Des petites choses

After much anticipation, some of the assistants and I had a real Friday night out in Tours (a larger more student populated town about a 30 minute train ride away).  We took the 8:00pm train and took the earliest train back at 5:30am.  It was a long night but French bars stay open until 4ish and most discotheques will stay open until 6 in the morning.  We got back to Blois at 6:15ish and it was pouring!  I didn’t have an umbrella so I just ran home with my jacket over my head (well, actually thanks to that, I did finally get in my first run here which I’ve been wanting to do).  Despite the downpour and disoriented Saturday that followed, it was a great time.

In other news, France has been striking about retirement and pension age all this month.  Big strikes have happened on the past two Tuesdays and inadvertently have affected so many people.  At Buhler, the cafeteria workers were on strike so the students weren’t provided lunch that day.  The choice was to either bring your own or be picked up to eat at home.  All I could think about was how that wouldn’t work in the states, though it was a scheduled and announced change.  Some students in the states are not provided with consistent meals at home and the security of schools being able to provide that for children through government funded programs is so important.  Free and reduced lunch does not exist here.

On Friday after I was done teaching, I was talking with some other teachers watching the children play at recess when I realized that there was no play structure at this school or any other French school I’ve been to.  For recess, they just run around a blacktop that has trees on it.  They play in leaves, with marbles, or maybe soccer if there happens to be a ball outside.  I don’t know if this is better than America or just underprivileged.  These students don’t seem to need any other stimulant besides the freedom to run around with their friends.  They don’t need extra things like swings, slides, monkey bars, or wall balls.  Has America made our students over-stimulated to the point where they aren’t as affected by interactive lessons or quick paced games?  (This links to my later paragraph on teaching observations in France.)  Well, perhaps this just goes along with the whole theory of children being treated as adults from an earlier age.  They don’t get to live as a “kid” as long as we do.  Perhaps, hence the reason every middle school girl already looks like a high school senior with the poise and sex appeal to boot.

As you can tell, I have resumed my cultural observations but I always wonder how much of anything is dependent on little variables.  For instance, where does personality bleed into culture?  How much of you can be attributed to cultural norms or just your personality?  If you know me well, you know that I love personality theory and discovering why people turn out the way they do.  It’s so interesting to me to break down that aspect in addition to how a culture or country is made up as well.  If you’ve taken the Meyers-Briggs test, you’ll know that you fit into one (or two if you can’t decide) of sixteen different “types”.  Can different cultures cultivate specific types just based on their way of life?  For instance, would America have more ISTJs than France?

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Teaching Observations

So, teaching has been going ok but as of now, I’m not really in love with my job here.  There have been a few things that have been a lot more difficult than I anticipated.  In some ways, I feel like everything that I’ve been taught about teaching in the past four years does not apply here.  Behavior management is a very loose term here and teachers find it fine when students talk when they are speaking.  This is crazy to me and trying to change that is a totally foreign concept (yes, possibly a pun).

So in addition to this talking thing, I also have two other issues: the amount of French required and the “just get in there and teach ‘em!” philosophy that the French Ministry of Education has. 

1. I’m totally fine using enough French to have the students understand directions, etc. but the hardest thing for me is discipline and warnings.  It’s been much harder for me to speak firmly to a child because instead of thinking about what I want to have happen, I’m stressing out about making sure what I’m saying makes sense in French.  The last thing you want when you’re saying something stern is to make a huge mistake in French and have all the seriousness that you were creating go out the window by the laughter of French children. 

2. I just need to remember that this is a seven month rapport that I’m creating with all of my students and it’s not going to appear out of nowhere.  Unlike when I student taught, I’m alone right away with half groups of the classes.  There’s no trial period when I observe or teach some lessons with the regular teacher in the room.  As a result, the kids are super excited (read: out of control/hyper) about something new, different people in their group, and yet skeptical about who I am/what kind of teacher I am/if I can understand them at all.

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One thing that I can just not comprehend is their need to do everything perfectly in their notebooks.  Those damn cahiers… When we’re writing vocab or something in their notebooks, they’ll ask me where to write the date, underline it?, how many lines in between each sentence?, etc.  Today, I mistakenly said that they could draw a small picture of a cat OR write un chat next to our vocabulary to remind them what the word “cat” means.  The OR in that sentence sent them off the deep end!!  One student asked in a flustered way “but Maitresse, which one is better?  Which one would you prefer?”  Oy vey, I was well fed up at this point with this class so I tried to calmly explain to them that this notebook is for them to understand, not me.  They need to write it so they can understand it and it’s clear. 

I’ve never seen such fear about doing something wrong.  They’ll talk while I’m giving directions without batting an eye but when it comes to messing with the formalities of the notebook, all hell breaks loose!  I had a discussion with Harry today about how French children are told what to do from day one.  There isn’t a lot of creativity here.  They learn to absorb information, recall it, and then duplicate it.  There is no ‘analyze’ or ‘create’ in their Bloom’s taxonomy.  Harry said that he tried to get his high school students to act some things out but they were just so self-conscious, without any ideas about how to create something on their own.  I think a lot of this comes from the French way of thought.  I mean, coloring books for French children consist of already colored pages on one page and blank outlines on the other for the child to copy e.x.a.c.t.l.y. the same image.  Not exactly conducive to creative thought.

When I applied for this program, I knew that they wanted foreign teachers to liven up the practices here in France.  In the states, we do so many interactive games getting children involved and out of their desks.  I want to bring so much of that here as long as the children are willing. 

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After discussing with another teacher at school, I realized that the students are behaving this way with every teacher because vacation starts this Friday the 22nd.  They are burnt out and should be better students after Toussaint.  On verra.  We’ll see!

Speaking of Toussaint vacation, I’ll be leaving this Friday to my first stop - London!  I’m very excited and for the first time in this post, I have something in common with the Frenchies :)

Bisous!
Em

Mais Pourquoi?

I have officially taught for two days now and so far it has been really fun!  My first class had already had some English from the year before so it was interesting to see what they knew.  We played Simon Says with simple things like ‘stand up’ ‘sit down’ ‘turn around’ ‘clap’ and ‘jump’ which they just freaked out about.  They could play that game for a half hour straight if I let them.

For the classes where they haven’t had any English yet besides what they have learned outside of school, I spoke a lot of French with them.  The job itself requires more French than I anticipated but I’ve loved getting that back.  I’m supposed to be speaking mostly in English with them but there will come a point where they will just have NO idea what you’re saying and zone out.  I did that sometimes when I was learning French so I’m trying to remember what worked for me when learning a second language.

Yesterday I went to my other school across the bridge and had a lot of fun teaching the older kids.  I spoke mostly in English with them and to ensure that they weren’t zoning out, I had someone who did understand directions explain back to me in French.  Many students told me that English is their favorite subject and were disappointed to hear that I wouldn’t be there everyday for their English lessons.

In one class, we were reviewing animals since they said that they had learned them last year.  After hearing dog, cat, horse, etc, one child said “bee-hr” which caught me off-guard.  I didn’t know if he was just saying another English word he knew “beer” or…?  Mind you these are 8-9 year old children.. Then I got it, he was saying the animal “bear”!  Their accent makes it so hard to understand!  In addition to their own accent, they are pronouncing things with a British accent so it’s just a little bizarre for me to listen to.

In my last class, I got to teach a small group of six 6-year-old children for about 20 minutes.  My lesson consisted of saying hello & goodbye, yes & no, and counting from 0-6 which they all just absorbed so quickly!  I’ve never seen anything like it.

In that same small class, one little girl named Océane asked me something with the seriousness of asking the question of “why isn’t there world peace?”  What she asked was so simple and yet so hard to explain: « Emilie, mais pourquoi est-ce que vous parlez anglais, et moi, je parle français? » / “Emily, but why do you speak English and I speak French ? ”

One boy tried to explain that I come from America and we speak English there.  She understood that but wanted to know why it had come to be like that.  Smart little girl (with a very cool name, might I add).

In other news, my vacation is all booked!  I’ll be in London visiting Katrina for the first part, seeing other friends in the UK for the middle, and then seeing Hannah in Brussels for the last weekend (Halloween included).  I’ll be back to enjoy three more days off of work before teaching again.

The national strike about retirement has been all over everywhere.  I was walking home across the bridge yesterday from teaching (where half of the teachers at this school were striking and didn’t teach that day) and it was blocked off!  I ended up just joining the parade of strikers that went through the whole downtown area until I got to the street I wanted to turn off on.  It was a very surreal French experience.  I really hope that the strikes don’t mess with my travel plans!  Public transportation gets involved with the strikes which is very effective but sucks when you’re caught in the middle of it!

Well, I’m going to walk into town to enjoy my day off!  In my region, elementary schools don’t have school on Wednesdays and neither do I. :)

Bisous!

"She can" vs "Chicken"

All of this week has been training/orientation specifically for the primary school assistants (and that makes three of us here in Blois).  A lot of it seemed common sense for teaching stuff but it was nice to hear some ideas for games and activities.  One girl was there from a neighboring town that had the same position last year.  She was extremely helpful with tips and tricks that worked for her last year.

We got to observe an English lesson in a French classroom and visit our schools.  I am teaching at two separate schools that are on opposite sides of the city.  Parodi is in the north area of the city and I have to take a bus to get there.  There I will be doing the equivalent of 2^nd and 3^rd grades.  My other school, Marcel Bühler, is across the river about ten minutes walking from my house.  It’s a really nice school in a cute area of town people call Blois-Vienne.  There I will be teaching 4^th and 5^th grades with a weekly session with the babies (1^st graders).  It should be fun!

On Friday, I went and spent a half day at school with my landlady, Valérie.  She teaches English at a middle school twenty minutes away.  She was very sweet about wanting me to come.  I spoke to three classes (two 6^th grades and one 9^th grade class) and it was really fun.  When I walked through the cafeteria with Valérie, I felt famous.  I could hear them saying “C’est la fille américaine!!!” and staring as I had come to find out that Valérie had told all of her classes that I was coming.  Word spread and I was greeted with many hellos and good afternoons.

In the 9^th grade class, I was supposed to stay in English the whole period.  They could keep up pretty well and understand my responses to the questions.  I got asked about my senior prom, fraternities/sororities, American football, and general stuff about me.  It was interesting hearing Valérie correct their pronunciation so I could better understand them.  It’s very funny to hear how there is little different between “she can” and “chicken”!  They say “shiii-cahn” for both.

When there was about five minutes left Valérie told me that I could speak French so they could ask other questions, etc.  One girl told me after class that she liked the way I speak French!  She said with my accent, it was very cute. haha

Friday night, I was invited to Valérie’s birthday party with was at the house.  I hung out with 8 French women in their fourties for about four hours.  It was so tiring to keep up with all of their (sometimes scandalous) topics.  Mostly, they talked about kids, their weights, young people (with subtle glances toward me), and neighborhood gossip.  The champagne soaked evening was really fun even though I mostly listened. 

Saturday was a lazy day where I got ready and moseyed into town to buy things at the market.   It was in the 70’s and I had one of those moments where you get torn between seasons.  For how much I want to buy pumpkins and watch the leaves turn, I couldn’t help but want one more day of Oregon summer.

I ended up getting swept away by Valérie to pick up Camille and go to a chocolate festival that was a couple towns away.  There were tons of samples and it was nice to see more of the area.  For dinner, the family was going to her boyfriend’s place where another birthday party was happening.  I was staying home from this one so I was left with the place to myself.  I got to play some piano and watch French tv until it was time to meet up with people at the bars.  I had my first kebab in almost two years and it was amazing.  We ended up going to three-ish bars with a lot of assistants and it was nice to have a big group out.

So, my first lesson is tomorrow morning!  I need to make a more final draft of what I want to do on the first day.  I hope it all goes well!

Bisous,

Em

Finalement

So, I finally have internet in my room here in Blois and so I've been able to publish what I've been writing sans internet since I've been here.  I hope to stay current with what I'm doing, how I'm feeling, and teaching anecdotes straight from the mouths of French children.

If you have time to email, skype, or real mail it's always nice to hear from people.
My address is 67 Rue du Foix, 41000, BLOIS, FRANCE.
Skype is ekalten.
Email is emily.a.kaltenbach@gmail.com

Bisous!

Sept mois

03.10.10

Again, I really feel like this is where I’m meant to be this year.  Even though I know there will be tough times, I will grow.  Eating my crêpe today (finally) or brioche in the kitchen looking out onto the city, it has hit me that I will be living une vraie vie française for seven months.  There’s something very different about this experience because I’m so different than I was two years ago when I went abroad. 

Yesterday, I officially met the Spanish and German assistants in Blois.  Today I met the Arabic assistant who is so nice!  He’ll be living with Harry, the Brit, so that will be nice as they want to host stuff for us assistants at their place.

Last night was really fun at the bars.  Raul, the German assistant, and I talked for a while in English making fun of each other’s culture.  He does such a great German accent, hamming up the command aspect of how their language sounds.  So far, the Blois group has shaped up nicely into something that I like to be around.  I think that people want to go to Tours next Saturday to sortir and hang around the city.  Raul drove here from Germany so he has his car which could be nice to have access to.

I realized today that I need to start thinking about les vacances!  If I want to go to the UK, I need to buy my ticket.  If it’s not too expensive, I want to fly from Tours to London.  I think that would be the easiest.  It’s hard to believe that we get a break from school so soon!  It’s only three weeks until vacation and we won’t even be teaching for that amount of time.  Only two weeks worth of English lessons before vacation!

Les assistants

01.10.10

Today we spent most the day in Orléans having orientation for all of the language assistants (not just English speakers) in our region of Orléans-Tours.

Surprise!  There are other English speakers here too!  I met some assistants from the UK and Canada.  There are 6 other American English assistants in Blois (all girls!) in addition to one British guy, one guy from Jordan (Arabic assistant), one Spanish assistant girl from Venezuela, and one guy German assistant.  There might be more but that’s everyone that we know of.

Anyway, the orientation was nice to meet people but wasn’t that helpful in the teaching or foreign sense.  They only talked about the OFII form and CAF form which have officially stressed me out (basically, the epitome of French bureaucracy directed at non-EU citizens).  There is so much to do when you set up a life here.  Bank account, insurance, housing help, immigration laws, visa approval, etc..

Next week, we start our real training for how to teach English aux enfants.

After the orientation, I went out to a couple bars with some other assistants.  Walking around town tonight showed more of this sleepy city.  It was not even ten o’clock and I only passed one person on the way into town.  Maura, Sharae, Harry, and I made it to one bar called “Le singe vert” (the green monkey) which was very dead but had great deals on drinks!  We all got a huge pitcher sized cocktail EACH for 8 Euro.  It wasn’t the best drink but it was hilarious because we didn’t know that the drinks were that big!  I mean, we’re in France – nothing here is that big!

Then we went another bar called the Velvet Jazz Lounge which had a cool cave feel.  It was nice talking to the other assistants.  I asked them if there are any late night crêpe places or anything like that because Aix had Paul!  Paul was a great crêpe maker who sold crêpes from about 10pm to midnight almost every night on the Cours Mirabeau.  Anyway, Blois has nothing like that here.  The city is asleep on a Friday night, long before midnight.  From now on, I may just have to have my Nutella chez moi.

Have yet to have my first French crêpe in Blois..

Mon ami, le français

30.09.10

Today I experienced more of Blois and after a little bit of frustration, it turned out great.

So, my program told me that I was supposed to go to one of the main French banks to open an account prior to our orientation (Friday).  Since I was still getting over my jetlag yesterday and did things (groceries!) with the family, I waited until today to do the bank and cell phone stuff.

The phone was easy to get and the phone guy was very nice and interested in the US.  He helped me call the activation line to get my phone number since I was sure I was going to misunderstand what my own telephone number was to be!  Pas de problèmes.

After that, I walked more around the city and was amazed that even though this is considered a small town, it’s pretty active!  Its biggest street is not nearly as busy as Aix’s Cours Mirabeau but there were still more people out than I’d thought there would be. 

So, the bank story.  I went to the bank my landlady told me about, Société Générale.  The woman there was very nice but told me I needed a few more documents to get an account with them and that it wasn’t going to happen today.

Next bank.  Waited in line for twenty minutes to find out from a cold Frenchwoman that they can’t give me a bank account because I’ll only be there for seven months and there are “too many” documents required for foreigners.  She spoke to me like I was stupid and didn’t give any recommendations or apologies.  Instantly, I remember that this is France and customer service does not exist.  And also, how easily a French person can cut you down.  I was feeling great about my French and my experience in Blois in general until that lady.

After a huffy walk around the block, I decided to try once more since I just love to have the whole bank hear my accent américain and then get nothing in return.  At the third bank, my French fairy godmother must have done something because I am now the proud owner of a French bank account!!

The man who helped me was excited to speak some English and help me out.  He was very disappointed when I told him that the other banks had turned me down and not in the nicest way.  He hoped that it wouldn’t taint my opinion of Blois!  In perspective of the day and since I’ve been here, it hasn’t tainted my view.  I’ve had great experiences with Valérie (my landlady), her boyfriend, his 18-year old daughter, Valérie’s three children, the guys who helped me get my luggage off the train, the cell phone man, the third bank, the florist, and even the family’s kitten (though who isn’t far off from my host family’s cat, Cookie, who was a bit crazy).  So far, it all has been really nice. 

This just reminds me that no matter where you go, there will always be not so great experiences but certain ones get amplified sometimes when you’re away from home or not speaking your native language. 

As I left the bank, I started thinking things to myself and after a while I stopped and realized that I was thinking in French.  Ah, it’s such a good feeling to get it back.  Mon ami le français, tu es revenu.

Jetlag

29.9.10

Well, today I tried to get rid of my jet lag and got out of bed at 11:00am after getting up at 4:30 for a random unpacking morning before taking a morning nap.  My body is trying to process these new foods and I’m trying to let my brain think in French.  It’s been difficult and frustrating in the way that I used to be so much better at French!  But there are some things that have definitely come easier. 

It’s weird doing and remembering all at once the little things that I learned last time like bread going on the table during meals, both hands on the table (French manners are opposite to Americans on this one), and bisous.  I have forgotten so much!  Articles, vocab, and overall accent.  Sometimes I can just hear how American I sound and I am just cringing but I just need to get back in the rhythm again.

Tomorrow, I’m going to the bank, the cell phone place, and Orange to discuss internet issues.  I really hope that I understand everything and that I get what I need.

Also, they are all super busy!  Antoine has judo and tennis every week.  Camille and Louise both have music and tennis lessons on Wednesdays.  There’s a piano in the house!!  Valerie said I’m welcome to play it whenever but it’s a little out of tune.  I played a bit before dinner today and it was nice to have that comfort.

Bienvenue

28.09.10

It was such a long journey today.  My smaller bag decided to bend its bottom wire so I had a similar issue going on from last summer in NY (if any of you know that story).  Charles de Gaulle was a little nuts and hard to tell where the RER (railroad) was supposed to be.  Eventually, I figured it out and hauled around my two bulky bags (about 80 extra pounds extra weight), messenger bag, and purse.  I was working up a sweat and cursing to myself as I tried to carry these bags simultaneously down and up series of steps.  Several people in Paris stopped to help me which was very nice.  On the train to my town, I asked an older man in my car/cabin what stop the conductor just said and then he proceeded to help me with my bags on the way out.  It was hard to stop grinning from inside the train windows when I saw all of Blois pass by as it was stopping by the station.  This is my city now.

I saw the Sacre Coeur from the RER for 5 seconds as we passed through a space in the buildings.  That’s when it set in that this was Paris, about to be Blois.

Then, when I was walking away from the train station, a high school age guy came up and asked if I needed help.  He didn’t know much English but he lived on the same street as me so he walked me (and my broken bags) to my place.  He and his friend both seemed very humored by the fact that a franglais-bumbling jetlagged American girl was around them, still dazed by travel and France in general.

I borrowed one of their phones and called my landlady’s house.  Valerie wasn’t home due to her boyfriend’s recent appendicitis surgery so I was let in by their housekeeper, Jessica.  I came in and met Camille (12) and Antoine (9), Valerie’s kids.  Louise (7), her youngest wasn’t home yet.  Both Jessica and Camille spoke to me for a while, all in French.  Talk about jump starting back into French mode.

Sososo tired.  More to come later.

Bonne nuit!