Just a small update this time, I think.
I like teaching. Its pretty fun. Of course, I only have groups 1/3 or smaller than a "real" class- that and we are doing such simple things that I really have no idea what teaching is actually. But I like what I'm doing. Whatever it is. So, in class- we have been playing vocabish grammary type games, which the kids seem to enjoy I suppose, and it gets the job done.
My strategy these days is to go somewhere. Anywhere, but somewhere else on the weekend. Because La Reole is a bit slow. Bit slow. Last weekend I was in Bordeaux, and really had a great time. The one issue was that England had the audacity to beat France in rugby. I might be the most Anglo person in the world to have been saddened by the game, but I've gotta keep up apperances of course.
The game experience was pretty awesome though. They have some huge tv streams set up in downtown Bordeaux by the river and the place was packed and the crowd was very lively. I watched the match there with some other assistants, almost all of them from the British Isles... guess who they were rooting for? We had a box of 6 bottles of wine (Bordelaise of course) which we made short work of, particularly me and my Irish buddy, Rob.
In other news, the Spanish assistant at my school pretty much illustrates the difference between Europe and the United States. Me, I speak a bit of French and for the most part can communicate. Hmm. Yeah. However, she kicks my ass any day of the week she choses.
Upon arriving, she found me and- as is natural in this country- begins speaking to me in French. I do my best, but fail pretty decently. Finally, exasperated, she says "can I please just speak to you in English, I really need to know what's going on here".
Thats right! She speaks English, French and Spanish perfectly. Why not me? Hmm. Well, maybe by the time I leave. We'll see. But she's been very cool, and it's nice to have someone else around my age with whom I can hang out with. That and because of her, I have the courage to explore the townie bars, without feeling completely awkward.
I need to plan what I am doing for the upcoming All Saints holiday, nine days from now. Paris for sure, and maybe a trip to Sweden. We'll see.
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Thursday, October 11, 2007
Living in French
Its funny how a little linguistic misstep can cause you to reappraise the world you live in.
Its also perhaps funny that it wasn't my own that has forced me to ponder things. Not for lack of opportunities, but call it censorship for reasons of economy . After all, if I were to mention one of my own malapropism's it wouldn't be fair to leave any out... the situation would cascade out of control.
Can't have that.
So, I've been in France for a month. Pretty strange, I still am taken by the oddity, just as often as it feels like home. Occasionally when I wake up, my first thoughts are to remind myself where I'm at. Other times- well- of course I live in France. Gotta live somewhere.
As I have been observing classes, and began to teach, I get asked a lot of questions- which is fun. One question in particular has gotten under my skin lately. One girl asked me how I like "living in French". She quickly corrected herself, "living in France"- but the damage to my fragile psyche had already been done.
Living in France is an incredible experience, like nothing I've ever imagined, and very little drawbacks thus far. Living in French is a different story. Its a tad bit unrelenting. I try not to let it become a problem- however its fun to muse about the good ole days when I could go into a store, restaurant, ect. and be reasonably certain that I could communicate efficiently.
Its funny to think that most of the time, its quite difficult for me to have anything but a passing conversation with the people on the street. Its just a different world, but its a fun challenge. My French is steadily improving, even my English teachers tell me so- but I miss being able to be (intentionally) funny, or at least not have to hurt my brain every time I want to discuss the future- past- or anything involving... ugh... the subjunctive.
See, French has never been more than a passing hobby. Sure, back in school it was fun for a while, but after a good 10-15 minutes of speaking broken French with another American, you would feel sufficiently snobby enough to relapse back into the mother tongue. After all, it was just messing around.
No biggie, just a new paradigm.
So as they say- this is the big leagues now... play times over and this is for real. Uhm... if you ain't cheatin you ain't tryin.
Anyway, out of metaphysics and into the disquisition.
As stated in previous blogs-so far things are amazing, and I haven't been nearly as homesick as I should be. The people at my school have been more than kind to me- they drive me to the supermarket, they have furnished my room, they make sure I get my laundry done. Yeah, it rocks. But, its La Reole- a lovely town, with a shortage of entertainment options.
I spent the last weekend in this minitropolis, and I do think that it will be the only time I do so. Evan came and hung out on Saturday, but we couldn't even find a supermarche to buy some beer to consume during the rugby match... Then sunday, one of the ladies I worked with arranged to have me go with her and her traditional Gascon dance troupe to a fete in a small town in the next department over.
Thanks to my wonderful oral comprehension, I wasn't particularly sure what I was getting into until I got there, which made for an exciting car trip. But it was alot of fun, I got a chance to speak with people in the town that I wouldn't have otherwise, and they were all extremely nice and it was a good experience.
Finally though, I've started "teaching" if you can call what I do in there "teaching". I will refer to it as such, and will even go so far as to remove the "" from the word "teaching" from here onward.
My teaching method thus far is a bit difficult to describe, I think you could call it post avant garde, which is probably a euphemism for crap. It seems like teaching a foreign language, in said language, to teens is definitely walking a razors edge. On one side, if you talk down to them, you lose. On the other side, its over before it starts if you talk above them.
The real fun is when their comprehension is so low you manage to do both at the same time. Welcome to my world.
That isn't to say that its been bad- some of the classes have been marvelous. Just today I had two different classes of three girls each, both of which went great, and we had good conversation, and I day say they seemed interested in speaking most of the time.
Then... I had a class from the vocational side of the school. Yeah. I went over like a lead balloon. I spent the whole hour asking questions that were supposed to lead into interesting discussion, but instead got one word, off topic, and occasionally franglais replies. Can't win em all.
Fortunately, my teachers are extremely sympathetic, and they realize I'm not going to work miricles with everyone. But there are some students who do certainly want to improve, and its best to focus on that.
This weekend, back to Bordeaux- the semi finals of the rugby world cup are here and Saturday its France vs. England!!! Hell yeah. Hope you all are doing well.
Later on.
Its also perhaps funny that it wasn't my own that has forced me to ponder things. Not for lack of opportunities, but call it censorship for reasons of economy . After all, if I were to mention one of my own malapropism's it wouldn't be fair to leave any out... the situation would cascade out of control.
Can't have that.
So, I've been in France for a month. Pretty strange, I still am taken by the oddity, just as often as it feels like home. Occasionally when I wake up, my first thoughts are to remind myself where I'm at. Other times- well- of course I live in France. Gotta live somewhere.
As I have been observing classes, and began to teach, I get asked a lot of questions- which is fun. One question in particular has gotten under my skin lately. One girl asked me how I like "living in French". She quickly corrected herself, "living in France"- but the damage to my fragile psyche had already been done.
Living in France is an incredible experience, like nothing I've ever imagined, and very little drawbacks thus far. Living in French is a different story. Its a tad bit unrelenting. I try not to let it become a problem- however its fun to muse about the good ole days when I could go into a store, restaurant, ect. and be reasonably certain that I could communicate efficiently.
Its funny to think that most of the time, its quite difficult for me to have anything but a passing conversation with the people on the street. Its just a different world, but its a fun challenge. My French is steadily improving, even my English teachers tell me so- but I miss being able to be (intentionally) funny, or at least not have to hurt my brain every time I want to discuss the future- past- or anything involving... ugh... the subjunctive.
See, French has never been more than a passing hobby. Sure, back in school it was fun for a while, but after a good 10-15 minutes of speaking broken French with another American, you would feel sufficiently snobby enough to relapse back into the mother tongue. After all, it was just messing around.
No biggie, just a new paradigm.
So as they say- this is the big leagues now... play times over and this is for real. Uhm... if you ain't cheatin you ain't tryin.
Anyway, out of metaphysics and into the disquisition.
As stated in previous blogs-so far things are amazing, and I haven't been nearly as homesick as I should be. The people at my school have been more than kind to me- they drive me to the supermarket, they have furnished my room, they make sure I get my laundry done. Yeah, it rocks. But, its La Reole- a lovely town, with a shortage of entertainment options.
I spent the last weekend in this minitropolis, and I do think that it will be the only time I do so. Evan came and hung out on Saturday, but we couldn't even find a supermarche to buy some beer to consume during the rugby match... Then sunday, one of the ladies I worked with arranged to have me go with her and her traditional Gascon dance troupe to a fete in a small town in the next department over.
Thanks to my wonderful oral comprehension, I wasn't particularly sure what I was getting into until I got there, which made for an exciting car trip. But it was alot of fun, I got a chance to speak with people in the town that I wouldn't have otherwise, and they were all extremely nice and it was a good experience.
Finally though, I've started "teaching" if you can call what I do in there "teaching". I will refer to it as such, and will even go so far as to remove the "" from the word "teaching" from here onward.
My teaching method thus far is a bit difficult to describe, I think you could call it post avant garde, which is probably a euphemism for crap. It seems like teaching a foreign language, in said language, to teens is definitely walking a razors edge. On one side, if you talk down to them, you lose. On the other side, its over before it starts if you talk above them.
The real fun is when their comprehension is so low you manage to do both at the same time. Welcome to my world.
That isn't to say that its been bad- some of the classes have been marvelous. Just today I had two different classes of three girls each, both of which went great, and we had good conversation, and I day say they seemed interested in speaking most of the time.
Then... I had a class from the vocational side of the school. Yeah. I went over like a lead balloon. I spent the whole hour asking questions that were supposed to lead into interesting discussion, but instead got one word, off topic, and occasionally franglais replies. Can't win em all.
Fortunately, my teachers are extremely sympathetic, and they realize I'm not going to work miricles with everyone. But there are some students who do certainly want to improve, and its best to focus on that.
This weekend, back to Bordeaux- the semi finals of the rugby world cup are here and Saturday its France vs. England!!! Hell yeah. Hope you all are doing well.
Later on.
Thursday, October 4, 2007
Bollocks
well, i had a long Post mostly all written out, and then I managed to delete my progress.
It had a lot of good stuff about my goings on in Bordeaux last weekend. My assistant's orientation in Bordeaux, and a nice write-up about not being able to return to La Reole until the morning because of my First French Rail strike... But thats all gone.
You would have read about how the people in my school at La Reole have been amazing, they gave me a fridge in the room they also gave me. They helped me set up a bank account, otherwise I would still be there 8 hours later, looking helpless and mumbling quoi...? to myself.
That and someone set me up with the schools laundry equipment, and drove me to a supermarche for some provisions to go with the fridge. So much for the French being unfriendly, eh?
Yeah... well you will never find out about all that due to my carelessness.
but I do leave you with an anecdote.
I started observing classes today at my school, and the students were asking me questions (in English) and it was lovely.
Then, one of the students asks if I spoke French.It is at this point the teacher, who is my responsable, starts laughing, presumably at the thought of me trying to speak French.
Yeah.
And he tried to stop, but couldn't for a while.
Good to have a rep.
Well, sorry for the truncated post. More to come when I feel like it. Love you all, other than those of you who found my blog randomly. But I am at least fond of you.
It had a lot of good stuff about my goings on in Bordeaux last weekend. My assistant's orientation in Bordeaux, and a nice write-up about not being able to return to La Reole until the morning because of my First French Rail strike... But thats all gone.
You would have read about how the people in my school at La Reole have been amazing, they gave me a fridge in the room they also gave me. They helped me set up a bank account, otherwise I would still be there 8 hours later, looking helpless and mumbling quoi...? to myself.
That and someone set me up with the schools laundry equipment, and drove me to a supermarche for some provisions to go with the fridge. So much for the French being unfriendly, eh?
Yeah... well you will never find out about all that due to my carelessness.
but I do leave you with an anecdote.
I started observing classes today at my school, and the students were asking me questions (in English) and it was lovely.
Then, one of the students asks if I spoke French.It is at this point the teacher, who is my responsable, starts laughing, presumably at the thought of me trying to speak French.
Yeah.
And he tried to stop, but couldn't for a while.
Good to have a rep.
Well, sorry for the truncated post. More to come when I feel like it. Love you all, other than those of you who found my blog randomly. But I am at least fond of you.
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