Yo Ho

I have a class that contains a few budding thespians, so I was looking for an English play that they could work on. I couldn't find anything suitable - everything was either too difficult or too childish - so then I had the idea of using a film script. I found the transcribed script of the first Pirates of the Caribbean film on the internet, selected a few scenes from it, edited them a bit where the language was too esoteric, and gave them to the students to act out in groups. They went to work and soon the room was filled with cries of, "But why 'as zee rum gone?", carefully-choreographed swordfights with rulers and set squares, and students being forced to walk the plank off the tops of tables. In other words, a most successful method for waking up 17-year-olds at 8:30 am on a Thursday morning.

Before the grand performance at the end of the lesson, I did a bit of warming up to get them into character (being rather experienced when it comes to treading the boards, dontcha know...). I taught them a number of classic pirate phrases, such as 'me hearties' and 'avast, ye landlubbers', and discovered the hard way that, while there is great entertainment value in getting French teenagers to try to pronounce the word 'swashbuckling', it generally backfires when one of them asks you to explain what it means. I also learnt some French pirate phrases of my own and have since added to my staffroom reputation as the eccentric English girl (more on that in a future post) by exclaiming, "A l'abordage!" as I go off to my next lesson after the end-of-break bell.

Instead of taking a normal register, we fill out a special form noting any absences, which is normally left in a box in the staffroom at lunch and the end of the day. However, there is a separate form for the first class of the day, at 8:30 am, which is collected by whichever admin staff member is free, or has been naughty, about halfway through the lesson. Which is how the headmaster himself - who thinks I'm a retard, remember - came to open the door to my classroom, only to find the whole class on their feet and me at the front, yelling, "Yarrrrrrrr, ye scurvy dogs!" at them in my best Cap'n Barbossa accent. I'm expecting the restraining order any day now.

Rule Bretagne

Last Sunday, I woke up feeling rather grumpy because the world had conspired to give me a boring weekend. I had wanted to go to Jersey for a day, but couldn't get a bus or train to St Malo in time to catch the ferry*. Then, my plans to go out with friends on the Saturday night were scuppered by my body's last-minute decision to be ill, so I ended up staying in by myself. So, on Sunday, I decided I was going to bloody well do something, which is how I ended up at the bus station later that morning, picking some random place to visit on the off-chance that it might be interesting. I plumped for a town called Bécherel, thinking it sounded like a cool name, plus I vaguely remembered someone mentioning in the staffroom that it was pretty.

That turned out to be an understatement. Becherel is a medieval town which has kept its cobbled streets and narrow snickleways, as well as its hobbled-together, topsy-turvey buildings for a quaint, eccentric look. Best of all, it is the French equivalent of Hay-on-Wye; apparently, it was France's first book town. Twenty-odd second-hand bookshops in a town the size of Stowmarket** - absolute heaven.

It managed to be sunny - that fantastic crisp-but-sunny weather you only get in winter - for the first weekend since I've been here, and so I had a blissfully nerdy cultural day, wandering the town, gradually filling up my rucksack with piles of books, and reading in a cosy café, in front of an open fire, with a steaming mug of hot chocolate. Life really doesn't get better than that.

While it's perhaps easy to be jealous of my peers who have swanned off to La Réunion, French Guiana or Nice for their years abroad, I am still glad I chose Brittany. There's just something about the communal spirit and the regional pride here that you don't get anywhere else. It really struck me that day when I was sitting in a crêperie for lunch, drinking Breizh Cola. It costs about twice the price of Coca Cola and is nothing special, but people still buy it here because, apparently, Breizh is best. Later on, in one of the bookshops, I discovered a collection called Breizh Noir, by a writer named R. G. Ulrich, who writes murder mysteries set in different towns in Brittany. I couldn't help but grin as I flicked through Peur Sur Dinard, Requiem A St Malo, and, my ultimate favourite, Fric-Frac A St Briac. I knew perfectly well they were going to be rubbish but in a place like this, it doesn't matter. In spite of, or perhaps even because of, France's past attempts to stamp out minority languages and cultures, the strong Breton identity is alive and kicking today.

And it's amazing how far this regionalism - tribalism, almost - goes. I was most amused to discover that the little town of Montfort (which is the same size as Bécherel, which is the same size as... well, you know the rest) has not one but five Christmas trees: one for each quartier of the town. As part of a tradition so wholesome and idyllic that it could have come straight out of one of Monsieur Ulrich's books (that is, before somebody poisons the mayor's galette complête), each tree is decorated by the people who live in that particular area, resulting in quite a bit of unofficial competition between the different quarters. Aside from the fact that this could never happen in England because somebody would nick all the baubles before you could say 'Tannenbaum', what I most love about this is that this micro-regionalism extends even to a fifth of a town with a population of 4,000 people. Which means that, not only can I say with a suppressed smirk and an unexpected sense of pride that I am Montfortaise, I can specify that I am Centre-Mairie Montfortaise. Y'know, just to separate myself from all those Tardivieres Montfortais oiks.









* French public transport is a lot like Fawlty Towers: it's absolutely brilliant, but there isn't a lot of it.

** Or, for my Brighton readers, Lewes. Or, for my Cambridge readers, Bar Hill. Everyone else can go get a map and work it out for themselves.

Feelin' Good

Today, I taught a lesson using a wonderful song by Renaud, It Is Not Because You Are, which is a marvellous demonstration of Franglais. The students listened to the song, then worked through correcting and improving it, first in small groups and then as a class. I thought they might enjoy it - it's an amusing enough song and self-deprecatory humour always goes down well - but I was surprised by just how much of a hit it was with them. Like most STG classes, they're not normally massively interested in learning English and their level isn't particularly brilliant as a whole, but suddenly, the whole class was really getting into translating the song, suggesting various different ways of expressing phrases that cannot be translated directly.*

One of the high points was informing them that what they call 'rouler a pelle'** is known in the UK as 'French kissing', which led to a quick swapping of nice and not-so-nice phrases involving the other country, such as 'French letters' and 'French leave' versus 'la vice anglaise' (sodomy) and 'les anglais ont débarqués' ('the English have landed' - a pleasant way of referring to a woman's period). Eventually, one boy decided that we call it French kissing because the French are clearly the best kissers; when I replied that I was in no position to be able to comment on that, he decided to try his luck and offered to show me himself. I drily assured him that I would somehow manage to resist the temptation.

There were only four lines of translation left to go when the bell went. I turned round from the board, expecting the usual instant scraping of chairs, and said, "Thanks for a great lesson, guys - you did really well today. See you all in two weeks!"

One of the girls protested, in French, "But we haven't finished the song yet!"

Confused, I replied that the bell had gone and the lesson was over. I was amazed to see her actually pout.

"But we want to stay and finish it!"

I smiled and replied, "That's very touching, but you'll get into trouble if you're late for your next lesson."

She answered smugly that it was now break-time, so they wouldn't get into trouble. Amazed, I looked around the class, asking, "Do you all really want to stay behind for a few minutes to finish the song?" They all nodded, even the boys. I shook my head, laughing, and so we carried on.

That girl wasn't the class geek, just a normal seventeen-year-old teenager who had probably spent at least 45 minutes that morning picking her outfit and making sure she fitted in properly. That class wasn't the high-achieving Littéraire group, just ordinary, stroppy adolescents who had somehow managed to get fired up over this particular piece of work. It was the most incredible feeling I've ever had and, while this is a potentially dangerous soundbite to coin, it made me realise that teachers are basically like crack addicts. You get that amazing buzz, that wonderful moment of euphoria just once, and then you put up with whatever crap keeps getting thrown at you day after day, just to feel that high again one day. Whenever I ask myself what the hell I'm doing here, that lesson will be the answer.



* Such as 'chialer comme une madeleine' - to cry like a cake.

** Which translates literally as 'to roll a shovel' - a wincingly accurate mental image.