On Teaching

Hi from Lille!

Porte de Paris in Lille

I have now been teaching for a variety of classes for about a month’s worth of time. Here is a discussion and reflection on what that month has looked like for me.

My contract stipulates that I will have 12 hours worth of classes a week. Technically, my timetable does have 12 classes on it, I have yet to work more than 9 hours in a week. Although this doesn’t include any necessary out-of-class prep work, I can tell you that 9 hours isn’t a lot. They do manage to make it feel like a fair amount of work, but that’s because my schedule is all over the place. I work at 11:30 for an hour, and then not again until 4:45 for another hour. I can’t imagine not living at my school. Many assistants end up spending hours everyday just waiting in the teacher’s lounge because their schedules are so spread out. At least I can return to my apartment.

I work for a school that is divided into two halves. One half is the Lycée Générale, this is a fairly standard high school, with classes in subjects including languages, science and math, literature, etc. The other half is the Lycée Professionnel, which is a vocational school. Students can learn various vocations from shop-keeping, to machine maintenance, to secretarial work. A big component of the vocational school is each student has to do a certain number of internships (‘un stage’). These internships are coordinated by the school and each grade within each chosen vocation goes on their internships at the same time. Four of my classes are doing their internships right now, so I don’t work those time slots (which is why I haven’t been working my full 12 hours).

What I actually do in class depends on which teacher I’m working with. I work with 5 different teachers, and each one utilizes me differently. The assistant’s role is really to provide an opportunity for student’s to improve their conversational English and listening skills. That is a really general job description. Communication in France is not always where I think it should be (e.g. don’t expect anyone to get an email for a day or two), so often I don’t even know what they want me to do before I get there.

Some teachers have a list of questions they want me to go through with the students. Some teachers tell me to work on conversation (& that’s it!). Some teachers ask me to give Q&A style presentations to the class. Here are some examples of what I’ve been doing:

• introductions in small groups. I introduce myself, the students introduce themselves, we ask questions and have a conversation. This sometimes goes well and sometimes doesn’t depending on how interested the student’s are in me/America.
• asking them questions on their internship experience. This is a necessary skill for the vocational students because they have to be able to do this for the exam they take at the end of their studies. They have a list of questions which I read to them, and they answer as practiced. It feels like a waste of time, but amazingly so many of them aren’t very good at it, despite having had weeks to practice 8 simple questions.
•  20 questions in a small group. This was probably the most fun activity I did. The students weren’t the most capable in English, but they became motivated to actually say something because it was a boys vs. girls competition. I’m not sure it’s the best activity because they really only ask one style of question (e.g. “Is it….?”) but I think it is a good ice breaker activity for a  new group.
• group presentations on topics relating to America. Two examples are 9/11 and National Parks. Remember: my purpose is to provide opportunities for them to talk, and listening to me is secondary. So these are mainly pictures with questions like “what do you see here?”, “why is this here?”, etc.

In general, I like what I’m doing. However, I am really thankful that I am not on a career path to become a teacher, and I could never imagine myself doing the program for a second year. There are so many students who just don’t care. Especially in the vocational school, it’s hard to speak in English with them. The teachers don’t do it, but there is an expectation that I will only speak English. When the teacher isn’t doing that, they don’t care to listen to me, and they honestly aren’t capable. Around 4-5 people per class can understand me when I talk as slowly and clearly as possible. And the rest either don’t care presently, or spent enough years not caring that now they are really far behind. I don’t like feeling like a babysitter, and I don’t like trying to make people care. If you don’t want to be there, I don’t want to deal with you. The general high school is stricter in that regard, and easier for me to work with – just really different student demographics between the two schools.

Let’s just say I use these expressions a lot.

On that note, I finally had the motivation to suck it up and finish my grad school applications and pay the OUTRAGEOUS application fees (OVER $200 to apply to 4 schools?!!?!?!?). Teaching this year is helping me feel very affirmed in my career choice as a scientist. 😀

A bientôt,

Amy

 

Autumn à l’Etranger

There are few interesting things about experiencing the Fall in a different place. America’s autumn is marked by pumpkin, Halloween, Thanksgiving, football, harvest festivals and all they include (corn mazes, apples, hay bales, etc.). In France, automne has chestnuts, amazing winter scarves, mushrooms (especially in the rainy north), and delicious creamy soups. Both have apples and squash, thank goodness!

In France, Halloween is celebrated a bit…. although I don’t think they really understand the idea. In supermarkets, you can find a small costume section, some candy, and carving pumpkins. They have themed nights at clubs and bars, but that is about the extent of the celebration here. The French do not understand trick-or-treating. Which, when you really think about it, trick-or-treating is really strange. Also, in order for trick-or-treating to be common, a lot of people need to participate. Obviously, that works in America because it is an established tradition, but here, I’m not even sure where people would go if they wanted to take their kids trick-or-treating.

I took it upon myself to introduce my Chinese roommates to American Halloween traditions. They dress up for Halloween parties, etc. in China, but didn’t really know about pumpkin carving and trick-or-treating. So I made them carve a pumpkin and then force-fed them roasted pumpkin seeds and pumpkin bread. I think they think I’m crazy. But I did catch them taking about a million pictures of their pumpkin later, so I mean how crazy can I really be?

Working on their pumpkin!

You can’t buy canned pumpkin puree here, so I’ve had to make my own in order to really be in the Fall spirit. They serve a pumpkin soup in my school’s cafeteria sometimes, but in general, pumpkin isn’t a common flavor here. So I get my fill each morning with a bit of pumpkin oatmeal. So good. And I’m having a vegetable for breakfast! Love it. I’ve decided that the French version of pumpkin is chestnuts (marrons). They love them. Chestnut paste, chestnut tarts, chestnut cremes, chestnut soups, chestnuts everywhere!

I’ve heard its good, but I have yet to try it.

Thanksgiving is, obviously, not celebrated in France. There are two main impacts this has on the Fall. Firstly, the food in a grocery store is different. Good luck finding a turkey, because turkey is really only eaten at Christmas here. Similarly, it is difficult or impossible to find yams, pumpkin puree, and cranberries/cranberry sauce. Secondly, there is nothing to mark the start of the Christmas season. In the States, Christmas is nicely contained by Thanksgiving and New Years. Obviously, in the interest of capitalism these limits are not always observed. Nonetheless, it is known when the Christmas season officially starts – the day after Thanksgiving. Without Thanksgiving, Christmas starts so early! It’s November 6th, and there have been Christmas decorations at the local mall for a week. The stores have had Christmas decorations for weeks. The Christmas market is getting set up (!!!).

One last observation on Fall is the lack of evergreens here. Lille has a similar climate to Portland, but doesn’t have big evergreen forests. There actually just aren’t a lot of evergeens. I miss the Douglas Firs! But for the moment, this means all the trees are changing color and altogether, they look beautiful. I’m not looking forward to a dreary, barren winter, once all the leaves are gone. For now, though, it is nice 🙂

From a couple of weeks ago.

A bientot,

Amy

Week 1: Orientation + Observations

Uploading this blog from the comfort of my own apartment!!!! YAY INTERNET! It was a struggle to get, but finally having it is awesome. I was super annoyed at the bank today, because my debit card finally arrived, but the PIN has not. So I can’t use it. Great. So glad that I STILL can’t get a permanent French phone. In the middle of my rant about the bank to my roommate, I noticed the ‘internet’ light on our box was illuminated!!! A week early! Thank you, Bouygues. On top of that, the infamously rainy Nord de France has not shown itself yet.

Haubourdin – waiting for the bus with Josephine

Haubourdin – on the way back from McDo

On the first day of my contract, October 1, I went to ‘la réunion’ or orientation held for all the assistants de langue à l’étranger in Lille. This was a day long event with lots of different topics covered and hosted by the rectorat (similar to the school distract, but for the size of 1 or 2 counties). While useful, it was one of those events where time was wasted answering really personalized questions rather than topics useful for everyone. Regardless, it was useful and nice to meet some other language assistants. I was able to get a better understanding on the French school system, which is great. Up until this point, I haven’t had a good understanding of how it works.

Things I learned

1. The Académie de Lille, although a smaller Académie (the school district – size of several counties) is the 2nd largest in France in terms of number of students.
2. The Académie de Lille has renovated most of their schools within the past few years, so the buildings are fairly nice (true for mine!).
3. My Mission:
   1. Share my culture
   2. Share my talents
   3. First and foremost I am an assistant (therefore, I am not responsible for an entire class by myself, I am not a substitute teacher, etc.)
   4. **** Help students with oral skills ****
4. It is rude in France for a teacher or student to use a water bottle in class. (But seriously, this is real. And crazy to me)
5. Middle + High School: school days run from around 8:30am to 5:00pm M Tu Th F. Courses are held in the mornings on Wednesday and Saturday.
6. Lycées (high schools) are 3 years in duration. The progression: Seconde, Première, Terminale. At the end of Terminale, there is a big national exam you have to take called the ‘baccalaureate’ or just the ‘bac’. Coursework is guided by this exam.
7. Lycées générale et technologique VS. lycées professionnels (important for me because I work in both!):
   1. A lycée générale is very similar to a normal American high school. General college-prep courses from a variety of disciplines (e.g. French, history, philosophy, languages, math, science)
   2. A lycée professionnel is a high school for students who largely don’t want to go to college and is structured around teaching a profession. At the end of middle school, students pick the profession they want to study. Examples include: hospitality, commerce, plastic making, and machine maintenance. They have ‘ateliers’ for the skill in addition to more normal coursework. Rather than the normal bac, they take an exam for certifications in their chosen profession.

I explored Lille a little bit after the orientation ends. Once again no sign of the ‘classic’ grey skies of the Nord

After my orientation, I did my week of observations (the program says its supposed to be 2 weeks but I’m pretty sure nobody does a full 2 weeks). Since I am working in both the general and professional sections of my school, I got to observe classes in both. Subjects were English, French, Math, Physical Chemistry, Gym (E.P.S.), Health/Environment, and an atelier class for the commerce ‘matière’. All in all it was very interesting, and I was glad I chose to observe a variety of classes to observe if for no other reason than meeting other teachers at the school (everyone is very welcoming and nice).

The experiences between the lycée professionnel and the lycée générale were COMPLETELY different, so I will discuss them separately.

For the pro classes, most of the teachers had me do a Q and A with the students. Even if it was in French. For me, this was kind of fun because I got to learn things about what the students are interested in (especially related to America), things I MUST do while in France, and I got to practice speaking French. They were interested in the differences between France and the U.S. and especially the differences in high schools (the pom-pom girls were popular), how we party in the US, if we knew about ‘Je Suis Charlie’, etc. They also spent a lot of time asking me questions about why I wanted to be in France, if I was glad to be placed in their school, if I liked the North of France, etc. I learned that I have to visit Paris, eat ‘tartiflette’ and ‘raclette’ and kebabs. Before too much time, though, the boys started asking questions about whether I smoked pot and would go on a vacation with them 😉

The pro classes will be an interesting experience. There are more students in pro classes that are less motivated to be in school than in the general classes. It is harder to get them to care about learning, to be engaged in the class itself, and to be polite. It was kind of amazing to me how rude a few of these students were to the teachers and their classmates. In addition, since there is a big range in interest in school between students + since they are grouped by year in school and not ability, the range of abilities is huge. Some of the students were able to ask questions in English, others simply couldn’t wouldn’t produce 1 word of English (in an English class).

General classes are much more similar to what my high school experience was like. Little talking when the teacher is talking. Notes are taken. People are expected to participate when called on. I saw about one third of the number of phones out as in the pro classes. The English classes are run 90-100% in English (completely unlike the pro classes). Just very different needs and interests between the two. I also met the English teacher I will work with for the general classes. He is nice and even spoke English with me (wooohooo!). I feel really lucky with all of the people here. Everyone is glad to have me here.

Of interest to me was the gym class I went to for the pro school. Only 1/3 of the class even showed up! On top of that, I was there on an exam day. Only 5 people in the class really tried to do the fitness test (which wasn’t that challenging), and only one of them was a girl. After the exam, they had the chance to play with basketballs, soccer balls, etc. None of the girls wanted to do anything. They just sat and talked. They didn’t even want to walk around. It just was sad to me – you have a body, you are wasting it! You are made to move and sports, activity isn’t something only for boys. On a lighter note, I appreciated that at least 3 of the students wore scarfs as a part of their gym outfits, because this is France after all.

A bientôt,

AMY