Benn has new life in Spain

Path of true love led a Shrewsbury man to a foreign country where he has learned new language, writes Rhea Parsons.

In the heart of a small Spanish town, just 25 minutes from the bustling city of Valencia, is a newly-opened English academy which bears the iconic image of Big Ben and the flag of the United Kingdom.

It is run by Shrewsbury man Benn Parsons and his partner Maite Cerdan, and is the result of years of hard work by the couple. Their vision became a reality at the end of last year - four-and-a-half years after Benn first left Shropshire and drove hundreds of miles to La Vall d'Uixo to be with Maite.

Maite had spent three months in Shrewsbury working at the Lion Hotel on Wyle Cop as part of her English studies, and met Benn who was working at the time as a bar manager at the Bellstone Hotel.

When Maite left the country and headed home Benn realised he wanted to be with her and decided to follow in her footsteps - to a town where only a handful of people spoke English and the heat threatened to make the decision one of the worst he had ever made.

"I wanted to work in a hotel or somewhere similar but I couldn't speak Spanish well enough to communicate so I began working for Maite's brother, who was managing director at a company that fitted ceilings," says Benn.

"I had never worked in construction before, I didn't know the names of the tools in English let alone in Spanish and we were on building sites in heat upwards of 40 degrees. I couldn't get used to having a siesta - the workman would just curl up on the floor of the half-built houses we were working on for an hour - but I couldn't sleep in the heat so was always tired, I suffered from heatstroke, bad chilblains; it was really tough."

Being thrown in at the deep end turned out to be by far the best way to learn Spanish, and Benn is now fluent in a number of dialects. But it took time.

"I couldn't even speak to Maite's family, I would be sitting at the table and they would all be talking away and I wouldn't understand. It could get very lonely, if Maite wasn't there to translate I would try my hardest but at the beginning it was nigh on impossible.

"Slowly I began to understand more and more of what people were saying, the men I was working with would just shout until I understood and it made me learn a lot quicker. Maite helped me every night and I studied Spanish every spare minute I had. It just started all coming together and finally I was having conversations.

"I also got used to the heat and became accustomed to siestas and started fitting in with the Spanish way of life."

His English roots and the conclusion of Maite's English education meant when Benn became fluent the pair could finally do what they had dreamed of - set up their own academy.

The building is near their home in La Vall d'Uixo and they have a number of students who they teach in the two classrooms they have kitted out with desks and whiteboards.

"I love working with our students and teaching them English," adds Benn. "I am glad I am speaking English more as well, I sometimes forget how to say certain words in English because I have been speaking only Spanish for so long.

"When my family come to see me I can be chattering away and Maite will tell me I am speaking in Spanish and they don't understand a word I am saying.

"I am looking forward to bringing in more students and watching them get better and better, just like I did."

Maite is also enjoying running an English school and says although Benn is a different sort of teacher they work well together.

She says: "I'm very happy working together with Benn and that he has learned a lot in a year about how to teach English, because one thing is speaking it and another one is knowing how to teach it to foreign people.

"At the beginning Benn had to ask me questions all the time after finishing his lessons because he didn't know how to explain things. Now he hardly asks me anything, and he has developed his own methods of getting students' attention and is a very close teacher but also knows how to give them discipline.

"I'm less funny than him, and students know that, but I think they like me too. We have different characters but we both have good things and we are happy with students' results so far."

Following her studies Maite trained to be a teacher for three months in a secondary school with a qualified teacher as a supervisor, and at the same time worked in a studies centre where the children went to do their homework and revise for their English exams.

"I helped them and explained the things they didn't understand but the method was very different from what we do in the academy," she adds.

"There, all students were mixed and now they are organised according to their ages and level of English, and we use our own books, not the ones they use at school. They also take exams with us and every three months we give parents a note telling them how their children are doing."

by Rhea Parsons