Teaching is hard, but France is perfect!

Bonjour bonjour!

Thanks for all your wonderful comments. It’s so nice to know there are people at home actually reading this!

Once again I feel like I can barely describe how wonderful things are, I feel so lucky. I am settled into my apartment (and managed to hit up a rockin’ home décor store sale to get some home-y touches) and also started teaching full time. I can fully say I had no idea how hard teaching would be, despite the fact that my mother is a teacher. I had no idea! Kids never sit still and they’re ALWAYS talking. I had five kids coloring their fingernails with highlighters the other day (I just casually walked past, I’m not supposed to “discipline” the children, the actual teacher is supposed to be vaguely watching for troublemakers). I am alone with anywhere from 14 to 31 students for fourteen 45-minute classes per week. My kids range from 6-10 years old and some are brilliant, some not so brilliant. This system here is based heavily on structure, rules, and, in my opinion, negative reinforcement. Thus the children love me because I’m always saying some version of “good job”, “very good”, or “that’s awesome”. I can gesture and speak mostly English with the oldest kids but the youngest ones are a struggle. Even going over things for three or four classes in a row, they still can’t remember the basics like counting to 10 and English ABC’s. I need some creativity; I did buy a wizard hand puppet that “only speaks English” (he is appropriately named Wizard Eric ☺). I’m starting to figure it out and it’s becoming a little more fun each day.

Last weekend my two friends (Amy from NJ and Alex from Ottawa) and I were invited to our new friend’s home in Le Mans. It was such a beautiful little French house out in the suburban country surrounded by fields and about 10 minutes out of the city. Our friends Guillaume and Antione took us out for a truly French dinner (reservations for 9:45pm… I am practically dozing into my wine at this point) and then out with some of their friends. We had possibly the best meal I’ve ever had with Antione’s parents the next day. I feel comfortable saying it was six courses – pre-lunch wine and chips (they are weirdly obsessed with chips here), carrots and pickled beets (which was amusing because they asked us how to say beets in English and in French the word “bite” pronounced like beet is a significantly inappropriate sexual term so the parents are just holding in their laughter as my friends and I continue to repeat it for them), curried chicken, salad and cheese, prune sauce(!!!) and ice cream, and finally coffee and chocolate. I thought I might fall over. It was three hours long and I enjoyed every second of it.

Ahhh yes and the strikes. Oh the French love their strikes. The decision has been passed to raise the retirement age so we shall see what happens. So far Angers is pretty unaffected. There are naturally the high school children “protesting” (I think they probably just want to skip class) and I live in a prime location to watch them stomp through the streets. There were some high schoolers in Le Mans who burned down their school and everyone is hearing about the gas situation in Paris but those are more the extremes. Buses and trains are a little messed up but all in all it’s not so bad. Except garbage, which was not collected for about 10 days. That kind of stunk (haha, get it??). The article below sums it up just in case you’re interested.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130751913

This next week I have the first of my seven weeks of vacation. I’m headed to Mont St. Michel, Saint Malo, and Rennes, on a little tour of Bretagne with my friends from here plus my old roommate from Dijon, Nikki! Seven girls trekking through the French countryside sounds like a blast. I’ll take lots of pictures (and hopefully figure out how to load them on this blog).

A plus tard (loosely translated, talk to you later)!

Sara

Espresso breaks, croissants aux amandes, and observing French classrooms

And so the actual work begins!

This week I spent a few days observing students in their home classrooms. I will be teaching the equivalent of 1st through 5th graders. They are ADORABLE. I finally understand the pull towards teaching; I barely know their names but I want to do my very best to help them so they can all be successful little English speakers. The French school system is a little different from ours – I learned that full time for teachers is 25 hours plus planning per week, there is ALWAYS espresso for us teachers when the kids go to recess (its glorious, there’s also usually a stash of wine or champagne for important occasions), schools are small with only one class of each level, teachers are friendly, though reserved, with me but very strict (and loud) with the kids. I begin teaching on Monday and I’m in general quite terrified. Some of my students have never had English, and even the most advanced can really only form simple sentences. It will be an adventure.

I’ve started moving into my apartment, which I am wholly in love with. It is perfect! OK so perfect might be a stretch, there is not a lot of furniture; luckily France has plenty of IKEA’esque stores so I might pick up a few things to add some cheer. It is located on the 6th floor – no elevator, aka I can continue to eat baguettes, wine, cheese and Nutella at an alarming rate because I’ll be working it all off on the climb to the top. It is in the heart of centre ville, perfectly surrounded by boulangeries, cafes, the cathedral, le chateau d’Angers, and Maine river. I couldn’t ask for more!

Also this week, probably most importantly, I discovered croissants aux amandes – croissants filled with almond pasty deliciousness topped with almonds. It changed my life.

A bientôt!

Arriving in Angers

Hello everyone!

I have safely arrived in Angers! It is so beautiful and enchanting with lots of history to be explored and wine to be tasted. I didn’t think I could fall so instantly in love with a city.

My arrival went rather smoothly. As smoothly as can be when one person is carrying two 50+ lb bags, a backpack and a shoulder bag. It seems I managed to bring so much and yet I forgot some key essentials (sheets, towels, utensils, etc). My first night was very interesting as I slept in my flannel PJ’s (thanks Mom!), thermals and a sweatshirt.

I’m staying at the Foyer de Notre Dame Bon Conseil, which is ironically enough an all-womens Catholic foyer. Foyers are basically long stay hostels for younger people. Its not bad, I can touch the walls in my room if I stand in the middle and I have one fork, knife, spoon, bowl, plate, pot to cook with which the directors were nice enough to loan me. But… there are wonderful people here and five other “assistantes” like myself.

My French has skyrocketed… beyond skyrocketed. There is no longer time to be embarrassed or shy about speaking French. When I first arrived, I didn’t speak English for about three days (except when cursing myself for embarrassing errors). My list of proud accomplishments includes: finding an apartment (finally, this happened about 2 hours ago!), getting a bank account with BNP Paribas (!), and getting a cell phone. It is terrifying but wonderful; finally after eight years of study, I can speak French!

A la prochaine (until the next time)!