8 posts tagged “teaching”

At my lesson today with Lucas, my little 6 year old student, I asked him to read the word "tell," and to make a sentence with it. What did he come up with?

"I want to tell you that I just made a little fart."

I’m nearing the end of my first week of teaching at Lycée A, and so far, so good. This is the fourth school I've worked at, since my second year teaching I was assigned to two collèges. Out of the four, this is by far my favorite. I don’t want to jinx myself by breathing a huge sigh of relief, but the past three days have been really enjoyable.

A huge part of this happiness is my awesome commute. Assuming that one were to wake up on time, one could walk to Lycée A from my apartment in about 12 minutes. If one were to, say, shut off one’s alarm without actually getting out of bed two mornings in a row and then spend too long catching up on one’s blog roll on the third morning, one would still not be screwed. There just happens to be a bus that runs directly between one’s house and the door of the school that shaves five minutes off the normal seven-minute trip. So, one has not yet been late to work.

Okay, back to the first person.

My students are universally respectful in class, and the majority is interested and participates.  Some of them have a truly abysmal level of English, considering the number of years they’ve been taking English class, but they do seem interested in improving.

I’ve had some really funny moments so far this week, too. During the first lesson I say something like, “My name is Sophie, I’ve lived in Paris for three years, I love to travel, I like to go to the marché, and I hate to get up early.” And then I ask them to introduce themselves. I get a lot of, “My name is Laurent, I’m 16, I have 2 sisters and I like music.” But this one girl, one of the not-so-interested ones, said her name and then just looked at me. I said, “okay, what do you like, what do you not like, what do you do on the weekends?” and she just replied, “I have no passion” in a completely monotone voice. It took a lot of will to not laugh, although I couldn't quite stop myself from blurting out, “that’s sad!”

Another kid, Akim, forgot to turn off his cell phone in class. Normally I would have chastised him, but his ring tone was the theme song to the Fresh Prince of Bel Air, so I just burst out laughing. Akim is memorable for other reasons, too. When introducing himself, he said that he loves his girlfriend of two years. He then proceeded to hit on me THE ENTIRE CLASS. He was very charming about it, and obviously joking, but when it was time for the kids to practice their question skills, Akim’s questions were: How long have you had a boyfriend? How far is your apartment? Do you have a roommate? How big is it? Big enough for me to come over? Oh, Akim.

A nice bonus of teaching in the same arrondissement as the two collèges from 2007-2008 is that I’ve seen several of my old students. While setting up my desk for Akim’s class, Antoine, whom I taught when he was in 4ème (or 8^th grade) came up to my desk and timidly said, “Madame?” When I looked up I was so happy to see him. He was part of a class of all 8^th grade boys. You’d think that would have been a nightmare, but we always had a great time, perhaps because I hated their English teacher even more than they did, and didn’t hide it. He said he remembered me, and even remembered my last name, and that he was really happy at Lycée A even though no one else from his collège class ended up there. He had always been a kind of stuttering, shy kid, and now seemed much more confident. It was nice to see.

Also nice to see was Pauline, a girl from my favorite-ever class. She stopped in the hallway and said “je la connais!/I know her!” which is not very elegant, but it got my attention. We didn’t have a chance to talk, because the bell rang so we both had to get to class, but I really hope I see her again soon. The school’s not that big, so I’m sure I will. I adored that class, and really want to find out how everyone is. They wrote me the nicest letters at the end of the year, and we always laughed a lot.

My private lessons are going well, too. Tonight was my first lesson with a great Franco-American family with five kids. I’ll tutor three of them, ages 9, 7, and 4. The two little girls (ages 7 and 4) sent me out the door with hugs and kisses and at one point Caroline actually got down on her knees and bowed to me.

So, I’m happy. Financially completely insecure, but happy.

Yesterday my friend Grant emailed me, saying, "I already read the ice cream thing weeks ago so get off your ass and write something cool." Simmer down, Grant.

But he's right, of course. I haven't written anything in over a month, mostly because I was in the States for over three week. Mostly in New York, with a quick three-day visit to my maternal grandparents in Los Angeles. Even though this trip was significantly longer than most of my trips home, I still didn't get to see everyone or do everything I wanted to. I was particularly looking forward to catching up with one of my childhood friends, Jade. She's one of the friends I mentioned back in this post, and we haven't seen each other in way too many years. Hopefully next time . . .

While I was in New York, I reached the three-year anniversary of my arrival in France. It was hard to celebrate while not in the country, but it is amazing to me that I'm still here. And entering my fourth year of teaching! So, happy third anniversary to me.

I don't think I've actually written here about what I'll be doing this year. Back in January, when my job with the cool educational non-profit fell through, I had less than a week before the last deadline for the assistantship. This program is what brought me to Paris back in 2006. Technically, you're only allowed to do it twice.  Which I have already done. In 2006 I was accepted through the US embassy in Washington, DC, and then my contract was renewed for the 2007-2008 school year through the rectorat in Paris. The program is so insanely disorganized, however, that I thought there was a pretty good chance that there is no master database, and so I figured I’d take a shot at applying again. I had to rush to get my recommendations and fill out the paperwork, but managed to get it done in time. It’s funny, ‘cause when I applied in the winter of 2005 I spent SO LONG on getting the application just right, and this time around I just threw it together. I didn’t think it would work, especially because the supposed overnight express envelope that I sent ended up taking two nights, and so my application got in a day late.

The stars were shining on me, however, because I was accepted. Once I moved apartments, I called up the lovely new lady at the rectorat (I’m still sad that Madame Dionis is gone, but the new Madame Couetdic seems to be more on the ball) and asked if it was possible to assign me a school near my new apartment, rather than the one they had on file. She said she’d see what she could do, but no promises. And then, score! The high school I’ll be working at is a 12-minute walk from my place!

I went by to meet the headmistress back in July, and we really hit it off. Then yesterday I met the English teacher in charge of me, Solange. We had already spoken on the phone and emailed a few times, mostly to discuss my scheduling preferences. I have been nothing but impressed with the school’s organization, so far. I already have my finalized schedule for the year, and received all my paperwork from the intendance and secretariat. I’ve been given a tour of the school, my own whiteboard markers and attendance book (ooh, the power I wield!), and met three of the six English teachers I’ll be working with. All of this makes me think that I’ll probably hate the students, as in my experience it’s impossible to like both the staff AND the students in one school.

I’m really happy with my schedule, too. Every other week I have to work one hour on Fridays, from 11 am to noon, but other than that I have four-day weekends and never work before 9 am or past 4 pm. And eight of my 12 classes are in the same room, which is really nice. Of course, the other four classes are in the amphitheater, which will be interesting, to say the least, but you can’t have it all.

Tomorrow is orientation, which I’m not looking forward to that much since I have a feeling I’ll know most of the information. But I can just play Scramble on my awesome new iTouch.

I’ve already had two hours of tutoring since being back: one with Lucas, and one with the hot pilot. Both went really well, and I had a huge smile on my face when I rang the doorbell at Lucas’ house and heard him squeal “it’s SOPHIE!” His reading has advanced so much; I have a feeling that soon I won’t have much more work to do!

I’m still in the process of scheduling all of my private lessons. I have to turn down quite a few people, since I won’t have the time or energy to take on all the clients that contact me. I’m having trouble figuring out how many hours I should do in addition to the twelve hours of classroom time. It’s a bit frustrating, because if you break down the pay by hour, I get paid literally twice as much to tutor as to be an assistant, but I need the assistantship for the working papers and the paid vacation. It’s really a pretty good deal.

And I am SO relieved that my 15 months of being a sans papiers are over.  I think the only reason I don’t feel guilty is that I earned this! Living illegally takes dedication.

Three days a week I tutor an adorable 5-and-a-half year-old boy, Lucas. Lucas is Irish/French, and I'm teaching him how to read. It's really satisfying work, and Lucas is very perceptive. Sometimes it's easy to forget just how little he is, 'cause he never lets me get away with anything: trying to let him win at tic-tac-toe ("but why did you go there?!"), making up the rules of a game as we go along, or trying to answer a question with "because."

I haven't seen him in three weeks, because of Christmas vacation, and today was our first day back together. When you spend three hours a week with a little guy like that, you get kind of attached. And I almost squeezed him when introducing me to his Christmas present, a really big stuffed dog. I asked if the dog has a name, and he said, "yes, his name is Big Dog."

And then he told me a knock-knock joke, and laughed himself silly.

Lucas: Knock knock!
Me: Who's there?
Lucas: Who!

Seriously, he thought this was the funniest thing ever. It made me really happy, and I wanted to freeze him in that moment. Or maybe I wanted to go back to when I thought knock-knock jokes were the height of humor?

When I was that age, I attended an Orthodox Jewish yeshiva. I was there from nursery four through third grade, and I was really happy. Half the day was in English, and half in Hebrew. I had lots of friends, and was good at school. I wasn't great at Hebrew, but I was in the gifted program for the English part of the day. I remember learning about Greek myths and Braille when the rest of the class was doing their Social Studies. Eventually my parents took me out, which they were very right to do. Math, History, English . . . all of it was getting short-changed in exchange for the Hebrew and Jewish studies. And seriously, I knew like four alphabets, and that's just not necessary in an eight year-old.

The school I moved to was a historically Episcopalian school, although it has been secular for about a hundred years. My mom always used to joke that half of my high school was half-Jewish, and she was probably right. Still, the parents of my former classmates were not very happy to let their kids play with me. And that really sucked. I stayed in touch with a bunch of them for a while, but then our lives just went different ways. Most of them went to Israel for a year between high school and college, and got married by their mid-twenties.

A little while back, I got a message out of the blue from my very first boyfriend. We were together in kindergarten and first grade (what can I say? I started young), and he was just the cutest. We would sit together on the bus for field trips, and I still have the birthday presents he gave me for my 6th and 7th birthdays. Somehow he found me on LinkedIn, and it was great to hear from him. He's married, of course, with two kids, and living in Florida.

Hearing from him inspired me to search for all the other friends I lost touch with ages ago. I found a bunch of them on facebook, and it's such a trip to see their faces all grown up. I have such vivid memories of that time: slumber parties, clapping games at recess, eating tuna fish sandwiches with potato chips smushed in the buns at Friday lunches, ballet and gymnastics classes after school, and the constantly changing alliances that are part and parcel of any group of young girls. Seeing pictures of them all in their wedding dresses and holding babies is just plain weird. And it really shows me just how far from ready I am for that life.

It's strange, since we all started out the same. We learned about sex at the same time and had our first crushes on the same boys. So when does the switch get flipped? How did they ALL end up married before 30, while I have no interest in even sharing a bathroom for the near future?

My friend Lauren, who has a fantastic and widely-read blog, wrote a post that I really like. I've been waiting to write about it for a few days, hoping that I would be able to pinpoint what it is that touched me the most. But I can't do it. Still, I encourage you to go over and poke around. She has a completely different take on life in Paris (as a student, in a long-term relationship, etc etc) so it'll make for some interesting reading.

I made some very concerted efforts to get out and about this week. Because I know that when I get in a funk I tend to wallow in it, and get crankier and mopier as the days go on. So I had drinks with two of my students from last year, cheap Indian food with Anna, and more drinks with Steve. That evening, somehow, ended up with my "singing" a duet of "Endless Love" with Toby, in a gay karaoke bar. Steve is either a fantastic or terrible influence. Did I mention that I didn't get home till well after 1 am, and had to be up at 7 am for work?

I was so pooped in front of my classes that David (my most favorite 12 year-old ever) said, "Sophie, you are not playing?" when I kind of zoned out between rounds of a very successful game I've been doing this week. "What, David?" "Are you unhappy?" Oh, no! I realized that my massive blood sugar deficit was coming across on my face, and quickly summoned up a smile and shook myself out of my slump.

This game worked so well in ALL of my classes, that several students came up and either told me how much fun they had (consider my cockles warmed) or asked if we could play again. One girl, Thaïs, even asked for my email address so she can talk to me online. But the best moment of the work-week was probably the very first one, when I walked into Catherine's class at 8:05 am (ie five minutes late) on Tuesday and the students cheered. They cheered! For me! That was really fantastic.

I feel like if I can come up with enough more games like this one, and just ignore the teachers, that I can make it through the remaining weeks of my contract. Of which there are 12. I can do that. I hope.

In other news, my cooking is continuing. I made variations on my lentil soup for a few weeks, and it kept getting better and better. Tonight I was planning on cooking up some white beans and rosemary to go with my salmon, but as I've never cooked beans before I didn't realize you have to soak them FOREVER. So I had the salmon with grilled lemon slices, and then spent the rest of the night preparing a delicious white bean/smoked ham/rosemary soup. I read a few recipes online, and then kind of improvised. I didn't measure a single thing, or follow one particular recipe, and it turned out fantastic. I can't wait for the cookbook I ordered to arrive with my mom! I have some sweet potatoes and ginger waiting for their turn.

I have two more book reviews to type up, and then I have to wait for the next round of books to come in. My translation was submitted last week, and I really enjoyed it. I would love to get more translation jobs. It's interesting and challenging work, not to mention well-paying.  Anyone have contacts in publishing houses, preferably de jeunesse, to share?

Yesterday I walked into an English teacher's classroom to find the word "n*gg*rs" written on the board. I was completely shocked, and couldn't hide it. "Ly, does that say 'n*gg*rs'?" I asked (wanting to be sure I was reading her writing correctly). She said yes, with a huge smile, and told me that they're reading an Agatha Christie book.

"Um, do you mean 'And Then There Were None'? Or even, 'Ten Little Indians'?"

"The original title is 'Ten Little N*gg*rs!'"

"Yes, but Ly, you can't teach them that! It's one of the most offensive words in the English language!"

"Ha ha ha, you're so American!"

The conversation went on for a few more minutes, with my trying to impress upon the (wonderful, kind, generally fantastic) teacher that this is NOT an acceptable word to teach her students. She seemed to think I was being too "American" (does that mean politically correct? sensitive? what?) and even laughed and said that "[her] daughter spent a summer at Harvard and told me how funny it was that Americans won't use that word."

Funny? It's not funny! I was, and still am, completely shocked. What's next? A vocabulary test including sp*c, k*ke, ch*nk, and g**k?* What the hell?! Why on earth, when there are so many fantastic books, words, and just general things to learn, would someone choose to teach their students a hate word? I know what the original title of the book was, but it was changed for a reason.

What do you think? Any other ESL teachers out there with a similar experience or advice? I know this was coming from ignorance, not hatred or racism, but . . . I just don't know how to process it.

*I want to make it clear that i do not like to use or hear these words EVER. They're here to emphasize my disapproval. I've marked this post as "offensive" to keep it out of public searches.

Recently, I seem to get sick whenever I return from a vacation. I was sick for the two days between Spain and Amsterdam, and now I've been hit by a whopper since getting back from Italy. It was delayed this time, but I've been out for the count since yesterday. I just woke up from a three hour nap!

I now have only four more classroom hours left in my contract, and I'm okay with that. I thought I would be sad, but I'm not. It was a bit strange being back in school the past few days, since it was my center for so long and now I'm saying goodbye. I cleaned out my cubby today, and recycled a huge stack of worthless paper.

Tonight is another goodbye, to Parisist. The site I've been writing for closed down a bit ago, and we're having a last hurrah for all the writers tonight. I'm especially bummed that I'm sick since I'll be missing out on free booze! I think I'll have to stick to soda in my current condition.

I'm taking pictures of the classes I like, and will post them here when they're all done. I'm upset that I forgot my camera today, because I really like the class I had (seconde 8, section 1). Especially Lucie, who always asks me where I went on vacation. None of my other students think to return the question, when I ask all of them what they did. Lucie is always the only one who says, "and Sophie, what did you do?" And Juliette, who always gives me the sweetest smile when she enters and leaves the classroom.

For my two classes tomorrow we're having good-bye parties. I bought chips and cookies, and they're hopefully bringing something, and we'll have a little celebration. I wonder if I can convince them to celebrate in English?

This week, my 4th to last teaching, has been really good. Yesterday two students voluntarily attended my class, despite the fact that this was not their assigned week. When I asked them why (normally kids like to CUT class, not attend it) they said they had nothing else to do. I was really flattered that they chose to sit in my classroom when they could have been at the cafe, library, study hall, or just hanging out with their friends.

Then today a girl actually laughed at my accent when I said a word in French, so I threw up a whole bunch of difficult English words on the board and made her say them (south, truth, etc). The whole class was laughing, and it felt so good to joke around with them. Later I walked down the hall with some of my secondes, talking about how hot Patrick Dempsey and Josh Holloway are, and exchanging the French and American names for TV shows.

Another class said that they're going to bake a cake for our last session, in three weeks. I just feel like everything is going really well, and that I finally have a good relationship with most of my students. We tease each other and spend a lot of time laughing. It sucks that there are some of them who I won't have again, and the rest I'll only have once or maybe twice more. It took so long to get them to respect, never mind like, me, but now it feels really good.

One of my adult students, aka the hot pilot, told me that he finds it difficult to speak like I do because he can't make Ts sound like Ds. He's referring to the way I say "buddon" instead of "button." I then had to explain about my dad's New York accent, and that he should NOT imitate that part of my speech! How embarrassing.

Anna flew to New York a few hours ago, to meet with her potential PhD program. That means that my big plans tonight include hand-washing and finishing The Queen on my computer. It's too bad that the weather has turned miserable, although it'll make it cosy to be in my apartment, with a nice cup of grog.