The Teaching Begins

This week I finally started teaching! I didn’t teach my full schedule yet because there are still some things that need to be organized. I met with my inspecteur and conseiller again and we changed my schedule around a bit. Now I will be working Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday morning at three different schools. I will spend three hours at each school and then Tuesday and Thursday afternoon I will have my Skype sessions with my other three schools. I will have two Skype sessions on tuesday afternoon (1hour long each) and one Skype session on thursday afternoon (1hour long). 

On Monday and Tuesday I didn’t do too much. On Monday I had my schedule meeting and I figured out which bus stops I need to get off at in order to get to my schools. I moved myself to the girls' apartment downstairs for this week because the rugby players arrived. They seem really nice and I am hoping we will all work something out and that I will be able to stay at the apartment after all. I will keep y’all updated. For now I am really enjoying staying with the other assistants! They are awesome and so kind for letting me stay with them for the time being!

Cool church in Roanne that is near the school where I have my meetings

Pretty little area I stumbled upon while walking in Roanne

Here's me with the mural again in Roanne, this time comforting some kids lol

Wednesday was my first day of work! It was pretty fun! I took a city bus to get to the school and just asked a random lady about the whereabouts of the school. People here are very friendly and helpful. I went to one school and I worked with two different classes. The first class consisted of students who are about 8/9 years old. The teacher divided the class in two and she taught half and I had the other half. The students are learning about Halloween now so the teacher told them about a Jack O’Lantern legend or something. I had the students practice Halloween vocabulary words by showing them flashcards. They learned words like: spider, witch, ghost, candle, pumpkin, jack o’lantern, and bat. They also learned phrases such as "trick or treat" and "Happy Halloween". It was hard for most students to remember to pronounce the ‘h’ in the words because in French you don’t pronounce it. Also, they struggled with the word ‘candle’ but they seemed to be getting everything else pretty quickly! Then, I partnered them up and had them practice the words with each other and I walked around helping them with their pronunciation. Then, they completed a little crossword puzzle with the Halloween vocabulary words.

The second class I worked with consisted of older kids (maybe 10/11years old). The teacher in this class is pretty good at speaking english. During this english lesson, I helped the kids learn about feelings. They learned how to say many phrases such as: I’m sad, I’m happy, I’m in a bad mood, I’m cold, etc. It was cute to hear them have little dialogues in english with each other. They were all so eager to learn and to show off their skills. Then, they played a game where each person got a picture that represented one of the feelings they learned. One by one they had to ask each other “how are you?” until they found someone who had the same picture. This was a good way for everyone to practice and repeat the phrases. 

Overall the teaching went well on my first day! I really like the school and all of the teachers are really nice! 

Thursday was my second day teaching! I had to go to a further school today so I had to take two buses from the apartment. I got up super early so that I would not be late. The buses to this part of the area come only around once every 45-60minutes, so I can either be 45 minutes early or 15 minutes late... So I officially start working at 8 30am, but this morning I arrived at 7 50am...whooo! Well it wasn’t too bad because I had to figure out where the classrooms were and where I would be. I also had a powerpoint presentation that I had to get ready before the students arrived. 

At this school, I just presented myself to the three upper level classes. I showed each class my powerpoint and presented some pictures of my family, where I’m from, and of my university. In the first classroom there was a guy teacher, I did the entire presentation in french but while I was presenting, I had the kids tell me words in english (like sister, friends, family, etc.). The kids were all very eager to answer all of my questions which was cool! Then the kids asked me questions at the end. In the second class, there was a lady teacher and she wanted me to do the presentation in french because her students didn’t know too much english. In the third class there was another man teacher, and he wanted me to present myself in english. He himself spoke pretty good english because I think he studied abroad in the US when he was younger. After I finished the presentation, the kids asked tons of questions! After answering some questions, I got to read the class a story about Halloween. It was in English and it was about Halloween creatures getting invited to a party. I think the kids enjoyed it and the teacher was glad I read it because he wants the kids to get as much exposure to my accent as possible.

This school also had a cool teachers lounge where I got some tea after my second class. In the teachers lounge room I met another teacher who actually lives quite close to me in Roanne! She is really nice and she even offered to take me to and from the school every Thursday because she knows how infrequently the buses come. I was so thankful that she gave me a ride! We exchanged numbers so now I have a carpool friend! I also really liked this school and the teachers! The interesting thing about this school is that there are more male teachers here than female. I find that pretty unique... It may be because the principal is a man, but I’m not sure. Anyways its cool to work at a school with mostly guy teachers because the rest of the schools are definitely majority female teachers.

After I got back from the first school, I had lunch and then I had to go to another school to meet the students with whom I will be doing Skype lessons once a week. I showed them the powerpoint and I explained everything in french first. Then, the teacher had me do the presentation again but this time in english so that the students could hear how it sounds like in english. Afterwards they asked tons of questions! Some of their questions were really entertaining and some were pretty inquisitive questions for such young children. 

Here is one of the six schools that I am working at 

Pretty church near one of the elementary schools

Interesting things french students asked me:

“Is everyone in America fat?”

“Have you been to New York?” (this one was super popular! They were really interested in NY- I guess I need to go there)

“Do any celebrities live near you?” 

“Do you know any celebrities?”

“Where do the celebrities live?”

“Where does Justin Beiber live?”

“Where does Selena Gomez live?”

“Have you been to Hollywood?”

"Is there DisneyWorld in America?"

“Have you met Barack Obama?”

“Have you visited his house?”

“Are there a lot of shops in the US?”

“What’s American food? Burgers?” (this one came up many times as well)

“What french foods do you want to try?”

“Do they play sports in the US?”

“Are there a lot of people in the US?”

“Are there a lot of monuments in the US?

“What countries have you visited?”

I am already on my weekend since I don’t work tomorrow :) Man, all of this talking at school is great but I think I might be losing my voice... lol. Hopefully the long weekend will help it get better soon!

Can't wait to sleep in tomorrow,

Magdalena