Even my busiest weeks, something gets cancelled, namely my whole 3 hour shift on Tuesday morning (23/11). This worked to my advantage, as I woke up with a splitting headache, and had to go to Grenoble for an immigration appointment later that day. So after working my one hour Monday, none Tuesday, and none Wednesday (as usual) I only had to work Thursday and Friday of last week. So another long week averted. Although the trip to Grenoble was tiring, but we’ll get to that later.
Some of the highlights of my first thanksgiving lesson..
i would start explaining how it was this big holiday and we eat turkey and some girl is like "oh see we celebrate christmas in december." and i was like yeah.. so do we. this isn't christmas. and they were like oh.. so it's like armistice day? and i was like no, we celebrate that too, remember, this is another holiday.. one you don't celebrate. get it? silence..
they had a really hard time understand the concept "to be thankful for" and after saying it as many ways as i could in english, i just translated it into french and they still didn't really get it! so i was like, say things you're thankful for, like "i'm thankful for my family, i'm thankful for my pets, i'm thankful for my health, i'm thankful to live in france, anything!" and they all just stare at me. finally one girl raises her hand and says "i am thankful for the job i will have in the future." and i was like ok.. but maybe we should try and stick to things in the present.. like things in your life right now that you are happy about. anyone? silence...
nothing and anything.. two other words they don't get. i guess i can understand, in french one word means both things. but lots of times i'll say something like, "can you think of anything?" and i'll get the response "anything!" from one of the students, when they mean to say "nothing".
after reading a brief (simplified) history of thanksgiving (like "the pilgrims were grateful for the indians help, because without them they wouldn't have survived" etc) there were questions about the text, like "what were the pilgrims thankful for?" kind of thing. they understood indians, pilgrims took a little more explaining, but i said they were the people who came from another country (england) to live in america. and this one girl goes "oh so they were invaders!" and the rest of the time she was like, "i don't understand why the indians thanked the invaders.." and i was like "no.. the pilgrims thanked the indians for teaching them how to survive through the harsh winter." and she was like "oh.. so the invaders thanked the indians.. and then they killed them?!" and i was like "uh.. well.. that's not written here in this text.. but yeah, sort of, let's just do the next question."
there was also something about foods they ate on the first thanksgiving in that text and it was funny to try and explain some of them. for example, eels. i was like "ok so they look like snakes, do you know what a snake is?" and one kid is like "ah americans eat snakes! what a weird country!" and i was like "no, no, they look like snakes and they live in the water." and then i get a collective "ahhh les anguilles" or something like that. another funny one was venison, and i was like "do you know what a deer is?" and no one did.. so i was like "umm do you know who bambi is?" and they were all like "americans eat bambi ahhh!". it was pretty funny.
so the immigration appointment: tuesday i went to grenoble.. i was a little late since i didn't realize how far (and in the middle of nowhere!) the immigration office was. after the train i had a 20 min tram ride, then a 10 minute walk, in the rain! so i was like 10 minutes late, but i ran into a whole group of assistants i had met at orientation there also, and then one came in after me too, so i figured it was ok. well the receptionist like didn't match the names up or type them correctly, i don't know, but i sat there for 30 minutes until some woman came down and was like, "where are the other 2 language assistants? why didn't they come?" then she specifically says my name and i'm like uh, i'm right here. and then the lady got all mad being like, "you should have told her that you had an appointment at 3 (even though i did give her the paper that said that) because our appointment (the immigration one) was at 330 and now it's 345 and i have to stay late.." (her exact words were that i should have "protested" - this country and it's protests!) boo hoo. how was i supposed to know that you just didn't want to make me wait forever like you always do in this country? plus there were other people in the waiting room there before me. well apparently this place like closes at 4 and they (of course) all wanted to leave asap, but at least that meant it all went fast, i guess. so you meet with a nurse, doctor, get an x ray, and then back to the doctor to look at the xray. it was all pretty easy and basic, they didn't even really ask much, i thought ("do you smoke, have you ever had a surgery" kind of thing). then in the end, the doctor like looks at that xray for maybe 2 seconds and is like "looks good" and then told me it was a souvenir for me to keep. so now i've got some (cool?) x-ray of my lungs as a souvenir from france.
no work on Wednesday but a full day on Thursday, thanksgiving of all days!
all my classes today were an hour.. sometimes that's good, sometimes it's not. i've decided you can tell pretty quickly (like within the first few minutes of class) whether they are interested or not and whether you're losing them. and from that point it's really hard to change it to go in the other direction.. i hate it when that happens.
the first class was good, but i was almost late because the photocopier was broken (get this, there is one!.. ok actually there is a back up, so there are two, but at all the other schools there is one photocopier... crazy!), so i had to use the back up one which is much smaller/slower and of course there was a line. this was the first class that got my "i'm thankful for" thing which was good.. although after one person said "i'm thankful for my friends" it was like everyone just copied, even though i said to try and be original with their responses.
the second class was not as good, the teacher even pointed out students as they were walking in to watch out for (never a good sign). those kids ended up being ok, they didn't really pay attention but they didn't talk or disrupt the class, which is all i really care about i guess. that's probably not good, but some people were listening and i care more that they get something out of it and are not interrupted by those who don't care. i guess, again, that's probably not the point. but whatever, i'm not a teacher and i am just trying to find the easiest way to get through the hour.
i should mention i think many of these kids still think thanksgiving is christmas (they are all like ah noel! noel!), and that americans just celebrate it oddly early, despite how much i tell them that it is different.
then a (boring) break, then the class with the little kids (10/11 year olds). i've decided this class, while enthusiastic, is really hard, and i never know what to expect! they are always all over the place, switching chairs, getting mad if i don't pick someone first, wanting to write stuff on the board even if i tell hem no, and even though they are nice, that hour is just soo tiring. i had plans of trying my best to explain thanksgiving in english/french, but they have such short attention spans, i just passed out a wordsearch and let them do that instead. i think you've got to be prepared, because otherwise they will just be all over the place, but at the same time i was thinking of playing this one game and they wouldn't stop begging me to play hangman, so i just let them do that for the last 20 minutes or so. so you've got to be prepared but also be prepared to throw the lessons out the window? i'm glad this is just like a fun class for them (because they are too young/know too little to actually do grammar/reading/writing exercises) and i'm not really responsible for teaching them material.
i also had SUCH trouble trying to explain how to make a turkey out of your hand. since they weren't really having the thanksgiving lesson, i decided to let them trace their hands on paper and make a turkey out of it, then writing what they were thankful for inside. they were all excited to draw their hands, and i did it for them first, and explained in french, so i didn't think it would be so hard, but the first time around they just all drew their hands and then asked me if they could draw in the nails or add nail polish and stuff. i was like nooo we're making turkeys. TURKEYS. after several english/french/drawing explanations, they finally got it and they got the i'm thankful for thing too.. thankfully!
then another (boringgg) break and one last class, just the section of non euro (honors) kids. i reallllly don't get it. like i just had a class with the same level honors, and they understood everything i said/asked/all my directions. i get into this class and they can't even introduce themselves properly ("i eleven").. how can there be such hugeee difference?! i will never get it. these are the times that i feel like i have to improvise, because i realize even though i've done the same thing with multiple classes, that they won't get it, even if they should. annoying (also i realize this would be easier if i had the same class more than once.. know what to expect or whatever). plus i hate it when i explain something, ask if everyone understands, everyone says yes, and then when i tell them to do the exercise, everyone says they don't understand. like, i don't care if you ask me to explain it a million times, or if you have a million questions, just don't say you get it when you don'tttt. besides that, one boy asked me if i knew french in the beginning (they always ask this first) and i say yes, but i can't speak it with you, which is what i always say. and he's like "oh do you think we could speak in french after class, i just love american accents.." and i was like umm, what? why? that's kind of weird.. i mean i like french accents (i guess? but now i'm kind of over that i think, i hear them all the time) but i would never ask my teacher to talk to me in english because i liked his/her accent or something..
anyway i've pretty much got all the facts you could ever want to know about thanksgiving memorized (that's what happens when you hear the same thing a million times) and could probably give you a pretty good reenactment (geese always pronounced as cheese, for example) of how they say it with their funny little cute french accents (a common intro from my last class: "my name uhh is uhh bastien and i uhh leeeeve in drummataz clarafond and i uhh behh je ne sais pas je ne parle pas anglais.." no no in english! say something about yourself, like how old are you? "uhh behh uhh ok i uh ‘ave twenty" um no. no. sorry but you're not TWENTY. twenty is two zero "oh uhh oui i mean uhh yes i ‘ave 12".)
No comments:
Post a Comment