So here I am back in France! I have therefore resurrected and rechristened the blog.
I am ostensibly here to teach English to the French high schoolers, because the French (unlike the Americans) have realized the necessity of multilingualism in an increasingly global world. They also have the conception, in direct contradiction of their often stereotypically chauvinistic views, that the nation as a whole is terrible at foreign languages. They tend to blame it on a physical incapacity: the French language supposedly renders the native speaker unable to properly mimic non-French sounds. I'm skeptical, and I don't think, from what I have seen so far, that the French are any worse at languages than anybody else I've seen.
In any case, the French government, in its infinite wisdom has contracted me to simply speak English with these kids. I have been given a rather terrifying amount of liberty in lesson planning ("so if you can just...get them to talk as much as possible") and thrown in front of a group of fifteen or so adolescents.
So far it's turned out alright. The kids are alternately timid or disruptive, very competent speakers or struggling with forming a question, but variety is the spice of life, right (I try to tell myself that, as any one group will only see me once every two weeks, meaning I have a very large number of different groups)?
The interesting part so far has been the living in France. Between the bureaucracy and paperwork (opening a bank account, immigration forms, etc.) and the kids, I'm a little exhausted. I think the issue with getting settled has been that I feel like I'm starting from zero with everything I do. I spent days running around trying to get internet in the building we assistants are living in. Despite being on the school campus and having housed assistants in years past, it took us three weeks to get that set up, and it included getting a man in to put in a phone line (of course only one of the rooms had a phone jack, so I had to switch rooms). We still don't have access to the school computers, despite having asked four different people every day for a week. I spent the first week after I got here trying to figure out my schedule, get my attendance book and class lists, and filling out paperwork so I could get paid. I still don't have a schedule for my second school (I am splitting my hours between two high schools). And every time I just keep wondering why they couldn't have done this beforehand? It was a surprise to nobody that they were going to host four language assistants. They'd been in school a month before we got here. They've had assistants every year for the past five or ten years. It makes you frustrated enough to want to kick things.
Oh and then there are the strikes. I won't go too much into detail but I'll just say that half the students are on strike too, to the point that today I had one class of three students and another of just a single student. I find it admirable that the French are politically involved and active, that they are willing to stand up and protest when their government is doing something they don't agree with (something Americans could learn from), but goodness sakes let's get on with it already.
I realize much of this post has focused on some of the frustration I've been feeling but I assure you there are parts I love as well. I will talk more about Albi in a future post but it's a beautiful little town and the people have been extremely friendly. I'm eating my weight in bread and cheese, as well as fresh fruits and vegetables from the markets, and the teaching is rewarding as or more often as it is frustrating.
Miss you all, love from France.
