Teaching Practicum (and general life) Update

Today was my first day in front of a class full of angsty 15 year-old French kids. As you probably imagine, I was a little nervous. All of the thoughts that were running through my head:

What if I stutter?

What if they don't understand me?

What if they think I'm stupid?

What if they think I'm boring?

What if they just sit and glare at me?

What if they mock me?

What if they hate me?

Luckily I should have never worried about any of these things in the first place. As soon as I got up in front of the class they were happy and eager to ask questions, to hear about my life and to see all of the pictures. Especially the picture of Baxter (my mom's dog). 

I was completely at ease in front of them too; I'm never really afraid of kids younger than me judging me, it was more the fact that the real teacher was going to be in the classroom that made me nervous. I shouldn't have been worried about that either though! She's really nice and she helped with the discipline. I have a feeling that she knew if she just left me to fend for myself those kids would have eaten me alive.

Overall it went really well I think, there were just a few little things that she mentioned I should keep in mind when I'm teaching: speak loudly (that's always an issue for me), wait for complete silence to talk if they're being chatty (don't talk over them), don't be afraid to tell them to be quiet, don't talk too fast, be sure to correct their grammar mistakes and be sure not to start answering a question before they have a chance to finish it. 

I didn't even notice I was doing the last one; I guess I knew what they were going to ask and started to answer ahead of time. But now I know and I won't do it next time! 

Funny moments during the class: when one girl asked (in French) if she should "tutoie" or "vousvoie" me and I started to laugh a little (because it was funny to see that even French kids have the same dilemmas with deciding which subject to use) and she was all "SHE CAN UNDERSTAND ME WHEN I SPEAK FRENCH?!" and the teacher said "Apparently." I don't think she wanted them to know I understand French for a reason that I'll explain below.

But what I learned from that is that I need to not let them know that I understand French. If they know that they can ask me or tell me something in French they'll take advantage of it and lose all motivation to speak English...which renders my presence there useless. As much as I'd like to practice French with them I need to remember my purpose there: to teach them English. From now on, I decided I'm just going to pretend that I don't understand French when they say things so they are literally forced to figure it out. French is a last resort.

I also need to not act like their friend because French students aren't used to teachers who are nice to them. I've heard horror stories...if you go too far past the friendly/nice line they take advantage of you and lose respect. I need to present myself as a confident, knowledgable grown woman...even though they know that I'm 20 years old and I really don't actually have any experience. I'm excited for next week though, it should be a good session. I just need to keep those points that Madame Ollivier mentioned in mind!

Oh and also I realized that teaching must be EXHAUSTING. After 30 minutes of simply answering questions about myself I was pooped...imagine doing that for eight hours...and I wasn't even the one switching the powerpoint slides, telling kids to shut up or doing any real work at all! Holy crap.

Anyway, yesterday in our pedagogy class a girl who is living and working in France as a teaching assistant came in to answer questions. She's here through a program called TAPIF for 7 or 8 months. I'm gonna look into it, it seems neat. Maybe after undergrad I'll take a year off and do that (you get paid, albeit not very much) and then go to grad school...or whatever I choose to do. But if I decide to come back to France I'd definitely like to be in a warm region.

This afternoon when I got home I played scrabble with my host mom and Aurelien. It was not easy, given that it was in French and I suck at it even in English, but I did learn some things so that was good. 

Something else I wanted to write about: my nightmares.

I've had 3 or 4 horrifying dreams since I got here.

In the first 2 or 3 I gained obscene amounts of weight...so as you can guess, I'm kind of afraid that I've gained weight while I'm here. I exercise less, I eat more and they're fattier foods. No, that's nothing to have nightmares about, I know. I've got issues with my eating schedule here but I can't change too much about it. Literally nothing here is healthy. You know how in America you can get a salad that's just vegetables? Well here, salads come with fried potatoes and a cheese tart thing on it as you've seen in pictures. Eh, I don't really need to get too far into it though. But once I get home, be ready for a hardcore mostly vegetable and completely whole-grain (something that does not exist in my life at this point) and very active lifestyle for at least as much time as I will have spent here in Europe. And hopefully for my whole life...but especially till I'm healthy again. Because really I feel like a lardo here but I've already complained enough about my stupid shower schedule so I don't need to get into that either :p But if I look like I've gained weight when I get back don't bother saying anything because I've been well aware of this possibility since I got here. There definitely are certain things I need to change about the habits I've somehow acquired here though (aka why the heck are you eating a candy bar instead of an orange? you've never done this before in your life. just cause it's not an American candybar doesn't make it okay despite what you keep telling yourself).

The next one was about vampires all over my university campus here. But that one wasn't as terrifying as it was bizarre.

And the most recent one, not quite as horrifying as the weight-gain one though, happened just last night. I had my first test today and I was really nervous for it because I had literally no idea what to study. In the dream, a professor handed back some assignment I had done and on it was written, "This is not C2 level work." So yeah, I'm obviously paranoid (and almost sure) that I'm in a level higher than I should be. The work is very hard and I don't even know if I'm improving. I feel like I should have been put in C1 but by the time I truly realized it, it was too late. Now I'm taking classes that just seem far too hard and slightly over my head but I'm making an attempt to rise to the challenge and hopefully I'll have learned something from it. 

For example, one reason why I'm afraid I'm in the wrong level: today I had my oral comprehension class. We listened to a 13 minute long radio broadcast about the economy. The assignment was to listen to it and write down the main ideas and facts. But I've never done anything like that before for listening comprehension I've always been given a sheet with questions on it to guide me. And even wen the professor of that class has done that I've had quite a bit of difficulty so this today was just a disaster. I wrote down SO much (basically everything I could) but I didn't truly understand or internalize anything I wrote. He always picks topics that my brain doesn't easily understand (like neuroscience and economics) and then on top of that it's in French so this is just infinitely ridiculously difficult for me. I talked to Tra about it though, she sits next to me, and she feels the same exact way. So I'm not the only one at least...

Yes, this is what France has brought me to...someone who obsesses about weight and food intake (it's nothing new to have the occasional nightmare about school). I know I get like that sometimes in America (who doesn't) but this is ridiculous! I can't wait to return and have full control over everything again. Ah, it will be the greatest....

But I still love France! This weekend I'm going to visit Angers, very excited!

And in other news, the weather is changing yet again and I'm starting to get eczema on the insides of my legs. It stings. I know that's something that you really wanted to know...