Teaching

Before I go home and forget little things like this, I'd like to write a little about the classes I teach. It's a long one sorry, don't feel obliged to read : )

I teach three different types of class - Bac général, Bac professional and the ones who haven't chosen yet. The first is an academic qualification for people who want to go to university, quite like GCSEs and A-Levels, and the second is a vocational qualification like NVQs and BTECs, where they train in a profession. English is compulsory for everyone.

Lycée education lasts for three years, the equivalent schools of year 11, and the two years of college. The first year is compulsory. After you finish your first year, you can leave and get a job, or stay on and choose what you would like to study.

The two vocational areas that I teach within are electrotechnics (so studying to be electricians I presume) and service (so the people on hotel desks and greeters in restaurants etc). The more academic Bac is separated into three types - Literary (major focus on English and French), Science (so Science, duh(!) and Maths), and Economics and Social Science (a balance between the two).

I am contracted to 12 hours, but very rarely, if ever, have I taught the full 12 hours. Since I've been here, all of the vocational pupils have done a work placement, usually for several weeks, which always gets me a lie-in, a long lunch or an early finish : ) I work Tuesday, Thursday and Friday.

Tuesday 9.10 - 10.05
I have a group of 6 girls aged 16/17. They are lovely and quite good at English as they are doing the Bac L. I also think they can read my mind, as the first day back after Feb half term they cheekily brought the Twilight DVD in and asked if they could watch that, seeing as it was the first lesson after the holidays. Seeing as I only got in bed at about 5AM from driving back to France, I agreed. (Not very teacher-like of me I know, but my eyes were rolling back in my skull, and to be fair, it inspires them to learn English more!)

Tuesday 10.20 - 11.15
I have a group of 17/18 year old here, 8 one week and another 8 the week after. I have to do the same activity both times, which means less lesson planning (wahey!) One group is well behaved and quiet, and one is quite hard work. On the whole, the groups aren't amazing at English because they study the Bac ES, but there are a few pretty good ones.

Tuesday 11.15 - 12.10
This used to be Friday 8.15 - 9.10, but it got moved after Feb half term. These are Bac Pro Service pupils aged 16/17 so they know very little English. Most of them are unenthusiastic about learning English, but they're always happy to see me because we get to play games instead of doing work like with their real teacher, and there are several who talk to me every time they see me in the corridor or the yard ("Hello Kim. How are you?" "I'm fine thanks, and you?" "I'm... so so. That's proably as high as their conversational skills go though, as I once followed this up with "The weather is nice today" and all I recieved in return was three confused glances, and then had to explain in French) The one thing they have learnt since I arrived is "See you next week," and now they say it to me when they leave the lesson, before I get chance. I take half the class for half the lesson, and then the other half for the second.

Tuesday 14.30 - 15.25 and 15.40 - 16.35
I teach the same lesson in both of these spots, and then I teach the same lesson to the other half of the class the week after. I also teach this lesson on a Thursday just before dinner, so I do this same lesson 6 times altogether! It's so easy by the second week of lessons, that I can run on auto-pilot and I know exactly what questions they're going to ask me! Some of these classes are great fun (my favourite class is amongst this lot!), and others are harder work. This lot haven't chosen what they want to do yet, so they're a mixed bunch!

Thursday 8.15 - 9.10
This is a bunch of 16-18 year old boys (and one twenty year old) who are studying electrotechnics. They are pretty hard to motivate. They loved it when we did a gap fill exercise with a rap song, but we can't do that every week can we?! They're difficult, because a lot of them think they're cool so they don't want to play games, they want to ignore me instead. I take half for half the class, then the other half for the other half.


 Thursday 11.15 - 12.10
This is the same as the Tuesday afternoon group, so I see each group every other week. These groups tend to work a little harder though, because they know that I will let them leave a few minutes early if they do (therefore beating the dinner queue!)

 Thursday 14.30 - 15.25
This is the group I look forward to the least (and that's the polite way of saying it!). They are 16 year old boys, the majority of whom are absolute morons, and enjoy making my job as difficult as possible. This is the class that I sent six boys out of within 55 minutes. There are a few pleasant boys who sit at the front, and are interested. But unfortunatly, there are so many trouble makers that their teacher has recommended that I don't do activities where they can talk or move! So since Christmas pretty much, every week I dish out wordsearches and they sit there like little angels. It's crazy! (It does help that I let them listen to their headphones, that seems to mellow them out a lot!) Again, I take half for half the class, then the other half for the other half.

Thursday 15.40 - 16.35
This used to be the difficult group (aged 14/15), until I took on the previous class, and now they seem relatively normal. However, combined with the group the lesson before, it means I am ripping my hair out when I finish on a Thursday! It is a little easier to play games with this lot, but I usually have spare wordsearches in my bag in case they start acting up. One girl nearly broke her arm once because the first person to finish writing the word on the board won, so she got accidently pushed over by the other pupil. Then it was wordsearch time! The teacher usually gives me a heads up just before the lesson what sort of mood they're in (they have sport the lesson before, and if they've done something exciting like football, they are a nightmare and it's wordsearch time!) They are very enthusiastic about any sort of game though, it's really endearing!

Friday 9.10 - 10.05
I've only ever been needed in this lesson once, and that one time was the only time I've worked with a stinking hangover, just my luck! Which is a shame really because they are specialised in English, so they must be the crème de la crème.

Friday 10.20 - 11.15
These lads are 18/19ish and are just as hard work, if not more, than the Thursday morning-ers. Again, they are elechtrotechnic students (I think!). These guys are on placement as we speak, my last Friday lie-in is this coming Friday. Which means for the past three weeks, my only lesson on a Friday has been:

Friday 13.35 - 14.30
These guys are the best pupils I have. They're in their last year, and they a studying for the Bac L, so their English has to be pretty good. Some like talking more than others, some are better than others, and some try not to work and look grumpy the whole time. But to be fair, fairly quickly, I got past the point of caring whether they like me or not, and started concentrating on what would help them practise speaking the most, so they're not going to love me!

Le Lycée Raoul Vadepied, Evron

This is where I work (thank you Google Maps)

(1) This is where I get dropped off in the morning. This is also where I wait for 20 or so minutes every day after I finish work, until Dave arrives. And lastly, this is where I have my cigarette break every hour or so, trying to avoid the 3ème (same age as year 10) who all pester for cigarettes.

(2) This is G building. I teach about half of my lessons in here. This is also contains the staffroom, where I spend a lot of time on Facebook. I am usually sat at the very bottom of the left bracket.

(3) This is J building. This is where everyone swears at me. Coincidently, this is also the vocational building. I teach the other half of my lessons in here.

(4) This is the canteen. I have very rarely been in the canteen because a) I sit with the teachers in their dining hall, and I can't tell what anyone's saying in French because there are loads of people talking loudly around me and I feel like a dick when I can't tell what they're saying and b) the food frightens me.

(5) This is the staff car park. This is where Dave could park should he be on time, but he doesn't because he's frightened of it.

Oooh wild animals!

On the way to the cinema on Wednesday night (about 9pm so not even that late), Dave saw something that looked like animals at the edge of the road and stopped. It was a group of about 10 wild boars trying to shove their way through a hedge one by one.

In my panic and excitement, I took a really bad picture, but you can see that they are some sort of animal! Afterwards, Dave took an amazingly clear picture of the hedge, after the boar had gone through!

And to think, Dave had taken the mick out of me 10 minutes earlier for taking my camera to the cinema with me : "What are you gonna do, take pictures of us outside the cinema ha ha ha?". I was proven right, as usual! : )






School's not going too bad. I had a nightmare afternoon on Thursday, with two classes of 14-15 year old lads, one right after the other (and after about 4 hours sleep the night before because of the cinema). They weren't misbehaved per se, just giddy and loud, and they wouldn't write until I asked them for the tenth time. Anyone who acts like that next week is getting sent back to their teacher.

My Eramsus (European study abroad grant) money went into my bank today, which means we've got plenty of money for PARIS NEXT WEEKEND! The city where my soul was born! I'm gonna buy anything I see that has the Eiffel Tower on it : )

Come on France, get some toilet seats

Sorry for the fact that I haven't posted since last week. I had a really lazy weekend, and I was meaning to post something when we got back from Rennes on Monday, but I had lessons to prepare, and I really need to go to sleep early these days. The same with Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night. Tonight, I'm finally free.

At the minute, Dave is watching Benidorm. We have just spoken to Jack, and we are sharing un bouteille de vin mousseau.

When I get back to my school, I'm going to ask one of the teachers if it's possible to change one of the lessons. At the minute, I have six for 55 minutes, and I'm supposed to practise talking with them, but it's so difficult to keep 5 interested whilst talking to someone. I think it would be easier, and better for them if I had them for 10 minutes each, because at the minute it's one girl who talks all the time (not her fault, I ask someone a question, and they give me two words as an answer, so she feels bad, and says a bit more) I think this way, they would have to talk a lot more. I'll see what she says.

This week was very uneventful. The only slightly exciting thing was, this morning the teacher of my 8.15 lesson was late, and only arrived at 9, so I had a full class of 24 on my own. I split them into four groups of six, and wrote "food and drink" on the board. I said, "In your teams, write down as many English food and drink words as you can. I gave them a point per correct answer, and wrote the scores on the board, then did the same with household items and animals. The teacher arrived, just as I was marking the last round. I put the scores on the board, and everyone cheered and groaned, and then I left and everyone shouted "bye Kim".

Rennes was lovely on Monday. It's the capital of Brittany, and during the summer it's a big touristy place, but now all the tourists have left, and the people who served us in the restaurant were confused as to why we were there! 200,000 people live there, and 60,000 are students, so when we weren't talking, we probably fit right in. There a loads of really old, pretty buildings.



Tomorrow we are going to a big second hand place. I can't wait! My Auntie Louise reckons you can get battered ping pong tables for 20 Euros, so I'm working on Dave to get one to go in the massive basement. It's in Le Mans, so we can have a look around the shops afterwards.

Sunday, we are going to a brocante (car boot sale). We're hoping to find a gas heater for cheap, (they're about 100 Euros new) so that we don't have to use our heating. We;ve got it on now though for the first time, and it's lovely!

Le travaille

Today was my first day at work. I'm not teaching anybody yet, for the first week or so I'm just observing the lessons, and sussing out the levels the students are at. Dave was taking secret pictures of me as I was walking in at 8 (you can tell which ones are Dave's pictures because they all look a bit rubbish!)



I had a lesson 8 til 9, then I played on the Internet until my next lesson at about 11 until 12. Then I got taken to the canteen by one of the English teachers, which was a mad experience. It's a set rate of 3.10 Euros, and for that you get a salad from the salad bar or a plate of ham or cheese, a dessert, as much bread as you want, a hot meal and there is a bowl of fruit at the end.

I ate in the teachers' bit, and some of the non-English teachers chatted to me a bit, but I struggled hearing them, the people to my left and right were both talking to other people as well, so I had trouble tuning them out. I got there in the end though.

I met the "problem class" and whereas they don't seem as difficult as some of the idiots I went to school with, they do seem like a handful. I will be taking half the class for the first half hour, and the other half of the class for the second half of the hour. (So 15 at a time!) But Magalie, the teacher told them that if somebody causes problems for me once, then they will stay with her the whole time for the rest of the year. So if that happens, then I'll only have to deal with them once.

One weird thing that I've noticed though, is that all the teachers have given or will be giving me a page with a picture and name of every student in the class. This way, I can pick out the trouble makers. This is common practise, from what I can tell, as there is a word for the sheet of pictures.

Here is some more pictures of our house, one taken from the couch, and the other of the garden the other day, when Dave's first wash had just been hung out. Look at all the polo shirts! They are fruit trees in the garden, but it's too late for fruit now, it's all shriveled up and bad. And that's a tray of Grandma's tomatoes on the plastic table, that we were lying in the sun trying to make them go red!

Oh and Mother Dearest, I have also added a picture of me, just for you. If you go down the page, you will see the picture of me before I went into the school on Monday. I'm warning you, I don't look too happy at Dave making me pose for a picture!)

Start work tomorrow...

My apron and my tablecloth arrived yesterday from Cath Kidston. I only ordered them on Sunday night, so I wasn't expecting them for another week! There was a bit of confusion, but the delivery person left it with number 1, but it took us ages to read his writing, and then we couldn't find number 1 (we only live at number 4!). The kitchen looks better with my tablecloth covering up the horrible table, and my apron hanging up, but those net curtains still need replacing.

Last night we went to Le Mans with the Nixes, to watch Lyon playing football in the Irish bar we went in last time. Then we wandered out, and found the tacky part of Le Mans, where the takeaways with their neon signs were. We also saw an automated pizza machine - but they were 9 Euros, so we didn't test it out.

Up ealy this morning, got what we needed off Julie, so the bank is sorted. I tried to sort out housing benefit, but I need a social security number first, so I'll have to leave it for a week until my health card gets here.

This afternoon, Jordan has done my nails as she's doing a course at home on acrylic nails. Now I'm sneezing my head off like mad because of the dust from the nails. But at least my nails look much better for tomorrow.

Tomrrow I'm starting work at 8.15 am (7.15 am UK time, send me positive thoughts if you're awake!). So I'm going to go to sleep at about 9 tonight, because I need to be as alert as possible tomorrow. I don't really have much to say, but I'll post back tomorrow with how work went on. Wish me luck!

Oh dear, I think I wanna quit French : P (Only kidding!)

Today I went to the lycee at 10 to meet with my responsable, I met with the headteacher, the people in the office, and some of the other teachers. I got my own whiteboard pen, and a key which I think is for the photocopying room (I say I think, because the second time she explained it in French, I still didn't understand so I didn't dare ask again!) I also have my own pigeon hole, and the English teacher chuckles every time she says it - it sounds normal to us, but it must sound like a strange thing to call it.

I've been shown a timetable, but I had it taken off me so that they could find out the room numbers and give it to me on Thursday when I start work. It looks like I will have Monday and Wednesdays off work, and Tuesday, Thursday and Friday I will be in from 8 until 5 (only 4 or so hours teaching, but with gaps in between which means I'm there for the full day)

They said most of the classes are very good, but there is one class who have caused problems in the past for other assistants. They have said if this happens, don't try to deal with it, just walk into the room next door and get the teacher to sort it out.

There is a picture of me in front of the lycee looking grumpy and nervous, but I've left my camera at home so I can't put it on yet. I'll update with the picture tomorrow. (Here we go, I have now added this picture. My hair was being awful and wouldn't look normal, so I had to tie it back, AND a massive spot appeared, which magically disappeared as soon as I got home)



My Mum has requested more pictures of the house from different angles, so I'll put some more of those up tomorrow.

Bank appointment tomorrow at half 10, then we have do drop off the bank details to Julie so she can get the Internet and phone line set up, and then nip in the insurance place and give them the bank details and fill in a form for house insurance (it's compulsary, and it covers you for public liability as well - I think that's the right word!)

More of the house

Last night we nipped to my Grandma's to use the Internet, so I could post my blog. We haven't done much since.

We ate at at unusual times yesterday, because we were busy tidying and buying things for the house, so it was half 10 by the time we were ready for our tea. So Dave made us a pizza! Dave's half had cheese, mushrooms and chorizo on, my half was four cheese. I think it looks great, and it tasted even better! The only problem was, we only realised we didn't have a rolling pin after he had made the dough, so he had to use a pot of parmesan instead!



 Dave enjoyed watching Match of the Day last night as we have some English TV channels in our house. This morning we watched the Simpsons in French.

I had really bad allergies yesterday, my eyes were red raw, and I was sneezing every 15-20 seconds! So we put the feather pillows from the living room into the basement, but the allergies continued. This morning we realised the other pillows were also feathers. Now we've moved them, I think everything's fine.

I have a few more pictures of the house to put up. Please excuse the kitchen, we've done our best, but there really isn't much else we could do. We can't change the horrible floor, the horrible wallpaper or the horrible units. I'm hoping to find some cheap curtains, because the net curtains that are up all over the house make me feel slightly ill. And I've just ordered a Cath Kidston polka dot oilcloth to cover up the horrible table. And at least that old person kitchen smell seems to be leaving now - either that, or I'm just getting used to it!





But as you can see from yesterday's pictures, the living room and the dining room are really lovely. And I really enjoy having a balcony. It's a really relaxing place to sit.

Tomorrow I'm going to the lycee at 10 O'clock. I'm a little worried about the fact that I only have one pair of trousers and that one pair are much too small for me, but I think I'll be OK in jeans as long as they're not scruffy jeans.

Finally getting somewhere...

I finally feel like I'm actually getting through the list of things I have left to do. Today we went to the bank to open a French bank account, as I need an account for my salary to be paid into, and to pay the rent, phone bill etc out of.

I walked into the bank and made an appointment for next Tuesday. (I was offered Friday morning, but we can't do that, as that's when we're moving into out house) We walked out of the bank, and Dave said "That was too easy, I think you should go into your college."

So we walked up to my college, I went into reception, and I asked for Marie-France (my responsable - the English teacher who I have been contacting this summer). An English teacher from the school came to find me (the school and the college are joined together), and took me to the English department in the college. Marie-France was teaching, so the English teacher looked up her timetable, and said that she would be free in 45 minutes, could we return then?



So we nipped to a café for a drink, and some shade because it was swelteringly hot again today. Then we went back, and I knocked on the staffroom door, and asked for Marie-France. Marie-France came out of the room, and we spent a good 10 minutes talking, mostly in French.

I am going back on Monday at 10, to sign some paperwork, and she will introduce me to the headteacher and the other staff.

I don't know what we will be doing tomorrow yet. If Jordan isn't working, I could have a riding lesson. I would also like to pick up some French sim cards, as everybody wants to know our French numbers, but Dave isn't sure we need them yet, as it's an extra cost, and we will have a house phone at our house when our phone line is set up.