Well, really, I was on vacation, which is why I've been remiss in posting. Worry not, numerous readers (ha!), I'm back and raring to go. In fact, I have so much to write about, I'm going to include it in several posts. Ready? GO!
First Week of Teaching
We spent a week "observing" in our various classrooms before actually getting up in front of the kids. I introduced myself, told them where I was from, answered some general questions ("Have you ever met Michael Jackson?", "Do you eat food in the United States?", and "Do you know how to speak American all the time?" were some of my personal favorites.)
The French primary school system is divided into 5 classes--CP, CE1, CE2, CM1, and CM2--which basically correspond to 1st through 5th grades. As a primary school language assistant, I have a mix of all of these classes (except the CP [1st graders] because my résponsable removed some of my teaching hours to allow time for the 40-minute round-trip commute to my schools every day.)
I teach a mix of kids, aged 7-11, in three separate schools. Their levels of English vary between grades, certainly, but also drastically between schools. One of my favorite teachers, Sophie (who drives me to school on Tuesdays and Thursdays and invited me to her house last weekend for a 6-hour French Sunday roast), speaks English really well; she teaches CM1, and her students have the best grasp of any of my classes. Another teacher, who speaks English with absolutely no confidence, teaches CM2, and her students--who are older--don't understand anything I say. It's amazing how little of a national curriculum there is; they seem to want the kids to speak English fluently at an early age, but have no idea how to make that happen. I guess that's the job of the English assistant!
The following week I took some materials to teach the students about Tennessee; I brought pictures of the TN flag for them to color, plus a map of the state and a map of the USA so they could try to find TN within the country. Some classes did really well, others not so great--one entire class was convinced that California was the state whose shape best corresponded with the shape of TN. The students were all amazed at how many states there were, and the ones who made the connection between the 50 states and the 50 stars on the flag were SO proud of themselves. I also taught them about Mule Day, cowboys, country music, and BBQ--I think it was a pretty successful lesson :) Next, Halloween!
Speaking of Halloween....
Tarte à la Citrouille (Spooky Version)
The Special Ed teacher at one of my schools approached me on my first day and asked me to send her some American recipes so that her kids, who have a cooking class once a month, could try their hand at something "foreign." I sent her the recipe for pumpkin pie, because 'tis the season, and also for Rice Krispies Treats; that one came via special request from her students. She promised me that she'd let me know when they had their cooking class so I could join in...which, of course, is right up my alley.
During the first week of "real" teaching, she let me know that Thursday was the day the cooking would go down, and that I was welcome for as much of it as I could attend. Thursday is the day I'm at one school from 8h30-16h00, but most of that time is free between classes (just not enough free time to take the 20-minute bus back to Nevers), so I hung out at the school all day and was available for the entire thing.
First, the kids gutted the pumpkin (hilarious), cooked it, and started measuring out all the ingredients. While the pumpkin was cooling, they copied down the recipe, and alongside it a message--in English, which many of them had never even seen before--that briefly described the tradition and history of pumpkin pie. The whole thing just made me hungry :P
It was really fun watching these kids cook. They'd never separated an egg and didn't know to keep the shells out of the bowl; they were astonished to see egg whites and sugar beaten into "stiff white peaks;" they were so impatient for the pie to come out of the oven, and we had to distract them with game after game while it cooled!
Finally, it was cool enough for them to decorate it.
Hopefully I'll be included in next month's cooking class, too. Maybe we'll attempt a turducken :)
2 comments:
Actually, I think turducken -is- a French dish, invented back in the days of decadent royal feasts. Certainly they put birds inside other birds, whether turkeys were involved or not :P. Glad they liked the pie, though! Have you introduced them to the thought of PB&Js? I always horrified Germans with that...
I have NOT--I need to do that! :)
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