End of teaching contract

October 2008 to April 2009!
I can't believe those 7 months are up already! Today I had my final hour of teaching.

My last few days at the two schools were spent answering my students' most obvious question, "Pourquoi vous partez? (Why are you leaving)?" *accompanied by sad faces* Uhh ... well my contract has finished. Sorry!

I received a lovely card signed by the students from one of my 5ème classes, which included pics of the collège, a class pic, and the following text: "I love this year to spend with you. Pity that you leave." (Awww, aren't they sweet!). "Merci Beaucoup. Thank You."

Other cute gestures included a signed sheet of paper from some of my 3ème students, and numerous designs on classroom whiteboards: "Goodbye forever. Don't leave my darling because I love you. Don't leave please! I love you so much." Lol, awww!!! Even yesterday when I was at the cashier in Monoprix, getting ready to pay for my groceries, I heard two girls shout "Helloooo!!!". They waved and flashed beaming smiles. Lol, then the cashier at Monoprix smiled and said something about anglais.

I'm really glad I did the assistantship. It proved to be a nice, interesting experience overall and fortunately I had lovely students :-)

1st Paris trip

I finally went to Paris for the first time! The SNCF had a lovely deal that I just couldn't resist. Thanks to my SNCF 12-25 card I was able to go to Paris from Friday morning and return to Chambéry on Monday (midday), all for the low price of 57€!!! My weekend was quite busy, and went like this:

Friday

• Bus at 5:35 a.m. from La Motte-Servolex to Chambéry
• Arrival at Gare Chambéry Challes-les-Eaux 15 minutes later
• Patiently waited for my TGV Chambéry-Paris Gare de Lyon: departure 6:22am
• Paris!!! A friend from Trinidad came to meet me at the train station.
• After two RER trains and a tram, we arrived at his place in the 14th arrondissement.
• Breakfast: eggs, grated emmental cheese and a yummy spicy sauce!
• My friend had to work, so I was soon on my own, left to explore Paris.
• I met up with another friend from Trinidad for lunch close to Boulevard Saint-Michel. Among the many touts trying to get us into their restaurants, she and I decided on a Greek restaurant. I had a tasty salad, salmon/potatoes/rice (didn't too fancy the seasoning), and a Greek dessert. We also got a free glass of sangria each.
  
• She was leaving for Belgium that same day! I accompanied her to the bus station after we had lunch.
• I then made my way back to Saint-Michel.

• Visited the Cathédrale Notre Dame de Paris.

• Walked around a little bit until I reached the Hotêl de Ville.
• Walked back to Boulevard Saint-Michel, looked around a bookshop there, then looked at clothes in Etam to pass the time.
• A little while after my friend (who met me at the train station that morning, who I stayed by) met back up with me since he had finished working.
• We went to the Louvre: saw Mona Lisa (I thought it would have been bigger though), giant paintings, etc.
• Back to the apartment. It was too late to go out for dinner, but we didn't starve! : store-bought gazpacho with homemade Trini macaroni pie.
• Bonne nuit!

Saturday

• I woke up around 10:30 a.m.
  
• I took a bus at around 11:45 a.m. then dropped out to visit the Luxumbourg gardens. The weather wasn't at its best though --> light rain.

• I then kept walking until I reached Châtelet.
  
• More walking... including past a store with disgusting dead creatures (e.g. a giantttttt spider, rats,...)

• Visited Centre Georges Pompidou. Ok, well I went into the bookshop there, then looked at the lovely exhibits (e.g. cool furniture, a pyramid shaped metal thingy with holes for storing oranges!, etc.) which didn't require an entrance fee.

• Hunger! lol --> 4€99 for a vegetarian pizza at an Italian place outside Les Halles.
  
• Quick tour of the Eglise Saint-Eustache.

• I then spent hoursssss (a little less than 4 hours!!) in Les Halles. I did some shopping (3 tops at H&M), but mainly spent forever (not fun!) looking for a pair of comfortable ballerina shoes, which I didn't find!
  
• Gave up the search for the shoes, left Les Halles and headed to Pigalle.
• Lots of sex shops in the red-light district of Pigalle. Saw the Moulin Rouge.

• I then walked up to Montmartre. Lots of stairs = exercise.

• Visited the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. It was after 6pm and mass was taking place, while all of us tourists walked around visiting the basilica at the same time. :S

• Walked around Montmartre.
• I was going to take a photo of a mime, but he smiled and pointed toward a basket on the ground. Pay to take a photo? Hmm, nah.
• Strawberry yogurt on a cone! Yummy!
• Back down the hill, where I finally got a pair of ballerina shoes. They aren't particularly comfortable though, so I think I'll have to stop buying shoes in France! Can't find my size here, which falls somewhere between 39 and 40.
• Métro to Opéra.

• Then I searched for the Grands Boulevards stop where my friend said to meet him and his friend from Spain who had arrived in Paris earlier that day. With the one way streets it was a bit confusing to find the stop, but we eventually met up.
• The three of us had dinner at the Restaurant Chartier. We had to wait about half an hour in a line before we got in.

• The food... not particularly fantastic, but I must say that the building was nice. I paid 2€20 for a supposedly fantastic egg and mayonnaise entrée. Lol, it was exactly that! A single boiled egg, cut in half, topped with regular good-tasting mayonnaise... however I did get it with a bit of lettuce (a bonus I guess lol). Fish (like the whole fish! uhh, with eyes and bones...) with potatoes. The wine was fine.

• We then went walking a bit, and looked at the Louvre at night, with the pyramid lit up.
• It was raining and the Spanish guy was ill, so we decided to call it a night and head back to the apartment.

Sunday

• I slept well and woke up late once again.
• I went with my Trinidadian friend to the market, which was right around the corner. It was cool.

• Once we went back to the apartment I took a nap.
• That afternoon, the three of us left the apartment to visit Paris a bit.
• First we passed by Les Invalides.

• Then we walked along the fancy bridge (lots of gold), Pont Alexandre III which crosses the river Seine.

• Walked past the Grand Palais and the Petit Palais.

• Then we walked along the Avenue des Champs-Elysées.
• I was a bit hungry so bought a chocolate (Nutella) crêpe. Delicious!
• Further along the Champs-Elysées, we stopped at Pomme de Pain for hot chocolate and a free? granola bar (in my case), and coffee. We sat outside in the terrace. It was cool, especially since the sun came out, hooray!!! Unfortunately, we had to try to avoid pigeon droppings. It was funny though! Those pigeons, those pigeons, lol.
  
• The Trini guy then left to go back to the apartment to cook dinner for a get-together later that evening.
  
• The Spanish guy and I continued along the Champs-Elysées. We had planned to spend 5 minutes in FNAC, lol, but that turned out to a bit longer. Then we visited the Virgin Megastore since I was looking for Spanish DVDs.
• We then continued along the Avenue and looked at the Arc de Triomphe.

• Métro to the Eiffel Tower.
• We walked to the Eiffel Tower, where the Spanish guy (a professional photographer) took photos of me, yay! It would have been a lovely day to go up the tower, but since we had planned to meet up with some other people at the apartment for dinner we decided to leave. I could have stayed, but I think that it wouldn't have been fun walking up the Eiffel Tower alone.

• When we arrived at the apartment, three of the guests were already there. More arrived a bit later.
  
• It was a nice, enjoyable evening, spent eating Trini food (roti, channa, mango, pumpkin, and well meat for the non-vegetarians) and French dessert, talking about Trinidad, France, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Morocco, Spain, dancing styles in the different countries (along with youtube videos lol), etc. There were 8 of us there that evening.
• A little before midnight, the 5 dinner guests left.

Monday

• The three of us then embarked on cleaning the apartment. I did a little bit of sweeping, nothing stressful lol.
• Talking, Spanish TV online and a bit of reading later (A year in the merde, borrowed from my Trini host), and I called it a night (or morning lol, since I went to sleep around 2 a.m.).

• I got up around 6 a.m., said goodbye and left the apartment a little before 7 a.m. to head to Gare de Lyon.
• A tram and two trains later, I was at Gare de Lyon, and I was quite early too (I arrived at around 7:45 for my 8:22 a.m. train).
• My train Paris Gare de Lyon - Lyon Part-Dieu, arrived in Lyon two hours later, then I took the Lyon-Chambéry train at 10:38 a.m.
• When I arrived in Chambéry a little after midday, I took a bus to La Motte-Servolex, returned to my apartment, dropped off my stuff, took a shower, then hurried to one of my collèges to teach for two hours! Yes, I was tired, but I survived the afternoon! After that I hurried to my university in vain since the class was cancelled.
• I felt a bit "spaced out"/disoriented later that evening. I guess it was because of all the rushing.

Paris was great, however, I doubt I would like to live there. Too many people lol! Really high rent! I was actually happy to come back to my little town lol. Among the French cities I have visited so far, my favourite is Lyon! :-) Anyway, Paris is a lovely place and I do indeed hope to visit there again!

April so far

What have I been doing these past couple weeks? Well... voilà!

Dinner at an Indian restaurant with my assistant friends who I hadn't seen in a while (ok, so this was really at the end of March). Met a waiter from Bangladesh who asked if I knew Brian Lara. Admittedly I'm not a fan of cricket, but it was cool to meet someone who knew about Trinidad!

Cycling to Lac de Saint-André on April Fools Day




Teaching - almost finished! 19 hours to go!

Food at the collège - good stuff!

Bread, yogurt, flan, green peas, potatoes and veggies, fish, cole slaw, olives = €2.80

Finished!! Yummy :-)

University (including relatively stressful marketing project and guest lecture in Spanish)

Cycling to Lac du Bourget on the weekend

Boats at Lac du Bourget, pic taken from the Bourget du Lac commune

Stressing unnecessarily

Delicious pain de campagne which I'll not be eating again for aesthetic reasons :-)

Apartment cleaning... sigh I saw a spider! Lo maté inmediatamente! Fui muy valiente!

Vacances scolaires (for 2 weeks!!)

Lyon ^^ to visit mon copain :-)
(Also, tour with a student from New Zealand: Musée Gallo-Romain de Fourvière, Théâtres romains de Fourvière, Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière, Cathédrale Saint Jean, Musée des miniatures et décors de cinéma)

Théâtres romains de Fourvière

Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière

Inside the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière

View of Lyon, taken outside the Basilique Notre Dame de Fourvière
You can see the Saône river, the Tour Part-Dieu (Lyon's tallest skyscraper, like a giant pencil, appropriately nicknamed le crayon), Place Bellecour, and even a flying object (looks like a bird!)

Musée des miniatures et décors de cinéma, Vieux Lyon

This is a miniature piece by Dan Olhmann, Le Boudoir Louis XVI.

The Saône river

Gaming - tried World of Warcraft in Lyon and yesterday bought Desperate Housewives le jeu

Dinner at a Chinese/Vietnamese restaurant in Villeurbanne ^^

Accommodation search for next year - student residence?!

Laptop issues - it's unable to close

Visits to the Mairie and the Préfecture - I should be getting another récépissé anytime soon

Warm, sunny days - some people are even wearing shorts!

Reading

Thinking

Beginner's hairdressing

Watching TV series online

Cooking, eating, sleeping

7 months in France (as of today!)

Wondering what ESL activities to do with my students - ideas anyone?

Upcoming 1st trip to Paris this weekend ^^

Well, that about sums up April so far!

Time is flying!

It seems as though March is going by so quickly!
Here's a recap of some things I haven't had time to blog about.

Uni has me much busier than last semester, however, on the upside I feel more like a student :-)
Working (i.e. my teaching timetable) took away from those simple uni experiences like getting to know people, which I pretty much missed out on last semester but things have taken a positive turn this year.

Teaching is going fine, although I'm still impatiently awaiting my vacances scolaires! (one week to go!)

I didn't go cycling since my first ski trip last weekend mainly because of the not-too-fantastic weather this week, and also because I wanted to give my legs a rest! Oh yeah, sometimes it's easier to just take the bus than cycle for 30 minutes in the cold! lol

Well, at least the weekend is finally here!!! :-)

Guess who had a good week?! Me!!!

Haha, yeah that's right! I'm ending February on a happy note :-)
Let's see, there are several reasons for this bliss:

• Well my vacation ended nicely, yayyy!!! :-) so I started the week in a good mood!
  
• Teaching went really well this week!!! I'm sure the teachers spoke to the classes about their behaviour. I'm starting to get the weird impression that the kids are starting to see me as an authority figure...they're behaving, doing their work, I can't complain! I was nervous about starting back teaching, e.g. I even started counting down the days... and hours lol, so it was a relief when things went well!!
  
• My 4:30 to 5:30 class (teaching) yesterday i.e. Friday afternoon! got cancelled. :-) lol
  
• The weather is pretty fantastic!!!!! I LOVE the sunshine!!! The place isn't as cold as before. Today's temperature ranged between 7°C and 15°C!! It felt so "tropical"!! I think I'm going to be really happy during le printemps!
• I finally received my first semester uni results! According to one of my friends, "WOW!!!! good grades!!!".
  
• I've only two months of teaching left, March and April. Did I mention I have two weeks of vacances scolaires in April?!! Yayyyy!!!!!
  
• Oh yeah, I also got paid this week! (Although thanks to expenses and the inevitable "joys" of budgeting, my happiness in this regard was short-lived. lol)
  

Bye bye February, and hellloooo March!!!

Sigh, same nonsense

Ok, today felt so much like déjà vu. Sigh, students and cell phones, meeting with principal? Sound familiar? Yeah, except that this time the incident took place in my other collège.

Well, I have been trying to fight a cold this entire week, but today it got the better of me. Fortunately, I had made some copies of Valentine's Day crosswords to do with my classes - thinking "that should be fun and keep the students occupied." The second hour of teaching didn't go too well though. I couldn't speak because of my sore throat and headache, so I let two students write the answers to the crosswords on the board, ask the other students if they weren't sure of the answer, and well if no one knew the answer I told them. However, one side of the class was particularly rowdy - listening to music on their cell phones and taking pictures. Since the students with the music were next to me (??!!...) I told them that I was hearing them and that they needed to stop. Oh well, that didn't work as they just lowered the volume. Some students even threw paper planes during the lesson. I just didn't have the energy to stress myself out this morning.

Soon the bell rang and the students left. I stayed in my room a bit because I was really feeling sick. After a while I got up and went to the staff room. There, the English teacher and another teacher told me that they heard that students did not behave in class this morning. (Two students told them what took place). The teachers and I went to the principal's office to tell him what took place and who were the students involved. Well, of the five students involved three of them are the usual trouble-makers, and apparently there was a meeting with their parents recently (like a week ago?). I'm not sure what action is going to be taken though. Well, the principal and teachers told me that I'm trop gentille (too nice) with the students. Ok, I got the point...I'll have to try to be firm once school reopens (in two weeks - yay for winter break!).

Well, because I was feeling ill (still not feeling 100%), I decided not to stay the day at the school. I have six hours of teaching on Fridays (from 8:00am to 5:30pm!), but today I only survived from 8-10am. Before leaving though, the English teacher and I wrote a report each of what took place (what I saw, and what the students told her).

Why is teaching getting so stressful?!

Don't be a pushover

Today I stopped being the "nice language assistant".
I only had one hour of teaching this afternoon. Since the teacher had already prepared an activity for me to do with the class, I (wrongly) assumed things would have run more or less smoothly.

My students arrived to class quite happy (after all, it's fun being with the assistant), with some latecomers about 15 minutes after the bell... The students were supposed to work in groups of three, or pairs, and fill out a worksheet. I explained the activity to them, wrote examples of what they were required to do (in French and English) on the board, and walked around the class trying to help them out. Realising that some students weren't cooperating, I told them that I would have to speak to the teacher. They didn't want this, obviously, so most of them got to work.

Some students on the other hand ... well let's say that the combination of their listening to music in class (???!!!) , taking photos with their cell phones and plain not paying attention (esp. when sitting in the front!) just crossed the limit. The bell eventually rang, and I picked up worksheets left behind by two students. One worksheet was completed and the other one only had one line written. (later to be used as evidence ... hmm, not a good idea to leave your work behind!).

Well, I told the teacher about the problems I encountered. She and I went to the principal. Soon after, the four students in question joined us in the principal's office. In a way, I feel bad for the students. However at the same time, I needed to do something about their behaviour - show them that I'm not a pushover - else things would only get worse in class. Well, the outcome is that I will no longer be having those particular students in my class. The attitude displayed by one of the girls really had me wondering if I risk getting beat up outside school. I was assured that this will not happen lol. It's hard being like an intermediary... I'm not a teacher but I'm like a teacher... I'm younger than the teachers but I'm not much older than the students (ok, not old enough to be their mother, but I could be a young aunt lol) ... I guess it's hard for them too since they aren't sure how to treat me.

This is not an experience I enjoyed blogging about, so I just wrote the gist of what took place. I've been told that I am probably too nice to the students. Hmm, I don't know if I would say that. I prefer to be nice than to be mean (seriously, I put myself in the students' shoes.)... but somehow I'll have to work on not being a pushover. I'm getting there.

Teaching takes patience but can be fun

The first two weeks of teaching for the new year were *tries to find a word* ok I guess. There were some challenging and fun moments.

Some students were just really hyper (guess they weren't back into school mode as yet). My patience was wearing thin. After starting to feel like a babysitter, I had to tell off students in two classes. In one class some students were throwing pencils, etc across the room to each other during the lesson (I highly doubt they do this with their regular teacher!), and in another class the majority just wasn't paying attention and was noisy. Usually I can deal with students' not paying attention, once they don't disturb the class and distract the ones who are making a genuine effort to learn.

Points to note:

• When correcting students it's best to speak in their language! So in this case, French instead of English.
• There may be a few cheeky students who may comment on any errors made (e.g. grammatical) so be prepared! E.g. In my frustration I said ce classe instead of cette classe. This happened when I was telling one of the classes that I don't have to keep working with them and I can change classes. Turns out that my timetable had changed anyway, so I no longer have them. It's kinda sad though, because I had some really nice students!
• Conneries is apparently a bad word lol. So while it will get the students' attention (get them to hush lol), the more politically correct word to use is bêtises. :-)

Kids say the darnest things! lol. For example, I had my 4èmes ask each other some ESL "Have you ever ...?" conversation questions that I found online. It was quite fun and got the students involved. E.g. Have you ever been on TV? fallen in love at first sight? picked your nose in public? eaten frog legs? (they said it's delicious...) etc. After the exercise, I asked them to create their own questions. One student came up with "Have you ever sucked a lollipop?" His question "appeared" innocent though because when I asked him to translate he said sucette. However, I heard one of the other boys in the class say something about Lil' Wayne's song "Lollipop". I couldn't stop laughing (ah yes, double meanings! Nothing like a little rap music to create an awkward class moment lol), and was like we will NOT be answering that question in class lol. One girl claimed she didn't know what it meant but soon said "ah oui une bit(t)e"!


Overall, I must say that I have been enjoying teaching. Singing with one class (to Maroon 5's "She will be loved"), answering "Have you ever...?" questions, working with the cinquièmes (Form 2 students - around 11/12 yrs old), etc. In general, I think I prefer working with younger children because they tend to be so enthusiastic! and I can be my happy, smiley self (which they respond well too). I hope there are more fun teaching experiences in store! :-)

Enjoyable teaching...encounter with a pervert...and skating!

Yesterday was an interesting day... good and bad!lol

In the morning I had two classes at one of my schools. The first class was so much fun. For a half hour each, I had two groups of pupils from 5ème (form 2), who were more or less quite enthusiastic!! (I love it!) Their teacher allowed to me to read dialogues to them instead of playing the relevant recording on the CD player. Haha, I enjoyed doing a bit of "acting", changing voices depending on whether the character was a boy or a girl. I can tell that the students enjoyed it. We went then through some vocabulary and pictures. The second class was 3ème (form 4) and I stayed with the teacher for the hour with the whole class. It was an interesting activity as he had the students imagining what they would carry if they were on a desert island and why!

Since teaching/classes are from 10 to 12 on a Tuesday, I usually stay for lunch at the school. The lunch is always very good, and vegeterian options are available! This Tuesday I had: vegetable couscous*, a cheese pie, green salad (lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, salad dressing), bread, apple and raspberry crumble, yogurt, and water ..... all for the low price of 2.40EUR!! Yummy!!

* While I said that I never wanted to eat couscous again after the Marseille trip, I must say that the couscous at the school was very delicious!

After lunch I decided to walk from one school to another to see how long it takes (20 minutes). A little before I reached the other school (about 5 minutes away), a guy asked me something. Now the guy wasn't bad looking, seemed relatively normal, seemed to be like late teens - early twenties, short dark hair, brown eyes, blah blah blah lol ... he was a pervert so no need to elaborate! I didn't quite hear him, but when he repeated I realised he wanted to know the time. Being my friendly self (plus I was in a particularly good mood after teaching that morning), not thinking it was a pick-up line, I smiled and said "Une heure et quart, une heure quinze" then continued walking. Only that he started following me!! (Hint... don't answer/talk to perverts). So then he started telling me how I'm pretty, asked what I look for in men (no response!), if we could meet later, oh how to just talk to him for 2 minutes, how I have a joli cul (I quickened my pace but it's only so fast I can walk!!!), grabbed himself (no need to elaborate), made some sexual suggestions, and then like practically in front of the school I was walking to, the psycho reached out and grabbed my left butt cheek!!! I mean..... getting talks is one thing, but actually touching someone?? He has got to be losing it! By that time I was not being nice anymore, and since I don't really curse people in English lol and probably because of the shock of it all, the only French that came to mind was "arrête!!!! (stop)"... although he didn't stop, but by the second "arrête!!!!" he did!!! I hope I never see him again, and hope he doesn't trouble any of the students from the high schools!

That afternoon, I had two hours of teaching and it was quite fun! I did the same desert island activity with the students at the other school :-) Tuesday night it was snowing when I left the apartment to go to the ice skating rink... but that didn't stop me lol. It was soooo much fun!! Although for the 1h40 mins that I skated I had some almost close encounters with the ice (e.g. like when I sped up during Brick & Lace's "Love is Wicked" woo hoo, Caribbean music!!) and I fell once! It was cold!!! (I should wear gloves when skating), and since I had my cell phone in my right back pocket my fall was a bit painful!! (maybe I have a cell phone imprint? lol).

So yeah... enjoyable day overall minus the pervert episode!

Ice-skating, Préfecture, Marché de Noël!

On Tuesday night I went ice-skating with one of my language assistant friends. It was sooooo much fun!!!! At the skating rink on Tuesday nights there is a light show and music ... a bit like being in a club lol. There were lots of teenagers there. It was my first time ice-skating and I guess that all the inline skating I used to do about 10 years ago lol really helped out! I didn't fall, yayyyy!! although I did trip a few times lol during the two hours on the ice... I just didn't come in contact with the ice - very important lol! I couldn't help but laugh uncontrollably at this sign that kept popping up on the big display screen at the rink:

Hahaha! I think the picture of the man/ass added to the comedy lol of this ad for some French association. At the rink, we were even treated to a short show from one of the teenager's there. She did some twirls n stuff on the ice, very cool! I think I'll be going ice-skating every Tuesday!!!

On Tuesday afternoon I had gone to the Prefecture to inquire about my récépissé or carte de séjour... I still didn't have anything and my visa is going to expire just now! Well, the lady I spoke to told me to come back on Wednesday morning to collect my récépissé. I did exactly that... and yayyyy!!! I got my récépissé on Wednesday. It's valid for quite some time so I don't have to worry about being illegal in France once my visa expires lol. Only problem is that if I go to England I may have problems entering France since I haven't received the actual carte de séjour as yet... I'm trying not to risk having any problems, so I think I'm going to be staying here for Christmas.

Yesterday, three of my assistant buddies and I went to Annecy to visit the Christmas market. However, the main Christmas market hasn't started as yet, so we went to another marché at the Impérial Palace Hotel. It was alright, but I personally think it was geared more towards children. There were stalls, Santa, reindeer, music, and even a Québecois stall, where we got crêpes and hot chocolate, yummm!

It also snowed a bit, awwww!! After the visit, we headed back to Chambéry.

Today was an interesting day. I walked to the university this morning because I was really tired and a little walk is good to get the eyes open lol. Plus, since I found out about the shortcut the walk only takes about 20 minutes. I guess I feel a bit lonely at the university sometimes... but besides that things are fine. I wish I had my Financial Management textbook (in English!) though! All this new technical vocabulary can be a bit confusing. Spanish was interesting, and I'm so glad the lecturer convinced me to do it instead of Français Langue Etrangère. After 3 years of not studying Spanish, it surely is coming back! yay!!! After a quick lunch, I went to teach at one of the schools. That was cool since one of the teachers had a great activity on clothes for me to do with the students. I plan to use it with my other classes tomorrow morning! Well, since my Spanish assistant friend returned to Spain, the studio apartment at the school is currently available. Looks like I'll be moving in for the New Year... the place is small but cute and cosy, 45 minutes walk from centre ville, not to mention ... the rent is pretty fantastic!!!:-)

My students are adorable!

Sorry to say I haven't written much about teaching lately. To be quite honest, things are going really well! My kids are absolutely adorable! For instance, I'm constantly greeted by several students smiling and saying "hellooo" once I set foot on the school compound. At first, I felt a bit hesitant to go to one of my assigned schools, but that's over now! Whew!!

Earlier in this experience, I had felt a little sad because some students in one particular class weren't paying attention. It was totally surprising that the next time I had that class, they were veryyyyy interested in the activity I had prepared (fill the blanks song activity). In fact, a girl who was one of the least interested students last time, was the one to participate the most!!! *smile*

So far I've been playing Jeopardy with my classes, listening to songs (while playing the video on my computer), and having them complete worksheets! Jeopardy has had an overwhelming success!! The students are very competitive - which makes the game exciting!! - and they come up with some interesting team names... lol e.g. The Best Women in the World, The S***, Camembert. Worksheets are good for them to actually write something down and help them remember. While I'm only supposed to use English in the classroom, I kinda break that rule and use French with them sometimes. It's for their benefit though. For instance, if we're talking about a topic and they have ideas but don't know how to express them in English ... this results in the dreaded blank stares lol. So in such a situation, I'll allow them to speak in French, while I translate and write the relevant vocabulary on the board.

The week before, one of the English teachers didn't show up at one of my schools. As a result, I didn't necessarily have to teach. It was so strange/cute/surprising when some of the students in the class came to my classroom and said we could still have class! I mean, wow... they actually wanted class!! They/We had fun though; we played Jeopardy!

No teaching complaints here!

Enfin... les vacances (de Toussaint)!!

I'm officially on vacation!!!!
Classes at the university start back in one week, and teaching at the collèges resumes in a week and a half. To celebrate, I had a very lazy day today! Besides sleeping till midday, I also spent time editing the layout of the blog (isn't it pretty now?!), and taking a little browse around Facebook lol. Needless to say, I'm trying not to be too nerdy, but that's going to be inevitable since I have three projects due for school!!!
Anyway, back to happier thoughts... les vacances, les vacances ... *huge grin*

Good teaching day, yay!

Today I had a class of 3ème (form 4, ie. 14-15yrs old) students... and it was good!!! They paid attention, answered questions, and quietly looked at a video clip on Trinidad & Tobago (Caribbean Young Explorers DVD). When the bell rang in the middle of the video, a student even said "Oh j'étais captivée". Lol, guess she liked it, yay!

Alright, well I have had good teaching experiences so far (for the most part), though I took it a bit personally when a class (3ème) I had earlier this week at the same school had some students who just weren't interested. On Tuesday night I went to the cinema with two British assistants to see Entre les murs, a French film about a difficult high school in Paris. The film won the Palme d'Or (Golden Palm) at the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. I wasn't too keen on seeing it (esp. after teaching that day), but the movie was really good!! Here's the trailer on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wz5svwJqoVU.

I felt better after the movie, but I couldn't help feeling slightly hesitant about teaching today. I'm so glad things turned out well! Hope this trend continues :-)

Almost 3 weeks in France!

Yup, tomorrow will make trois semaines since I've been in France! And what a time it has been so far!

Week 1

After a nine hour flight, a day in London, short flight to Geneva, I finally arrived in Chambéry by train on the 15th September. My first week was spent by a very nice English teacher and her family in the countryside.

To summarize the week (instead of writing a novel lol), I visited one of the schools where I'll be teaching, went jogging around a track with my host teacher and another English teacher from the school, had an interview at the Université de Savoie, got the cold, drank half a bottle of Buckley's Cough & Cold, felt cold, injured my big toe and ankle, bought my first pair of boots (though with the injury I couldn't walk too well in them), bought a French sim card, and spent lots of time walking around Chambéry centre.

Week 2

On Sunday, I moved into an apartment!! I found the place through an agency, and I'm in fact sharing with a French lady who is also the owner. The apartment in located in Chambéry centre (yay!!), and I have Internet access, TV, a full or queen size bed (I'm not sure), a proper kitchen to cook in, etc.

On Monday I had to go to another interview (this time in Spanish) at the University. Interesting... since I haven't done much Spanish in the past three years. A few hours after the interview I received a lovely email... I got accepted to the university to pursue my masters in International Management!!

There was also language assistant training in Grenoble and Autrans this week from the 24th to the 26th September. I met up with the Spanish assistante who is teaching at my second school. At the stage in Grenoble, we met other language assistants in the Académie de Grenoble, walked around Grenoble with two German assistants, and took photos :-) Buses took us from Grenoble to Autrans (a little mountain town). Needless to say, Autrans was cold!! I dunno how people live there... Anyway, so assistants had to share rooms; there were 6 of us in my room: me, the Spanish assistant, two English assistants, one Scottish assistant, and one American assistant.


We went to a bar nearby on both nights spent in Autrans... the bar was nice and warm, and smoke-free! I appreciate the law against smoking in public places. Language assistant training was boring/unnecessarily long for the most part, the food was fine I guess (though as a vegetarian I had to eat a lil more bread to compensate), and I met the only other Caribbean assistant in the Académie, a guy from Jamaica.

Oh, during this week I also started to feel like my normal self, pre-France.

Week 3

I visited Annecy with my Spanish friend (aka the assistant) on Saturday afternoon. Annecy is really, really pretty, and even though we only spent about 3 hours there, we had a good time visiting the lake (including via Le Petit Train), and walking around the old town.


On Sunday I went to the braderie in Chambéry which is a street market which takes place twice a year.

I started classes at the university on Monday!! That was interesting, and felt good to be productive!!!

On Wednesday (1st October) marked the start of my teaching contract, so I went into my main school. On Thursday, I went to the main school and also to the second school for the first time. There'll be more on teaching later on.

Now, Sunday 5th October (which can be considered the beginning of a new week - 4th), I'm getting ready to visit Lac du Bourget (the largest lake in France) with some students from the university. Time for me to get ready! :-)