Friday, November 10, 2006

je suis l'assistante d'anglais

I can't believe I've been at this teaching melarky for over a month now and still hadn't blogged about it!

Ah... the joys... today I had to tell a class off for the first time
I said to them with a quiet disapproving teacher voice- "Il y avait trop de bruit aujourd-hui. Cette classe est pour vous de pratiquer parler et ecouter en anglais, mais si vous n'ecoutez pas, il n'y pas de point d'etre ici!" - translation -
"There was far too much noise today. This class is for you to practise speaking and listening in english but if you don't listen there's no point in you being here!"
They apologised so I think it will be ok. Bear in mind this was the first time I've ever had to properly tell anyone off.

See so far teaching has been generally very good! Very different from how I expected it... not at all nerve-wracking despite the fact that I frequently have to adlib... somehow french organisation means that despite all the preparation I may have done, every week I get at least a couple of groups of classes of age groups I haven't been expecting, so often have to make up lessons on the spot... but somehow managed to do ok so far though preparation is most definitely the way forward!

I teach kids ranging from the ages of about 12 to older than me. Have to use french with the 12-15 year olds cos the only english they understand is "I have blue eyes, I have brown hair etc." but some of my older classes speak very good english which is pretty cool, I just have to speak slowly and clearly with them!

And for some reason the fact that I am young has so far been a big advantage! There is always a collective exclaim of disbelief or surprise ("aaaah mais c'est jeune!!!") if anyone asks me how old I am, it's quite amusing! And after one class one guy who must have been about my age came up to me and said "Are you really only 20, I thought you must be like 22 or something!!" Hahahaha I think that was meant as a compliment... I think...

And aaaah the accents! My friends in France will tell you that I have developed quite a passion and a liking for imitating the french accent when speaking english... I will demonstrate with some phonetic spelling - demonstration of todays lesson with the 13 year olds

"Wot aaaav yooou got aateuuh treee o clockeuh?"
"I aaav got euuuh... doctors appooointeuhmnt"

sniff... isn't it just beautiful!

I'm tired... I think all this teaching has gone to my head...

à la prochaine

2 comments:

Dish said...

and reading it over again, evidently the franglais has been detrimental to my english grammar and spelling skills... apologies to any fellow english perfectionists

Cal Bar said...

Very entertresting, (entertain interest mix)
I though i would have a go at your mixed up speach language.
I would like to encourage you to blog often as is does a favour for your readers at home.
Ta ya. Cal