A walk in the park

Dearest friends and family:
I finally feel I am settling into this new way of life.  I've past my 1 month mark, I have a place to live for the next 7 months, and the mound of paperwork is beginning to dwindle.  That doesn't mean I don't miss everyone back home, I just feel I'm beginning to seep into the French way of life and become more camouflaged as a faux french native rather then an american tourist lost in France.  I have lots to tell this week (when do I not?!) so sit back, relax and enjoy this blog :)

To begin I am going to go back two weeks ago to my trip to the art museum in town (Beaux Arts).  I went with my friend Emily on a Sunday afternoon to check out the permanent collection and the two exhibitions about Babel and Flemish fairytales.  On the first Sunday of the month admission into the museum is free so we made sure to take full advantage of that!  The art museum was pretty big and has a lot of diverse pieces of artwork.  We walked through the main rooms with all the paintings dating back centuries ago.  Basically still lifes of nuns and bowls of fruit (not my favorite to say the least).  There were a couple Roudin sculptures (he's my favorite) and some really neat chinese pottery and dishware.  My favorite part of the museum was the Babel exhibit.  For those of you who aren't familiar with Babel, it is the name of the city constructed by Noah and the surviving families after the great flood in biblical times.  Within Babel the largest tower was constructed, which would become a symbol of power, wealth and dominance.  This same idea of needing the tallest tower to symbolize the same things still exists in the world today (ie. The World Trade Center, Burj Khalifa in Dubai and So all the paintings, photo graphs and sculptures in the exhibit were depictions of different representations of Babel throughout history.  There was also a main piece of the exhibit consisting of a tower of books in all different languages.  This was meant to represent the need to ensure that english does not become the dominant and only language spoken, but rather to preserve all the languages that still exist today and the cultural significance of these languages.  See photos below.  It was all really well done and very informational.  The flemish fairytales exhibit was not nearly as fascinating, so I didn't even take any photos.

 

 


On Monday of this week all the teaching assistants who have been placed in middle schools had a training day.  The first part of the day was just further explanation of our roles in the classroom and how we should be presenting culture nuances to the classroom rather than teaching grammatical structures and grading homework and tests.  The second half of the day was spent discussing different types of activities that can be played with the different levels of students to not only get them to use english but by using english freely through playing a game or doing an activity.  Pretty much fooling them into having fun and speaking english at the same time.  We got free lunch again at the school cafeteria where the training day was held, and I've come to the conclusion that I will not be eating in the school cafeterias anymore because they only seem to serve red meat entrees and very seldom to they serve chicken, fish or a vegetarian option.  The training day went really well and turned out to be very helpful and worth our while.

On Wednesday Janine (my new housemate) and I went into town to do some administrative work changing our addresses with various offices.  We also took some time to check out the Beffroi or Belfry (in english) that is attached to the city mayor's office.  On the first and third Wednesdays of the month there is free admission to climb to the top of the tower to get a 360 degree view of Lille.  We were given the option of taking the elevator or climbing our way to the top.  Of course we took the elevator!  Even though it was raining it was a pretty spectacular view.  See photos below.











Later that day I moved the rest of my luggage to the new house with my 4 new housemates.  Our french housemate, Max, offered to drive our stuff from the residence hall to the house so we wouldn't have to lug everything on the metro.  Such a sweetheart.  I spent the night at the new house and loved every minute of it.  I am now living in Roubaix, which is rumored to be a not so nice part of the region, but we are more on the south side of the city and closer to the neighboring city of Croix, which has been just lovely so far.  I'm living with 4 other housemates: Janine is from Nottingham, England, Jack is from Leeds, England, Deliece is from Trinindad and Max if the from the Brittany region in France.  We make quite the international house.  We were over joyed when we found out we'd have a french housemate.  Funny story:  I had saved up my months worth of laundry to do at the house (because we have a washer and dryer!) rather than paying to do it at the residence hall.  Well I struggled with learning about a european washing machine and ended up running one load of clothes through the washer 3 or 4 times before moving it over to the dryer.  Then after my 3rd load through the washer it decides to no longer work... I am trying to contact the landlord, but of course I'm getting no response to get it fixed.  Oops!

 

My classes this week have gone well so far.  I got to work with the SEGPA (a class of students who struggle with learning, not just in english).  They couldn't produce much english besides "hello, my name is...", but they were the most attentive and well behaved students I've seen thus far.  The teacher who works with them is fantastic as well and commands respect and attention in the classroom but treats her students with so much respect in return.  I'm hoping I can keep working with this class, but I'm afraid that might not be possible since the school wants me in more advanced classes where the students can already produce a fair amount of english.  In another class I spent the hour doing 5 minute conversations with students out in the hall, while the teacher taught a lesson.  After class she told me that the following Thursday the class would have an oral test over describing themselves, and she wants me to conduct the oral tests and take notes to assign grades to each students.  It has been strictly outlined to us that we are not allowed to give grades or marks to the students, but in stead take notes over what was discussed so the teacher can make a decision on grades and marks.  I told the teacher about this rule and she said, "oh it'll be ok we can just discuss how it went after the class and I can change grades where I see fit."  This will prove to be a problem...  I actually look forward to going to school on Friday afternoons because I get to work with my really nice school, but this week proved to be a challenge.  My responsable or contact teacher (the person who gave me my schedule and helps me with administrative stuff or anything else I need help with) he will be out of school for the next two weeks on paternity leave so he has a replacement teacher taking over his classes.  First thing on Fridays I go with one of two teachers, my schedule has me switching between the two classes each week.  One of those teachers was out absent and in this level of the french school system they don't get substitute teachers.  The class is just canceled.  So I went to find the other teacher I'm scheduled with at that time, but after talking to the secretary we found out that there is an error in my schedule and that teacher doesn't even have classes at that time of day.  So I had not class to go to.  For my next class I taught with the replacement teacher, who I quickly found out is one of those mean substitute teachers.  She kept rudely shushing the students and eventually threatened the rough draft of their big project (which is really due in a month's time) to instead be due next Wednesday.  She didn't like the noise level of the class and went ahead and assigned the rough draft to be due next Wednesday and it will be graded.  I felt so bad for the students, and they looked at me to get help, but in my position there is nothing I can do.  My last class of the day was supposed to be with the teacher who was absent that day.  After running around the school trying to fix a messed up schedule and work around a class that had been cancelled and deal with a mean replacement teacher, I figured there was nothing more I could do and just went home early.  Hopefully next week will prove to be a little better.

Now that we are all settled into the house and loving it, Janine, Deliece and I went exploring a little and found this gorgeous park just a 10 minute walk from our house.  The trees were beginning to turn and it made me feel like I was back in the US.  Big cities in France don't often have parks like this, so it was really nice to enjoy the little bit of nature we could find.  We even came across a wedding celebration.  See photos below.

 

Hope you enjoyed this incredibly long blog post!  Thanks for sticking around :)

Good things come to those who wait

I have some exciting news to start off this blog post!! I signed a lease to rent a room in a 5 bedroom house with 3 of my new friends!  Our 5th roommate is a french guy from the northwestern region of France.  We will have quite the international house: 2 brits, 1 trinidad, 1 french, and 1 american.  Our rooms are huge and furnished with a bed, desk, tv, and closet.  I'll be sharing a bathroom with my roomie next door: Janine.  The kitchen is huge and fully equipped with everything (perfect for the mega thanksgiving feast I'm going to make!).  There's a big living room with a big screen tv and a black leather sofa.  There's even a washer and dryer (this isn't always common in a french house).  We have a small over grown garden in the back that needs tending to, but the realtor from the agency we signed with said she would send someone out to take care of that.  At the back of the garden is a creepy shed that no one wants to go explore.  There is a basement bu yet again it's too creepy and no one wants to find out what or maybe who lives down there (just kidding!, or maybe not...)  Janine, Delice and I went to Ikea yesterday to buy bedding, pillows and lamps for our rooms.  Ikea in France is no different than in the US, just maybe a little smaller.  My room is now outfitted with a red and white polka dotted comforter, yes it reminds me of my mother's love for I Love Lucy.  We got to know our french roommate a little better once we started moving our stuff into the house.  He even offered to drive to our residence hall to pick up all of our suitcase and drive them back to the house.  Once we all move in this coming Thursday evening he wants to welcome us with an "apperetif", it's like a cocktail hour.  He's 23 and currently an engineering student but also working at some company.  I think this will be a good year!  After 3 weeks of struggling to find somewhere to live I am so relieved to not only be moving into a permanent location, but moving with 3 close friends, gaining a great french roommate who can help me practice me french and the house is just lovely.  I'll be sure to post photos in my next blog posting.  So, good things do come to those who wait :)

This week in both of my schools I began to work more closely with the students.  Now that I have exhausted the question/answer interview session with all the classes the teachers are now having me walk around the classroom to observe the students complete workbook exercises or lead them in reciting vocab words and critiquing their pronunciation.  I'm still not supposed to be working with the students, but rather observing different methods of teaching from the back of the classroom.  I'm really enjoying working with the students so far and feel I have more of a purpose working in the classroom rather than sitting in the back taking notes.  On Monday and Friday at one of my schools I got to work with 2 different euro level classes.  Euro level means these students opted to take 2 additional hours of a foreign language each week on top of their already assigned hours in regular english classes.  During both class periods I took students into a separate room to practice speaking for about 5 minutes, and then I'd make notes about their strengths and weakness for the teacher to review over later.  I think this will be a regular thing throughout the year.  In another 6ieme class (in other words the youngest students in the school, 11 year olds) I got to walk around and help students complete a worksheet the teacher had assigned to practice saying what a fictitious person "likes" or "doesn't like".   The class trouble maker had been sent to the back of the room within the first 3 minutes of class for disrupting the teacher while speaking and bothering the students around him.  I'm finding out rather quickly that these students who talk non-stop during class are miss behaving out of spite they want the attention they may not be getting at home.  Or they could just be little shits and want to create chaos.  For now I will give them the benefit of the doubt.  So as I walked around the class I stopped by the desk of the class trouble maker and realized he had written a sentence that was almost correct but need some work.  So I sat down next to him and focused only on working with him for 5 minutes going over and over again the sentence structure he needed to use to express what someone "likes" or "doesn't like".  He eventually caught on and after I had him read the correct sentence through a couple of times I told him he had done a very good job and now he can complete the rest of the worksheet based off the correct sentence he had just written.  I went on to circle the class some more and stopped back by his desk to check the rest of his work.  He was helping another student write the same sentence I had just been helping him with.  When he noticed me he said "thank you miss for your help!".  I'm finding that the french approach to education is often times different from the american approach.  Not that one is wrong or right, but it's becoming more evident to me that just a little bit of time spent with the students who act out for attention or helping a student correct a sentence till they fully understand the concept helps a lot more than reprimanding and telling students they are wrong without providing a way to find the correct answer.  In the US we have the "no child left behind" program.  While that is not a philosophy employed in France, I think I'm going to make it a personal goal to offer every student I get to work with this opportunity.  On Thursday in my "social challenged" school I was teaching a tandem lesson with the teacher over the different zodiac signs.  So I would read a vocab word and the class would repeat me and then I went around the room quizzing everyone on their zodiac signs and what they mean.  One girl in that class is just a little bitch.  Sorry for the vulgar language, but there is no better way to describe her.  She was one of two students swording fighting with scissors last week and this week she terrorized one of the smartest girls in the class.  This snobby girl had already been moved to two different seats after continually bothering students.  Towards the end of class she was placed at the front of the room.  The girl sitting behind her is one of the students who is very knowledgable and always has the right answer, but often too shy to speak up and volunteer in class.  The snobby girl started messing with this other girl's notebooks and pencil case.  She ended up over turning the pencil case onto the floor and laughed about it.  The teacher all the while is ignoring this situation, but I'm restraining myself from giving this snobby girl a good kick in the pants.  The quiet girl stands up to collect her things and the teacher yells at her to sit down.  Now, I don't know if the teacher is truly oblivious as to what has been happening or if this is the french method of punishing, but it upset the quiet girl so much she started crying, collected her things and walked out of the classroom.  All the while the snobby girl is sitting there laughing.  Once the bell rang the teacher called the snobby girl to her desk and pretty much just gave her a slap on the wrist and told her to be nice from now on.  I'm sorry but I don't care what country or culture you live in, bullying is never tolerated nor is it dealt with like that.  That was my last class of the day, so when I left the school the quiet girl was outside the school with her friend crying, but as assistants we have been advised to not step into troubled situations taking on the role of social worker but rather report an instance to the school disciplinary head.  It will be interesting to see what happens this week in that class...
Monday is our training day organized by the school district.  Woohoo 7 hours of lecturing!!  I could have used that this time last week.  I promise my next post will have pictures of the house, but for now you can enjoy these pretty pictures of Lille.

First day of school

So this week started off with a BANG!  I was "observing" in both of my schools on Monday.  So from 9am-about 4pm I was busy busy with meeting teachers, working in classrooms, and trying to figure out the french academic system.  At the beginning of my week my two contact teachers at both of my schools still hadn't straightened out when I'd be working at each school, and we'd just plan out the week day by day.  If you know me at all, you'll know I'm overly organized and a planner so this didn't sit well with me.  I started out at Boris Vian and went to three different classes to meet three different levels of students.  In each class we just did a little question answer interview session between me and the students.  It was really fun to share parts of my culture and country with these students who were in shock and awe of me.  I noticed right away that the older students who are about to go onto high school have begun that rebellious stage where they're too cool for school and starting to have crushes on their classmates.  So most of the class time with the older students is spent reprimanding them to be quite, turn around in their chairs, stop pestering their neighbor.  Literally, 75% of the class time is spent telling them to stop talking.  The younger students how have just moved up to middle school are all so tiny!  Their between the ages of 11-12 and their backpacks are all bigger then they are.  These younger students still have the interest and enthusiasm to learn and want to me the first person with their hand up to answer ALL the questions during the class period.  While they talk a lot and disrupt class just like the older kids, younger ones don't have the cocky attitude and talk back to the teachers.  I learned early on that one good way to get a students attention no matter how disruptive and bad they are being during class time, if you ask them for this little red notebook each student has to carry around, which I assume keeps track of their class assignments, grades and behavior in school.  Even the slightest mention of asking a student for their red notebook sends them into a pleading fit to not right a bad note about their behavior, which their parents then have to read and sign.  The behavior of these students and their disrespect of their teachers would never be tolerated in the US.  After a grueling 3 hours at my first school I went to my second school where I got to sit in the back of the classroom and observe a music class, where they were learning the lyrics in english to the song We Will Rock You by Queen.  The music teacher asked me to translate the lyrics, but of course there is so much slang and idiomatic meaning that has to be carried over in the translation I wasn't really sure what to tell them.  I then observed a math class.  (Funny how I observed the two school subjects I hated the most when I was younger).  The math teacher for this class was one of those teachers who can make an impact on his students lives not just for that day or that school year, but for a lifetime.  I could automatically see the difference in teaching methods between the two schools.  One school doesn't like to enforce order and regiment on the students for free of becoming too military like, where as the other school demands 100% attention and respect for the one hour they are in a classroom.  At the end of the math class the teacher said he would only allow the students to answer the last math problem of the day in english.  He wrote the problem on the board explaining it in english and then asked students to solve the problem step by step in english.  Once the problem was solved he told the class how important it is to learn a second or even third language, not just for the grade you get in school, but because being bilingual or trilingual or even multilingual crosses over into so many other fields for when they want to find a job.  I thought that was really neat that he took time to explain that to such young children, and he's now adding a 5 minute lesson in another language to the end of each class so the students get used to applying the other languages they are learning to other school subjects.  I wish I had had this teacher for math when I was in school!  The last class of the day was another english class to observe.  I did the whole question answer interview between myself and the students again.  I'm also noticing a stark fluency level between the two schools as well.  The school that doesn't implement order and demands attention and respect has students who are less advanced in learning a second language than those students who attend a school where rules are put into place.  All the students, between both schools, liked to know about celebrities in the US, Barack Obama, American music, and whether or not I have a boyfriend.  One student even asked me if I am an indian since I come from Indiana.  I told him not exactly, that's too hard for me to explain to their level.  One thing that happened during the interview session at Boris Vian (the more difficult school) that really impacted me and gave me a purpose for being here, was when a young boy who had been quiet during the whole class and sitting off in the corner, raised his hand and asked how long I'd be staying in France and why I was here.  I told him I'd be living here for 8 months and I am here as a teaching assistant to work with all the students to improve their english.  This little boy then said, "Thank you miss Sarah", and all the other students chimed in after him.  I almost cried.
Tuesday was a girly shopping day with Janine and Emily.  We took the bus to a mega shopping complex called Auchan, where I found a box of 24 Bueno candy bars for only 5 euro! Mega steal!!  I would compare this place to the love child of Sams and Walmart.  It was huge and had an amazing selection!!
Wednesday was orientation day.  All the english language assistants met at Lycee Baggio for a 9:30-4:30 administrative and instructional orientation day.  The morning was spent going over all the paperwork that needs to be filled out and filed as quickly as possible.  Then we all got free lunch at the school cafeteria and I got to meet loads of other American teaching assistants.  It was nice to share stories with my compatriots and when we'd reference something culture or about our own country, we were all in the loop and didn't have to explain ourselves like we tend to have to do with all the other assistants from other countries.  The afternoon was supposed to be spent covering methods of observation in the classroom and how to handle the students since we are just assistants and not actual teachers.  But instead we spent the time going back over all the administrative stuff and asking in depth questions.  When the orientation let out, Janine and I went over to one of my teacher's homes to get help calling landlords to find a place to live.  After 3 hours of calling people and looking up new listings, we left with no apartment showings and not getting any further in our search.
Thursday was another day at school (Boris Vian).  This was also picture day so I got to me in the faculty picture.  Pretty cool!!  After school let out I went to look at an apartment that had one room available.  On my way to the showing I saw a woman step off the curb to cross the street and an oncoming car, who should have stopped for the pedestrian, hit her right in the middle of the road.  That is a sound I'll never forget.  I'm pretty sure she was unconscious for a while, and someone called an ambulance to get her medical attention.  Once I had left the apartment showing she was awake in the back of the ambulance and EMTs were bandaging her hands.  The apartment I looked at was a bit odd, and I finally decided I didn't want to live there.  The landlord gave me a really bad vibe, and he lives down the hall from the room I'd be renting.  While it would be a quick walk to my schools I don't think I'd be comfortable living there.  Later in the evening I went with Janine and Emily to the British Center in Lille, which is pretty much a giant english library.  They served us free wine and snacks and we got to mingle with other english speakers in the area.  It was mostly other teaching assistants there.
Friday afternoon was another day spent in the classroom, but since some of the english teachers were absent I got to go home early!  That morning I had spent hours calling landlords and emailing people to get apartment showings set up.  Finally I got someone to respond to take a tour of a 5 person house, 4 rooms available, that evening.  So my friend Jack and I took the metro up to a small city called Roubaix just north of Lille.  We both instantly loved the house and the french guy currently renting the 5th room seemed really nice and would make a good roommate.  There are three stories in the house and all of assistant friends I'm living with in the residence hall can move with me so we'll have a full house.  Fingers crossed we can end up living there.  It will create a longer commute to school for all of us, but the house and the neighborhood are really nice and safe and the monthly rent isn't bad at all!
Yesterday I went into town in the afternoon to check out all the festivities for the festival that will last for the next 3 months.  I met up with Emily and some other teaching assistants for an afternoon snack.  We then went to a pub where we met even more assistants and two guys from New Zealand who have been back packing around the world (literally).  They started out in Tahiti, went to the US and are now spending time in Europe and will finish up in Asia before flying home to New Zealand.  We spent the day touring the city and taking in the sights.  We all caved and at dinner at McDonald's, or as the french call is MacDo.  That night was the parade to kick off the festival.  We all stood in the pouring down rain smashed up against each other because there were so many people waiting for this parade to start.  There were mostly inflatable characters and a couple groups of dancers and marching bands that came down the streets.  The theme was "when science meets fiction" but I still can't figure out what all the costumes and floats were suppose to be.  Just look at the pictures and try to figure it out for yourself.  If you can make sense of it let me know.  After the parade there was a bizarre fashion show on a concert stage.  It continued to rain and we were all cold and tired so we didn't stay long.
This week will be week two of teaching and more adventures to come!