Monday I tried to use a lesson I adapted from the one Sylvie taught us during our stage last Friday. It involved teaching the vocabulary for Christmas decorations, along with some basic prepositions to describe their location on the Christmas tree. When planning a lesson, we're supposed to focus on the linguistic tool / language element first, and then add in vocab later. For example, rather than starting with: "Today I'll teach them the vocab associated with food," we're supposed to start with "Today, I'll teach them how to express likes/dislikes, in the context of which food they like or don't like." The current politique (French term for the political mood or the emphasis being encouraged by whoever is in charge) for teaching foreign languages in France is very much rooted in oral production and oral comprehension of language. It's only with the 4th and 5th graders that I am supposed to require them to write, and I'm even not supposed to write myself with the 1st graders. The reason for this is if students don't have a firm understanding of the pronunciation of the word before they see it written, they just pronounce it as if it was written in French, which is often hugely incorrect.
I think this insistence on oral comprehension first is a smart one, because the few times I've accidentally written the words first, the students take much longer to learn the correct pronunciation (or don't seem to retain it at all).
So, the lesson turned out to be a lot harder to reproduce than I expected. My classes on Monday struggled, and I did some serious regrouping in my lesson plan on Monday night. My first class on Tuesday morning, Veronique's CM1s (4th graders) are always the toughest class. Their biggest problem is that they just don't pay attention, so they're constantly asking me questions about what we're doing, or wasting time by giving the answer to another question because they didn't realize we had moved on, or ignoring me entirely and talking with the other students around them. Apparently they and the other class of CM1s were real terrors last year, so the teachers tried to rearrange the composition of the classes this year, but to no avail. Anyway, Veronique had to step out for a second, because one of the kids got sick, and chaos ensued. Most of my other classes are just rowdy or refuse to pay attention, but there are a couple of kids in this class are downright rude. I got really stern and wrote some of their names on the board, but they didn't really settle down until Veronique came back. Still, we weren't getting much done. Then when the girl's mother arrived to pick her up, Veronique had to leave again and things got really bad. Y----, who sits way in the back, started making fun of my French and saying things like "How can we take you seriously when you can't even say the most basic thing!"
I stopped everything and started chewing them out in English, then in French. Veronique came back soon and she was really upset when she saw how bad they had been (my lecture ended with something like "You're right, my French isn't perfect, I often make mistakes. But you know what? I can always improve my French, and someday, I might be able to speak without making mistakes. But if you don't change your attitude and start showing respect, you're going to have big problems. And unlike my language mistakes, these problems will be the kind you won't be able to fix.") Afterward, when I was sitting in the teachers' lounge, two girls came down and apologized on behalf of their class (they hadn't done anything wrong, they're two of the well-behaved ones). They had made me cute little origami snowflakes too. Then Veronique came down with the 4 boys who had been most naughty and made them each apologize individually. And during the lunch break she brought me back a pastry! So, it turned out okay. It was pretty frustrating at the time though.
Then in the afternoon, I had three more classes, and they were also disasters. This time it wasn't the kids' fault. On Monday I realized the kids needed some kind of sheet with the prepositions vocab as a point of reference, so I found one online, modified it slightly, and printed it off for each of them. Unfortunately, I didn't realize at the time that there is more than one kind of preposition. The prepositions I had prepared to teach them were most relevant for describing three-dimensional relationships ("in," "above," "below," "next to," "behind"), whereas the activity I had planned involved describing a two-dimensional Christmas tree ("at the top," "on the bottom," "on the left"). By the time I realized it was too late, and when we moved onto the activity, the students kept trying to refer to the sheet to answer the questions, which didn't help them and only confused them. Yikes!
Luckily, after two full days of getting it wrong, I was in a much better position to get it right on Thursday. Those classes went well, but the Friday morning classes were even better (including Veronique's class, who was the best-behaved they have ever been). Normally on Friday I leave after finishing my third class (at 11:15am), but this week I stayed because the teachers were having a potluck Christmas lunch. I brought an apple crumble (crumble is quintessentially British in my mind, but it's actually a popular dessert here). I was a bit nervous when I pulled it out of the oven on Thursday night, because it was not nearly as visually appealing as the crumbles and crisps my mom makes all of the time at home. I was nervous enough not to take a picture for you, let's put it that way. But it actually turned out really well (I tasted it, because I wasn't sure if the other teachers were complimenting me just to be nice)! We had sooo much food -- there were about 15 teachers there, and everyone brought enough food for a party twice that size. There were a few gateaux (cakes) we didn't even slice...
Then in the afternoon I stayed on to help chaperone a class to the movie at 2:30pm. The whole school went to go see Une Vie de Chat, an animated film which was playing at an indie theater in the neighborhood (it was a one-room theater more similar to a museum theater than to a regular movie theater).
I don't think I've mentioned this, but it's been raining in Besançon practically non-stop for the last two weeks. You can see from the picture below how high the Doubs has risen... I took this picture Monday after school and today the path you see here was completely underwater. Also the parking lot on the far right (partially blocked by the minataur fountain) is now totally submerged.
Yesterday was the absolute pire (worst) -- winds which must have been 20-25 mph and there was driving rain that felt more like sleet. A huge tree was blown over right by the school, and a crew of men had to cut it up with chain saws to clear the road. When I walked out briefly during lunch time, I was genuinely afraid that some of the CP students (1st graders) might get blown away en route to the film. I was a chaperone for Sylvain's CE1 class (2nd graders). These 22 students were rowdy and very excited, and the 15-minute walk each way to the cinema felt much longer. Sylvain is pretty strict with them (requiring them to walk 2-by-2, stopping frequently when they fall out of line -- which happens incredibly quickly), and I think that helped ensure we got back with all 22 of them. The entire school went to see the film -- 12 classes of approximately 20 students each makes 240 kids. Plus one deluge of a storm makes 240 cold, wet kids: not a good scenario. I think they minded the rain and the cold less than the adults did though, and they certainly enjoyed the movie. It was also neat to see all of the students in one place, because it made me realize how many of them I know! I have 8 classes at Ecole Champagne, and even if I don't have all of the students, lots of the students I don't teach have a sibling who is in one of my classes, so they still say hello to me and bombard me with questions. It's amazing how cute they can be!
Speaking of cute, here are some pictures of the gifts / drawings / poems I have received from my students. So far the booty includes: a chestnut, a Sacagawea dollar (thought of you, Trey), two seashells, numerous paper bracelets and a silver ring. My name has been spelled Lauren (once), Lorraine, Loraine, Lorain, Laurene (most frequent, 3 times) and Laurenne -- in their defense there is a region of France called Lorraine which is pronounced very similarly to my name... but still, I think I'll clarify that when we get back.
Check out how "teacher" is spelled in this one... In my defense this was written by a 1st grader...
So this brings me to my last category: deported students. On Thursday during lunchtime I noticed that Magalie, the extra-sweet teacher at Champagne, was cutting out slips of paper and counting them off. I asked what she was doing, and she explained she was making little flyers to send home with each kid. This is what they looked like:
The basic message was to inform the other parents that these two girls, Larissa and Mirabella, and their parents, were detained on Thursday, December 15th (as in, they were sent to a detention facility to be deported) and that their current whereabouts are unknown. The title at the top: "Drôle de Noël" is a bit tough to translate. In this context, it means, a situation that is unpleasant and bordering on ironicly so. Think of that awful Alanis Morissette song, where she names all of those unfortunate situations which aren't really ironic, but just poorly-timed and therefore even more unfortunate. In this case, the fact that these two girls will be spending Christmas, a holiday we associate with family and home, in a detention center or even more likely, somewhere in Romania (their country of origin), rather than in France which had become their home. Apparently at least one family with kids enrolled at Champagne gets deported every year, but it is unusual for it to have happened already. In this case, the girls' family enrolled them in school after immigrating to France seeking asylum. Their request for asylum (political, I believe, but I'm not positive) was denied and so they are now considered to be living in France illegally. Magalie and some of the other teachers went to the Prefecture to protest their deportation during lunch on Thursday and after school on Friday.
I've never been exposed to the issue of immigration on such a personal level before, and it was a bit unsettling. One half of me is very cognizant of the reality that countries like the U.S. and France simply cannot accomodate every person who wishes to come. And I understand the unfairness of letting illegal immigrants stay while requiring those who follow the rules wait years and years before they are accepted. But it is pretty heart-wrenching to think of a family being deported at Christmas because their request for politically asylum was denied. I guess it's true that the risk of deportation was one the parents assumed when they immigrated before receiving permission. But it was a sobering conversation, no doubt. And yes, I had Mirabella in one of my classes.
So that's the wrap-up for my teaching in 2011. I've already got all kinds of big plans for la rentree (back to school) in January!
PS I found out on Friday that Y---- is being sent to another school and will no longer be at Champagne when we start back up in January. Apparently his antics with me were just one instance in a long line of trouble-making (including some fights and picking on other kids). Good riddance!
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