Since I arrived I’ve been avoiding the question about what I think about France. Each time I answer, ” I’ve only been here for (such and such time.) It’s too early to tell. Ask me later.” Then one week grew into two, two grew into three and now I’ve been here a full month and I still have no idea. My hesitance isn’t out of politeness, so I don’t have to utter secret grievances. One month has gone by in France and I have no idea where it went.

I’ve spent the last month not having much of a life while I tried to get my life set up. Going to Ikea, making appointments at the bank, buying a bicycle: these were the building blocks I decided were absolutely crucial for the life I was trying to construct. Indeed, I am grateful for my dish rack and being able to bike the library. Now comes the hard part: making friends (foreign and local), learning the language and mustering up the courage to teach a room full of teenagers English 12 times a week.

For the first time in months I’m waking up at 7 a.m. regularly and I’m back to the commuter life. This time, instead of waking up early to catch the bus and subway from Markham to Toronto, I take the train from Strasbourg to Sélestat.The 20 minute train ride is a little deceiving since it’s about 10 minute walk each way to the station (from my apartment to the Strasbourg station and from the Sélestat station to the school), plus buffer time to catch the train. Although I can’t deny that staring out the window at the Alsatian countryside is a little more enjoyable than taking the TTC at rush hour.

I feel completely wiped after a few hours teaching at school, even though I only teach for a few hours a day. I work with nine teachers this semester (which runs until mid-January), teaching 12 classes. About half of the classes are oral examination classes where students read an article or look at a picture and then make a 10-minute presentation about it to me. Usually I’m lucky if they last three minutes. To get them to the 10-minute mark usually takes a lot of prompting on my part. I have ask countless questions about the same boring articles about the economy or the workplace. This is all in an attempt to get more than one sentence at a time out of them so I can fill out an evaluation form.

In the other half of the classses, I actually teach. Teachers send me one-half of their students (usually from 10 to 15 pupils) to my classroom. The following week, I teach the other half of the class the same lesson. This means I see the kids twice a month and really have no idea about their names. I’m not sure what’s worse: being given boring course material (oral exams) or having to come up with my own for these classes. The class I dread the most is the one where the teacher asked me to teach about journalism (since it’s my “area of expertise.”) Being asked to condense four years of university into lessons for French teenagers made me I feel like I was in over my head and slightly insulted at the same time.

Coming up with my own lesson plans is probably one of the worst homework assignments I’ve ever had. Finding things with educational value, a cultural exchange aspect and engaging for myself and the students is difficult but possible. Even if I am lucky enough to have a 17-year-old who does want to speak, usually, inevitably you will hit a language wall. Every day I will meet this expression–the one where the initial excitement to having something to say turns frustration and then to embarrassment while they struggle to find the words. I can only look on and try to coax it out of them by wearing my most encouraging and patient face and offering a selection of my words as to what I think they’re saying. Sitting on this side of the teacher’s desk, being looked at in this way, makes me feel like a fraud. Every time I come see this look, I think to myself in English, I know exactly how you feel.

posted by vicky at 10:14 pm under Europe, France, Learning French, Sélestat, Teaching English
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