The horror

Past few days have been crazy.

After Monday’s classes, I have new-found sympathy for teachers whose classes just won’t speak. The first class wasn’t too bad, just a little quiet and a little rowdy. The second, I only had 5 students. One was 24 years old, the rest were 17-18. Confused about what the 24 year old was doing there, but was more confused when, in the middle of my lesson, he starts asking me questions like, “Where do you live?” and “Do you want to get a drink?” !!?? Not telling, and no, and back to the cartoon you’re supposed to be analyzing… Third class was worse—the teacher stayed in the room with one half of the class, I had 9 on my half of the room. Again, supposed to be examining a cartoon about white-collar crime. Now, this is partly my fault, but I had no idea that these kids would have such a low level of English, so I prepared to go right into the ideas discussed in the cartoon. Turns out, I needed to identify key vocabulary terms, like “white collar crime”. Tried explaining things, but they couldn’t even understand my explanations. Aaay. It was an hour of misery for both class and me.

Tuesday morning, I got up and went to Leclerc to buy tissues—yes, Rose and Catherine and Mehdi and Steve and I all have colds, it’s like a welcome-to-teaching gift. Anyways, in the check-out line, the cashier and the lady in front of my are chatting away about something, and I’m trying to listen to figure out what they’re talking about. Something to do with jobs and being fired. My attitude must have been one of interest, so they glance at me, smile, I nod, and voila, I am in the conversation now. I spend about 5 minutes smiling and nodding, hoping they don’t turn to me and ask my opinion because I would then have to explain that I’ve barely understood what they’ve said in the first place.

Classes on Tuesday were much better. First and third were HEC kids, so they were good to begin with. Had good discussions on stereotypes, showed them a photo book of Ohio, and discussed national language with the third group. The second class were secondes, the lowest level I’m teaching. Even so, they were enthusiastic, and also did well with the stereotype activity. Then I had them look at some vacation vocabulary and pair up to role-play as a travel agent and a customer. Went pretty well!

After my first class, three students from one of my classes last week came up and asked if I would like to go to a party with them. O dear. Somehow, I don’t think this would help me gain control or respect in any of my classes. Yet, past assistants have apparently socialized with students—so long as you don’t do anything illegal with them, you’re fine. But this party is outside Blois, which means I’d have to be given a ride by my students, which means I’d have no control whatsoever about my arrival and departure time. Dooon’t think so. It’d be different if it were in Blois, where I could arrive late, leave early, and maintain independence.