Into the swing of things but glad for a break.

Teaching

Just popping by to tell you a bit more about some of what I’ve been teaching. It’s hard to get the balance right, in choosing things which aren’t too hard and aren’t too easy and which are accessible and engaging for all sorts of people.

In one lesson I taught them about the bottled water market and we had an interesting discussion on that based on listening to a podcast (Trust me, it doesn’t sound that fascinating but the report threw up some good questions). Another piece of work I’ve done with them was based on predictions about 2050. I wrote 12 statements about life in 2050 and they had to discuss whether they think it’s possible or not and why in pairs, and afterwards they wrote their own predictions about the areas of healthcare, education and fashion. This was very revealing about the scope of different ideas any one class has about the future, and even more so across different classes.

I’ve done a ‘two truths and a lie’ activity too, for which I showed a banana to the class that I had written on, introduced the fact that I like bananas, said a few other things about them and built up intrigue, then I would ask a member of the class to read out the three statements written on the banana about my life. Then I announced that two are true and one is false, and they needed to guess which is false. I managed to fool a lot of them! I then went on to ask everyone to write down three statements about themselves and we exchanged them in the classroom and had a guess at the false statement and found out interesting things about everyone.

As another activity, we thought about a Desert Island scenario and they had to tell each other who they would or wouldn’t like to be stuck with, what clothing/items of food/book they would take with them, etc. It was very interesting. For the book, one girl said ‘I’d take anything except the Bible’, and another lad said he’d take ‘The satanic bible’. Another guy said he’d like a visit from Jesus (I think he was joking...or at least it made his classmates laugh).

I tested my first and second year students last week. The first years were tested on speaking and listening skills and the second years just on listening. It was a whole new experience for me marking them, and it wasn’t my favourite thing because I want everyone to do well and some of them were not up to scratch!

Fun stuff

Last weekend I had a lovely time on Saturday afternoon with my new American friend Halle, chilling out on the grass at her local park chatting. On Sunday, the pastor and his wife had all the student-aged youth round for lunch which was very tasty and the atmosphere was very friendly, it was a nice group of people.

On Tuesday night I was treated to a meal at a crêperie by the languages department. A teacher from my department had organised it as she thought all the lecteurs (the people doing the same job as me) should meet each other. She’d sorted out a table plan so no one was sitting next to someone of the same mother tongue, so we all had to speak in French and there was much more of a sense of togetherness which was nice. I was sat next to a Russian girl and a Chinese girl, and opposite a Spanish guy, a Syrian girl and an American guy (so fairly close to another English speaker, but we were well-behaved most of the time!). It was a lovely evening and we may well meet up again. There were so many nationalities! It’ll be nice to say ‘hi’ in the corridors if we see each other now!

I’m now at home for half term, enjoying time off. Teachers definitely deserve half term breaks, I have a new respect for them!

Fiona x

Hello to my regular readers,

Just a note to say I'll write on Monday 24th Oct. I've not had time to blog this week because I'm going home tomorrow for the half term holiday and so I've been working hard marking 100s of tests so I don't have to take marking home with me. I'm glad I made it to half term!

A bientot,

Fiona

Recent happenings

Le 'Restaurant' Universitaire

Last Wednesday I went to the University canteen for the first time and it was a madhouse (well for a nervous English girl at least, but I think even the French brace themselves for the experience)! It didn’t help that I went at peak time – 12:30. Thankfully I was with some French girls who were happy to look out for me and explain how the system works. You go in and there are a range of names of dishes displayed on posters under different stand names, so you take a look at that on your way up and decide what you’d like to eat. This also tells you how many other items you can take (in terms of starters or desserts). When you get upstairs you can queue up at the stand of your choice, but some being more popular than others, and so increasing the time you wait.

There’s not really enough space to queue so you have to watch out for other people trying to get past, then after you’ve got your main meal on a tray, it’s a free-for-all to grab puddings or starters and get through the till, trying to hold your tray steady and not bump into other people!The till ladies work as fast as they can putting (pre-bought) meal tickets through the till and taking money for any soft drinks or extra bread that people are buying. Once through the till you take cutlery and a glass (for tap water) and more importantly, find somewhere to sit. People must end up waiting for their friends or wandering round the large seating area all the time, as it’s very easy to be split up (either through choice or otherwise!).

Un mariage français

Last weekend I went to a wedding in Lille. It was strange to be back as I hadn’t been there since a brief visit for New Year. It was my friends Laurence and Hugues who got married – Laurence was a teacher at one of the schools I worked in and I often spent time with her and her boyfriend-turned-fiancé during the year there. They’re also linked to the church I used to go to in Lille, so a number of my friends were invited to the wedding too. The wedding was a lot of fun.

At first I went to the Mairie (Town Hall) to see what happens there. The French are obligated to go to the Marie to legalise their marriage, and this has to be done before any kind of religious ceremony. There are a number of marriages every Saturday in quick succession and I managed to go into the wrong marriage ceremony! The couple I know were supposed to be in the ‘wedding hall’ at 11am. I went up to it and there were already people inside so I told the man outside I was there for Laurence and Hugues’ wedding and he said to go in. Except for the fact that when the town hall official asked the married couple to stand up it certainly wasn’t them! So I clapped and waited respectfully until the ceremony was finished and slipped out the back door hoping I hadn’t missed the one I was there to see.

Thankfully I hadn’t – they were just running behind on time and I found the group for my wedding in another smaller room waiting to go in to the bigger one. What was even weirder (and another reason for slipping out quickly and quietly) is that one of my students from Rennes was a guest in the ‘wrong’ marriage ceremony! All that way away, on the same weekend, at the same time! He didn’t see me so I surprised him in class today by saying that I knew where he was on Saturday!

(Outside the Town Hall)

Then there was the church service which was packed out with an overflow projection screen downstairs (there were around 300 guests). There were two pastors from different churches working together to do the ceremony and it went fairly well considering they both had traditions from their own denominations that they wanted to respect. It was an opportunity to share with many people who normally wouldn’t set foot inside a church and the preachy part was good.

Afterwards there was the ‘Vin d’honneur’ (roughly translates as ‘Honouring wine’). All the people from the service are invited to this. It’s basically a time when a selection of drinks and nibbles are served (both sweet and savoury) and people chat and have the opportunity to take pictures with the bride and groom. The nibbles were really lovely – a variety of hot and cold ones for the savoury and neat little French pastries and cakes for the sweet. I took some time to talk with my ex-colleagues from the school I used to work at with Laurence.

I took a break between the Vin d’honneur and the evening celebrations and went home with a family from Church for a bit which was nice. The evening meal included four courses plus coffee (starter (pictured left), main, cheese, dessert). It was delicious and the presentation was top notch! For the main course they came table-by-table with the food covered by one of those bell-shaped covers, they put all the plates on the table at once and then lifted them simultaneously! There was also the grand unveiling of the dessert (many cakes and sparklers!). We felt spoilt.

The French have entertainments between the courses organised by friends and family of the couple, and the entertainments at this wedding were very well done. I was sat with some people from church and we had a great time.

I’m sure there was something else I wanted to tell you about, but I don’t remember, so it’ll have to wait or be forgotten!

Have a good week,

Fiona x

Crunching through autumn leaves on a summer’s day

I, like you, have been surprised by the sunny weather over the past 10 days, and it made the French happy which was nice. I had to suffer a hot classroom or office a lot of the time, but enjoyed it when I was out and about and it gave me a good excuse for an ice cream on Friday afternoon!

Teaching

I’m already halfway through my fourth week of teaching and I haven’t told you much about it. Tiredness is starting to kick in, as motivating a classroom full of students to speak English for 19 hours a week takes energy. I understand better why they don’t put so much emphasis on speaking foreign languages in schools when teachers have classrooms of 30 children at a lower level! One positive thing is that my level of French is higher than the students’ level of English which gives me confidence during lessons, as I’m not always dreading the question ‘How do you say X in English?’. They are generally quite understanding it if I don’t know how to say something too. Sometimes we get there after a bit of discussion, other times both sides are left very confused as to how to express a certain French word or phrase in English. I’m starting to grasp the majority of names now too, which is very useful!

The activities that I have been preparing have been working well for the most part, and I need to try and remember that, as disappointing or discouraging moments come often too. As a wise person said at the weekend, some things that I’m battling with are out of my control and it’s not necessarily me as a teacher who fails when certain things don’t go to plan.

Yesterday someone fainted in my lesson! It was quite a surprise to hear a shout of ‘Alexandre!’ in response to a question I had asked and I looked up to see one of the students on the back row was on the floor, blacked out. It was stuffy in the classroom and I guessed he had just fainted so I told his friends to open the window to get some air in and lift his legs up. He soon

came round, and they got him to stand up rather too quickly for my liking, but he was ok. I asked if that kind of thing had happened to him before and he said ‘yes’. I prayed that it wouldn’t be me who fainted next (I have a bit of a history of that too)! The problem with that room is it’s very hard to keep the window open because it doesn’t want to stay open on its own.

Just have a little patience...

Ok so already within 5 weeks of being here there have been plenty of opportunities to grow my patience, and there are plenty more on the horizon! God must be up to something. The colleague who does the same job as me talks constantly about anything and everything, and although I find some of the comments interesting or amusing, other things are not and I get frustrated when I’m trying to work. My landlady also loves to talk and make her opinions known in a loud voice (as does her ex-husband who has visited a few times). There is also Jade, a 4 year-old who is child-minded at our house until 9pm two evenings of the week and 8pm another, and understandably gets a bit tired and grouchy at the end of the evening. Those who know me well (or maybe you’d guess), know that I seek out peace and quiet over loud and noisy, so I find certain characters can test my patience. Then there is Manqi, who faffs around even more than I do and I’m now appreciating why some of my family get annoyed with me sometimes!

Church

I’ve chosen which church I’m going to commit to this year, it’s called La Rencontre. It’s the one which my landlady goes to and my two other housemates are going to go there too. It’s a warm and friendly church and I feel at home there already.

Agape campus

This is the name of a Christian student group in Rennes and I’m sure you’ll hear more about them over the course of the year (I know I’m no longer a student but I’m linked to the campus and they’ve welcomed me with open arms!). The group seems very active with lots of different ideas for outreach and it is blessed by the presence of a number of staff workers to lead it. I went along to the welcome BBQ where there was an encouraging number of students (many of us from outside of France though), and I’ve also been to a small girls’ group meeting which was nice.

(Pic of me and Manqi, my housemate at the BBQ)

That’ll do for now, well done for making it to the end!

Fiona x