Archive: Back to school (and home again)

First published by me Oct 26, 2013

I’ve been living in France for over a month now. I eat french baguettes and cheese for lunch, I’ve visited Paris (as a map-reading, photo-taking tourist), I’ve drunk hot chocolate and eaten crème brûlée at Les Deux Moulins (Amélie cafe), and I’ve already started teaching. I’ve also managed to convince a grand total of five people that I don’t speak French or English very well and that, en fait, je suis espagnole, which is always a bonus.

I’m working in two collèges (high schools) which are both spaced just far enough away from each other to incur a thirty minute bus journey to either school. I teach pupils (aged 11-16) who are currently stumbling through some of the more stroppy and hormone-fuelled stages of life, and I’m more than aware of this. Fortunately, I’m still a new face and word has spread throughout both schools that I am English (and may or may not have seen/met David Beckham), so the classes and I are still enjoying a honeymoon period of teaching. I may have even earned some kind of foreigner celebrity status, a glory I am assured is only bound to last as long as my ‘five-minute homework’ deals and early morning Hangman games.

I’ll admit this much – I’m not a big fan of research. I like to throw myself into the deep end and figure out how to swim once I’m in there, which is why I’ve ended up in the centre of France, teaching 14-year-olds how to pronounce the ‘th-‘ sound without hissing and why Harry Potter has to wear a school uniform. Plus, the job title ‘English Assistant’ didn’t strike me as particularly difficult (no offence), and sounded like a much better option than ‘University Student’. I mean, there are two requirements to fill for this position: you have to be English (and I’m already pretty good at that) and you would presumably have to assist someone else.

So imagine my surprise when I rock up one Wednesday morning, after less than a week of observation (which turned out to be Q&A with l’anglaise anyway), and I’m handed keys to my own classroom, along with a class register and a demi-classe of fifteen 13-year-old keen beans (who had never seen me before). Naturally, however unprofessional this may have been, I had to ask the teacher what she actually wanted me to do with them. To which she responded, “just teach them whatever you have prepared, how about something on personalities?”. And with a final flick of the hand, it became clear to me that my observation period had officially ended. Not ideal.

By this point, I had spent the majority of the observation period all assistants should be entitled to stood at the front of the class while the pupils hit me with a tirade of pre-prepared questions or, much worse, unprepared questions. After having been subjected to at least 13 hours of this, I had mastered the majority of my answers, based on words the students recognised, rather than the truth.

Does it rain in England? All the time

Why are you here? I don’t like English food

How many times have you seen the Queen? Once, she waved at me from her car (creative licence allowed)

What do you dislike? Snails (great conversation starter)

NB: The last response did once provoke an outraged response from an 11 year old boy at the front of the class, who stood up and shouted “mais NON, c’est trop bon!”

The questions I hadn’t really prepared for, however, tended to come at the end of class, when a group of the smaller children would sneak up to the front of the class to continue Q&A. Do you have a boyfriend? Do you have Facebook? Do you have Skype? Do you have guns in England? If anything, I was impressed that these pupils had gone out of their way to speak English with me. I answered as truthfully as possible, and have since had to decline three Facebook friend requests, with plenty more to come, I’m sure.

So having a key to my own classroom has actually given me more freedom than I could have hoped for, even if my second ever class ended up being observed by university students, the computer never works when I need it to (Hangman always works well at this point), and my fourth class was interrupted by the first fire drill of the new year (something I wasn’t necessarily informed about). Fortunate as I couldn’t have timed my lesson better (the class had heard enough about Halloween fancy dress), unfortunate as the class had to be led out by the only student who knew where the nearest fire exit was located.

But it’s not all frogs and snails. Everyone calls me ‘Miss’ (even though I could easily pass as one of the troisième pupils), I’m on the good side of all of the class jokers and stroppy teens (so far), and I’m now on vacation for two weeks. The French government/British Council couldn’t have timed this any better/worse, depending on your perspective.

So far, so good.