HOLIDAYYYY!!!

The French deem in necessary to give the kiddies 2 weeks holiday because it's Halloween, so I'm not going to complain! I'm off home tomorrow so i'll be back on here upon my return! :)

My first experience of French healthcare!

After feeling ill most of the weekend, Monday was certainly interesting.... I dragged myself into work for 4 hours on Monday morning (mainly because taking a day off means far too much paperwork!), meaning I got on a bus at 6.55am and was already halfway through a lesson before I saw the sun coming up! I battled on through until midi, then collapsed onto the bus home. It was decided that I needed to go to the doctors surgery. The nearest doctor is in the next town down the coast, Chatelaillon-Plage... and this is what got me - every afternoon, it's like British A&E, a total free-for-all, turn up when you feel like it and wait in line for see the doctor without-an-appointment sort of thing! So we got there, there were about 8 old people sat around waiting, who all jumped up when the doctor came out to see the next person in the queue. What did amuse me was that one man tried to convince the man sat next to him, who was in front of him turn-wise, that his illness was worse than his and that 'would he be so kind as to let him go first as it's really quite urgent'.... oh the French do make me laugh, even trying to cut corners in the doctors!

We arrived at about 4pm and waited, whilst watching terrible "surgery TV", until 7pm to see a bloody doctor. In addition to this, there was no receptionist, just benches to sit on and 2 doors that led to examination rooms. The doctor was lovely and helped me fill out all my documents (as I don't have my Carte Vitale yet, the obligatory card to show for social security reimboursements - it gets delivered to you around 3 months after first signing up to the Sécu, ridiculous! So I have paper documents in the mean time) and gave me a prescription. The only problem being that pharmacies in France close at 7pm, some at 7.30pm if you're lucky - so my French dad came to pick me up, and drove me to Salles-sur-Mer, about 10km away, to the nearest late night pharmacy! Then, at the pharmacy, they were shocked and stupified when I said I didn't have my Carte Vitale... so it took about 20 minutes to find all the stuff, input codes into the system etc etc etc....

But all in all, it was a very thorough (albeit long and painful) process... I had to pay 22 EUROS to see the doctor but that will be fully reimboursed thanks to the Sécu and my top-up mutuelle insurance. But now I know what Hélene meant in the briefing talks of "writing the thing in the thing and the putting the thing in the thing, then posting the things to the thing and waiting for the people to sign the thing and then getting the thing back"....

I'm now taking the medication like a good girl and am feeling a lot better. We were due to go to the 2nd Induction day in Poitiers yesterday, but conveniently the SNCF decided to strike! There were suitable replacement buses and a few trains still running, but we decided to adopt the French attitude and declare that "c'est pas la peine!"... I've got school tomorrow, then Friday off - Surgeres has a big sports day, hence no lessons - so instead i'm going to meet up with my first French exchange partner who lives close to La Rochelle; it'll be nearly 7 years since we saw each other, she's now married and has a baby! Strange, huh? Then a weekend of not doing a lot and then home time.... I love being a teacher sometimes!

Bloody Scottish...!

I'll explain the title of this post in due course :)

So, just a small update about this week. I went to my La Rochelle school for the first time this week - it's amazing! It's so modern, pretty much all brand new, with a brand new gym, pool, playing fields and everything! I met 3 classes, a 5e and 2 6e classes, one of which had learning difficulties, so we spent the entire hour covering how to say "Hello, I'm [insert name here]. How are you?"... "I'm fine thankyou", and some of the accents were pretty much incomprehensible!


Everyone was lovely, until I went to the staff room at break time and met one of the other English teachers, one who I wouldn't be working with. "Hi, I'm *******, pleased to meet you, if you hadn't guessed, I'm not English, I'm Scots. Nope, not Scottish as most people think - it's only the uneducated fake bastards who call themselves Scottish and not Scots as we truly are..." This put my back up instantly.

He then proceeded to talk to me about my placement, and his side of the conversation went along these lines: "You're placed in THOSE 3 schools? God, I have a car and I wouldn't want to be travelling out to those shit-holes. This is gonna be a tough year for you kid, no joke. The last assistant nearly got kicked out by December for being useless, so watch your back if you want to stay here. *sighs* God, I wouldn't like to be in your situation. Good luck kid, you're going to need it..."

I did NOT need this sort of doubt about my role first thing on a Monday morning! Contrary to his (rubbish) opinions, I am currently coping very well with my transport situations, I like all my schools and am actually passionate about what I'm going to be doing, unlike your last assistant. I wanted to get up onto a chair and declare to everyone that I am here to break their preconceptions about the last assistant and be an invaluable resource for the kids and the teachers. Everyone else has been so helpful, then along comes one teacher I'm not even going to be helping to tell me that he already has ideas about language assistants and how difficult I'm going to find it. I'm perfectly aware that a lot of this year is going to be hard but I've accepted that and will deal with the problems when they arise!

Sorry about that. Other than that, this week has been alright, apart from falling ill on Thursday, and choosing to go into work and show willing rather than fill out ALL the paperwork in order to take sick leave... But i'm resting this weekend in order to get better for a packed pre-Toussaint holidays week! On another positive note, I have finally decided what to do for my Special Study and will begin research after the holidays :)

I'm not going to lie... things can get difficult.

Ahhhh, home! On your Year Abroad, of course you're going to get homesick and miss people - hell, I'd give anything to be back in Bath with my boyfriend and my friends, or back home with my family having a Sunday lunch and going for walks... Oh god, now I'm going to get upset! It is hard, but for me, being in France with a French family but also an English-language housemate is a lot easier than it was when I was in Barcelona this summer all by myself. Also, with the wonders of Skype, MSN and webcams, I can arrange to talk to my family and friends really easily and I know it's only usually a maximum of 6 weeks until I go home again!
But (what a rebel, starting a sentence with 'but') this blog is not about my whinging or pining for home, this is about the difficulties I've ALREADY encountered with teaching (things that are prevalent across Europe I'm sure), and more importantly, les professeurs.

1. Some teachers don't teach in English. This is incredibly frustrating, as I can compare between teachers who speak only in French and teachers that speak only in English. Two of my classes are taught mostly in French, mainly because the teacher's level of English isn't that good. These classes are pretty terrible at English and forget to put verbs in sentences (even the infinitive would suffice, it's correctable!) and worst of all, look at me blankly when I speak because they're not used to hearing English or my accent due to the teachers' lack of English. It's hard to remember that it's not the childrens fault that they're not great at English, as I often find myself getting frustrated if they don't know a simple tense or verb. On the other hand, most other teachers speak ONLY English (except a few difficult task instructions of course) and the difference is astounding - they can translate simple paragraphs at age 12, they don't read off sheets when they're asked questions and they speak in full sentences. All I want to do is know the reasons for not speaking English and encourage the teachers to do at least 50/50 class! Although I'm sure they complain about having 100% English-speaking classes, it seems to be paying off at a very young age... I'm looking forward to seeing the progress in both camps.
   
2. Some teachers don't correct mistakes. They simply bark "The difference between singular and plural - you don't understand it." at 12 year olds who need at least some sort of prompt as to where exactly they're going wrong, not just a vague topic. Even if the teacher tells them a grammar book chapter to read up on, or tells them that they'll review it quickly at the end. I feel like interjecting and telling them what's up and explaining it in a simple fashion, but it's not advised to go against teachers and their methods...
   
3. Two of my teachers are incredibly archaic in their teaching stances. They never give praise, even if it is simply "well done". In one class, I sit at the back and am used like a tape; if there is an article to read, she asks me to read it, and I duly oblige. The other teacher also sits me at the back, asks me to mark some vocabulary tests whilst she conducts speaking exams - essentially one pupil doing their speaking exam in front of the ENTIRE class of 25. I remember being 12 or 13 and not wanting to appear better or more hardworking than anyone else, and also despising speaking out loud in front of people, so at the pupils' age of 12-15, carrying out tests in this fashion is a terrible idea (but I simply CAN'T tell her that!) as the pupil is shy, the rest of the class misbehaves, making the entire class a waste of time for me, the teacher and of course the pupils. One teacher also tells the pupil what their mark was, in front of the class, provoking ridicule if it is too high or too low, subconsciously making the kids aim for mediocre marks!

Right, rant over. Hopefully once my 'observation period' is over, The children are brilliant and most of the teachers are inspiring, but I'll hopefully be able to inject some useful English into these classes... except after seeing some of the teaching methods, I think it's going to be a harder job than I first imagined...!

So, if this is the "arse-end of the earth"...

... Then I'd HATE to be in a really rough area of France!

I picked up my bank card today! I'm officially French now - I pay my Sécu, I recieve the CAF (well, i've sent my papers off), I have a bank account and I sneer at people who don't like coffee...
The abundance of vests and bum bags at school today really did amuse me, and I'm still getting used to being called "Madame" by pupils...

The worst bit of today:
In the canteen at lunchtime, I stacked my glass on another glass instead of putting it in the free space in the crate (I know, shock horror). The staff member then started shouting at the top of her voice, calling me "petite fille" in a derogatory way and "stupide" amongst other things, all because they thought I was a pupil, i.e. 15 years old. Then for a few hours later, a few teachers thought it'd be hilarious to tease me about it. Brilliant.

The best bit of today:
I ended up helping with a learning difficulties class this afternoon, helping them with their grammar. I read out part of the article we were working on and they sat there and gawped at me, not out of not understanding, but out of admiration - at the end, one boy piped up and said "Miss, one day I want to speak English as well as you"... This is what makes teaching worthwhile!

xx

The first few days of teaching...

I don’t feel like I’ve stopped since Thursday....

Let’s start with the dull academic stuff and then move on. In all fairness, neither of my days of teaching were dull at all! On Thursday I went to Courçon, which is a tiny tiny tiny rural high school in the middle of nowhere, a town that a lot of French people in this region refer to using a phrase not dissimilar to “the arse-end of the earth”... but i was pleasantly surprised! I was driven there by a teacher who lives in the same village as me; a PE teacher with a facial tick - it was a perturbing situation speeding down the motorway at 120 km an hour as he twitched and I flinched...

I arrived at 7.55am, only 5 minutes before the start of class - oh yes, in rural schools, classes start at 8am! I was taken to the staff room to meet my responsible, Elisabeth. I’m one of only 3 English teachers, and I find it fascinating that they can all vary so much from teaching just one subject. One is fantastic and the kids love her, one is mediocre and a bit soft on the kids discipline-wise, and one is old, rude, stuck in her ways and archaic in her teaching methods – needless to say, her 5e are awful at English, so they may be a bit more of a challenge for me.

(Just for reference, in France, the 'college' goes up to just before GCSE age, with classes being called 6e (year 7) and going up to 3e (year 10). They don’t do GCSEs but they do a small assessment upon going to the lycée, which is y11 and then 2 years of the Baccalaureate, the A-Level equivalent.)

First thing in the morning, I was helping in two classes of 5e, year 8s, one of which was top set and brilliant, and the other of which were bottom set and stereotypically badly-behaved, French chav-equivalent (lots of large silver chains and talk of Tupac) and generally rude. These were taught by the best of the 3 teachers, who commanded a lot of respect from both classes (although i feel that the bottom set would fail to be controlled by even the very strict headmistress who ironically looks sheepish and tiny like Anna Wintour, with the same hair and trousers suits, but can shout like a foghorn) The next class were year 9s and taught by the not-so-great teacher, so the class was a bit lacklustre; then my next class were also year 9 but taught by the useless teacher. I think she is just so stuck in her ways, and I think, after doing some amateur psychology, that she feels demeaned and almost threatened by having me in the class, as her English isn’t terribly good. She used me to read paragraphs out and not a lot else. In all of these 4 hours of teaching here, I was used to interact with the classes as at the moment they are learning about personalities and how to describe yourself, so they were asking me questions; then I was allowed free reign of teaching and so fired some questions back at them, introducing some new vocabulary too. The questions of “Do you play a musical instrument?” got quite tedious after a while but it was only my first day and i am only meant to be observing at the moment. I spend 2 hours that afternoon recording numbers, texts and poems for the kids to listen to and use for years to come in their listening exams... so sitting in the staff room with a ‘casque’ on, a sort of skype headset with microphones and earphones and portable recording equipment, was highly embarrassing, as at times the staff room was packed and some teachers laughed at me... but it was even funnier when the English teachers came back from classes and played back some of their year 8 speaking exams; one of the best sentences being “I play often the vélo”, which none of us could work out what it meant. I just hope that that never happened when i was in school... mortifying!

On Friday i went to Surgères. I had a bit of a downer on this place, even being my principal college, as when I went there last Tuesday, they didn’t seem to even know I existed. But I put on a brave face and went in to start. I had to get another lift from another teacher, except this one is a real Frenchie, for those of you that have seen Les Choristes, he looks like Clement Matieu but a little rounder! I started my day with 2 hours of classes with Nathalie, a FANTASTIC teacher. I will be teaching only 2 classes, but twice a day, in this school, and both are “Euro” option classes, meaning they are the brightest students in their year and were given the option to move classes and study politics and European history from the age of 12, and have 4 extra hours of English and 2 more of French per week, so they are super intelligent! Nathalie and I teach the Euro 4e, year 8s, and she is so fun and makes the lessons hilarious, but she takes her lessons all in English, which would NEVER happen the other way around in England (making me lament our terrible comprehensive school language teaching in comparison). The class was so happy to see me, reeling off perfectly-formed English questions about where I live, the English school system, English food, asking why I am here in France etc... I was stunned by their level of English and their behaviour! Year 8s in England would sit there and sulk, muttering that they didn’t want to be there and would refuse to speak French... very sad really.

I then had lunch in the canteen, getting funny looks from all of the pupils (in all fairness, I look younger than a lot of them and I'm by far the shortest ‘teacher’ in any of my schools!), then started lessons with Laurent – Laurent is amazing, very young, speaks English with a cockney accent (!) and he teaches the 3e Euro option, and once again teaches totally in English, doing subjects we’d never think of studying in our own language, let alone another one! I helped do a mainly speaking-orientated lesson first of all, getting them to ask questions about my life at uni, my friends etc, as they were studying ‘being a teenager’, and wanted to know if i went to parties, if i drank, if i had a boyfriend, all really quite hilarious stuff when i thought about it! In the second class, they study a different country every week, concentrating on the politics and culture and differences to France - this week was Ireland, so I told them about the Potato Famine and St. Patrick's Day, despite not being Irish! Aafter worrying so much about being in this school due to their lack of organisation, I felt like i was welcomed so wonderfully into such intelligent classes and fantastic teachers!

Saturday, we went for a long bike ride to the shops then to Chatelaillon-Plage, took some photos and felt sorry for the poor sods who thought it was a good idea to go in the sea on such a blowy day! Sunday, we were woken up very early to go to a market in La Pallice, which was interesting, but nothing special, and then dragged to a car-boot sale in the early afternoon... oh, such is the life in a tiny village! It is nice to see 'real family life' in France and not just avoid the local culture. Sunday evening Caroline and I took the train to Poitiers, as we had a Stage d’Accueil on the Monday at the Poitiers Rectorat and we were going to stay at Steve’s apartment, a friend from uni who is also doing a British Council Assistantship in Loudun, just north of Poitiers. We arrived, then decided to go out for dinner – whilst at the restaurant we ran into 2 other assistants, Brian and Natasha, who were staying in a hotel for the weekend and also due to go to the Stage the next day, so we ate with them, went back to their hotels for a few drinks and then eventually made it back to Steve’s. The Stage itself was insanely dull, full of seminars and talks about stuff Caroline and I had already done, like opening bank accounts, getting la Sécu and applying for the CAF (up to 70% of your rent reimbursed by the government, just for being a student!) We got taken to the Rectorat office place where we had out official welcome with a small buffet of lots of wine and homemade biscuits and cakes! We went out later on to celebrate Caroline’s birthday, had a huge meal (complete with smuggled vodka) and met up with more assistants for drinks etc....

It’s Tuesday afternoon, we’ve just got home and it’s lovely, so we’re planning on taking the bikes out to do a bit of shopping then maybe go to the beach... it’s a hard life! Plus we have a day off tomorrow, no school on Wednesdays... even better!

A plus x