Lycée Bouaye

I had the day to myself today and it's been very productive! I got a French cell phone! and picked up my French bank card! and got some groceries.   I have my big “Nantes High School English Assistants” Orientation Thursday, and I will be back at school Friday to (hopefully) have my teaching schedule!

I’ve done observations of English classes all week.  I saw a student wearing denim shortalls- again 224, particularly you Grace… love you! Rockin style choices. I’ve also seen a pair of purple sneakers that I am dying to find for myself… But school stuff: One class is learning about Native Americans and they were watching excerpts from Dances with Wolves, another class was learning family vocabulary and used “The Simpsons” to create a family tree.  The students are quite shy with me and afraid to make mistakes in front of a native speaker, but I’m sure once I say anything in French they will realize that I have an accent and make some mistakes in their language too. As a language learner you are going to make mistakes. Always. And it’s hard to shake an accent. Corrections are very important but too many too fast can be disheartening. I will have to balance encouragement and corrections (especially pronunciation) with zeez kiddos.

When I studied abroad I heard the most encouraging thing from a teacher, asking us to think something along the lines of:

“Yes, I am trying to speak French. No I am not French. I am American. I will probably never really sound like I am French unless I live here for many consecutive years. Oh you can understand me? Even with my accent? Oh you think my accent is charming? Yes it is isn’t it?”

She reminded us that an accent is part of who you are, and it’s very difficult to lose it completely. It’s not something to be embarrassed about.

French are typically taught British English, so my accent and some expressions may be hard for some of the students… but at the same time I am a Midwesterner and have the most desired American accent out there.  They should probably consider themselves lucky to have an Ohioan (even if they have never heard of my state).

I already noted that most high schools have longer school days than we do in the good ol USA, and that some hold classes on Saturdays. Another big difference is that students attend high school only for 3 years.

For this first part of the year I will be working with “les secondes” who are in their first year of High School. I will have small groups of students 1x per week for a month. Then I get all new students. The English teachers want me to basically create chapter ideas with a final project for the students to present to them at the end of the month. The students in each group can choose what they would like to learn. I have a couple ideas and I am hoping that the students this first session will have ideas of what they want to learn as well. Obviously my first class with each group will be an introduction class, so I can’t get too elaborate with my “chapters”… no time for the beloved syllabus day!

At the same time, this blog post is to shamelessly ask your opinions- What do these French kiddos absolutely need to know about America? English Language?  Email me if you want to hear about what I’ve got so far…

No matter what topic/chapter the students choose to do, I would also like to give them some common language/slang vocabulary… but it has to be appropriate for 15 year olds. Some kind of “word of the week”. Any suggestions for that vocabulary list?

I will also have a group of 6 teachers from school 1x a week so they can practice their English... a little intimidating!

When the semester changes we are going to try and make a yearbook- which is something they don’t do here. That will be an interesting challenge of course and in no way can it be as elaborate as ours in the states, but I think it could be a great way to really make normal American high school life something personal and easy for them to understand.

I’m kind of working from scratch here, as I’ve never really done my own teaching and I don't have a course book to follow. Suggestions are welcome… I am very excited to have my schedule, really hammer out some plans, and get going!