as the hours passed the stress turned into panic. In a worried state I met Caoimhe, the director of Shannon Academy in Athlone. Not only did she immediately start to work on finding me a solution, but she was also sympathetic to me and trust me I needed it. In a matter of a few days, I was in class!
This centre does not specialise in Scientific English, but they have an advantage that no other centre has in the area. They are located on a secondary school premises and they co-operate with the school and its teachers on a regular basis. This has provided me, thanks to Shannon Academy, with the opportunity to meet the junior science teacher who has invited me to attend some of his lessons. This will be especially interesting and beneficial to me, as I will be able to observe the use of Scientific English language used in real context. I’m looking forward to experiencing this.
On the other hand, as there is no such thing as a scientific English course available, Shannon Academy have organised private tuition which consists of individual lessons. This way, the teacher, a very nice lady called Patricia- can totally adapt her teaching to suit my needs. I must say that so far this is working very well, or should I say “grand”. I am not only learning but I am also enjoying the lessons and it makes me feel happy that I still have ten more weeks of this.
