I've been ploughing through a number of heavy books about the history of linguistic policies in France (and yes, it's almost as riveting as it sounds) for one of my dissertations, a word that should never exist in the plural. I came across this paragraph, which I'd like to share with you:
"As always, the French sought institutional answers to the problem [of the threat of English] with the creation over the years of a number of governmental institutions to defend the integrity of French... The first governmental institution to be founded was the Haut Comité de défense et d'expansion de la langue française, created by decree in March 1966... In 1973 this body was replaced by the Haut Comité de la langue française, the change of name reflecting a name in orientation, the term 'expansion' being seen as too 'colonial' and the term 'defence' too negative. In 1984 it was replaced by two bodies, the Comité consultatif de la langue française and the Commissariat Général de la langue française. Finally, in June 1989, they were replaced respectively by the Conseil supérieur de la langue française and the Délégation générale à la langue française."
This paragraph neatly demonstrates everything that is wrong about France.
Monday, 3 May 2010
Friday, 23 April 2010
There's No Place Like Home
I've been back in the UK for a week and a half now, and have experienced the strange feeling of examining your own culture from the perspective of a foreigner. I'm still in French mode, so I keep trying to kiss people when I meet them*, and talking to myself in French when trying to remember things. I haven't quite shaken off the slight feeling that we're driving on the wrong side of the road, or the surprise at how enormous banknotes are here.**
But there are also many things I'm grateful for about living in this country, things which I took for granted. Politeness, for one thing; whatever Lynne Truss says, most people will still say 'sorry' if you bump into them. The NHS, which I will never moan about or describe as inferior to the French health system again. Bourbon biscuits. And, as Dara O'Briain marvellously points out in his new book, Tickling the English, the fact that we Will Not Be Told that our country is nowhere near as crap as we like to think it is.
I went to Brighton yesterday to see some friends and also to visit the library since, thanks to my dissertations (and there's a word that should never exist in the plural), I have a hell of a lot of research to do. Within ten minutes of being on campus, I had been handed six flyers (two of which were for demonstrations against things I didn't care about) and offered an STD test. It's always nice to know that some things never change.
One of those things is the British sense of humour. I wondered why, despite the French propensity for physical affection and extremely personal questions, I always felt that they were always somehow more distant than British people, and now I realise what was missing. It's the constant joking. Almost every exchange you have on this pretty little island of ours - and that includes soul-baring, weepy conversations because we only allow a limited amount of self-pity - will involve some kind of sarcasm, irony, self-deprecation, or plain old piss-taking. It's a reflex as natural as breathing to us, and I didn't realise how much I missed it until I got to experience it again.
A quick example: when changing trains at Brighton, I had to show my ticket to the inspector so he could let me through the barrier manually. I mentioned that, for some reason, that ticket had been playing up all day and that it hadn't worked in any of the machines at any of the stations I'd changed at that day. With a completely straight face, he replied, "That's because the machines are fitted with a special chip that identifies all the pretty girls and sends them to us inspectors to make the day go faster."
Now, in France, the inspector in his position may well have said something similar, but the difference is that a) there would have been genuine intent in his flattery and b) he would have tried to get my number. But this guy wasn't being sleazy - he was a grey-haired fiftysomething, probably with a wife and grandkids, just joking around. I could make some deeply philosophical hypothesis that he was spreading joy and happiness by doling out cheerful compliments, but the truth is that he probably was doing nothing of the sort. He was just reacting in the only way he knew how. The British way.
* Fortunately, the first person I did that to had lived in France himself for a few years many moons ago, and completely understood my sudden onset of affection. Cue a lovely long chat about how wonderful the food is and how chiant the civil servants are, something that only a foreigner living in France can appreciate.
** Seriously, go look at a £20 note some time. I'm surprised they fit in our wallets.
But there are also many things I'm grateful for about living in this country, things which I took for granted. Politeness, for one thing; whatever Lynne Truss says, most people will still say 'sorry' if you bump into them. The NHS, which I will never moan about or describe as inferior to the French health system again. Bourbon biscuits. And, as Dara O'Briain marvellously points out in his new book, Tickling the English, the fact that we Will Not Be Told that our country is nowhere near as crap as we like to think it is.
I went to Brighton yesterday to see some friends and also to visit the library since, thanks to my dissertations (and there's a word that should never exist in the plural), I have a hell of a lot of research to do. Within ten minutes of being on campus, I had been handed six flyers (two of which were for demonstrations against things I didn't care about) and offered an STD test. It's always nice to know that some things never change.
One of those things is the British sense of humour. I wondered why, despite the French propensity for physical affection and extremely personal questions, I always felt that they were always somehow more distant than British people, and now I realise what was missing. It's the constant joking. Almost every exchange you have on this pretty little island of ours - and that includes soul-baring, weepy conversations because we only allow a limited amount of self-pity - will involve some kind of sarcasm, irony, self-deprecation, or plain old piss-taking. It's a reflex as natural as breathing to us, and I didn't realise how much I missed it until I got to experience it again.
A quick example: when changing trains at Brighton, I had to show my ticket to the inspector so he could let me through the barrier manually. I mentioned that, for some reason, that ticket had been playing up all day and that it hadn't worked in any of the machines at any of the stations I'd changed at that day. With a completely straight face, he replied, "That's because the machines are fitted with a special chip that identifies all the pretty girls and sends them to us inspectors to make the day go faster."
Now, in France, the inspector in his position may well have said something similar, but the difference is that a) there would have been genuine intent in his flattery and b) he would have tried to get my number. But this guy wasn't being sleazy - he was a grey-haired fiftysomething, probably with a wife and grandkids, just joking around. I could make some deeply philosophical hypothesis that he was spreading joy and happiness by doling out cheerful compliments, but the truth is that he probably was doing nothing of the sort. He was just reacting in the only way he knew how. The British way.
* Fortunately, the first person I did that to had lived in France himself for a few years many moons ago, and completely understood my sudden onset of affection. Cue a lovely long chat about how wonderful the food is and how chiant the civil servants are, something that only a foreigner living in France can appreciate.
** Seriously, go look at a £20 note some time. I'm surprised they fit in our wallets.
Tuesday, 6 April 2010
Premature Nostalgia
I now have only two teaching days left (and half-days at that, due to mock exams) before I return to England for good. I will confess to mixed feelings about my departure: on the one hand, I'm looking forward to seeing friends and family again, and have been promised one of my Mum's whacking great fry-ups when I get back. On the other hand, I really feel at home here; I walk the cobbled streets of Rennes feeling like it's my city, and I feel like the kids I teach are my kids.
So, all in all, the last week or so has been pretty emotional. It's essentially been a fortnight of goodbyes, as every class has been my last for that group. Three of my students have cried so far, which isn't bad going seeing as they're all over 16.
I'm really going to miss some of those kids. In my last practice oral with him, Philosopher was as breathtakingly bright and enthusiastic as ever - instead of droning on about how bullying was bad, as his classmates had done in response to a particular text, he started talking about Jamie Bulger and debating whether children can be held morally responsible for violence. Remember, this is a 17-year-old kid (whose moustache still hasn't properly sprouted, to his frustration), speaking in a foreign language about a news story most people in his country have never heard of.
As I was going home last Thursday, I walked past a darkened nook, where I could just about make out two students... well, making out. I tend to sympathise with the students on these matters, remembering those days well myself*, so, hearing the Principal leave his office, I decided to give them a heads up.
"Come out, get your tongue out of her throat - the Principal's coming."
And who should emerge, but a scarlet-cheeked Mr Boombastic and one of his female classmates? This is the kid who, only the day before, had announced in his presentation on stereotypes of England that, "English people are all ugly, except Zoe. And English men are especially ugly and they smell really bad, so I think she should break up with her boyfriend and have a French boyfriend."
I grinned and said with mock hurt, "Mr Boombastic, you never told me about this! I feel betrayed!"
I'm only entering the teaching profession because I like torturing teenagers.
Seriously, though, I want to be a teacher because, as I mentioned in a previous post, I've now had that crack-cocaine high of getting through to a kid, and I want more. It's amazing how quickly you forget the crap times after a good lesson. I asked one class to write a short statement (in French) to help me with one of my dissertations, on their opinion of what the point of having a language assistant is. I collected them in after the lesson and started to read them, but had to stop because I was welling up too much to see properly. Some of the anonymous comments, roughly translated, were:
"Having an assistant is definitely a good thing because her lessons are more fun than the ones we have with our normal teacher, because she plays games and songs and does acting, but we still learn a lot."
"Having a language assistant is a good experience because we can learn about her culture. It's made me realise that not all English people are weird and that some of them are actually quite nice."
"It's been very positive for me to have had a language assistant this year because I feel like I've improved my English so much because of her. Normally, I'm too shy to talk very much in class but she's very relaxed and encourages me to try so I don't worry so much about making mistakes. I now have a lot more confidence about speaking English in front of English people."
As I read that last paper, tears rolled down my cheeks and I felt a million miles away from the nightmare lesson I'd had a couple of weeks ago, where I'd stood in that same classroom sobbing after the class had left, but for very different reasons. I realised that this was why I had to go into teaching, for all the warnings about league tables, paperwork and pushy parents I'd received. And then, because some things never change, without thinking, I picked up a red pen and corrected the ending of 'parler'.
* All right, then - imagining those days well myself. I was a late starter...
So, all in all, the last week or so has been pretty emotional. It's essentially been a fortnight of goodbyes, as every class has been my last for that group. Three of my students have cried so far, which isn't bad going seeing as they're all over 16.
I'm really going to miss some of those kids. In my last practice oral with him, Philosopher was as breathtakingly bright and enthusiastic as ever - instead of droning on about how bullying was bad, as his classmates had done in response to a particular text, he started talking about Jamie Bulger and debating whether children can be held morally responsible for violence. Remember, this is a 17-year-old kid (whose moustache still hasn't properly sprouted, to his frustration), speaking in a foreign language about a news story most people in his country have never heard of.
As I was going home last Thursday, I walked past a darkened nook, where I could just about make out two students... well, making out. I tend to sympathise with the students on these matters, remembering those days well myself*, so, hearing the Principal leave his office, I decided to give them a heads up.
"Come out, get your tongue out of her throat - the Principal's coming."
And who should emerge, but a scarlet-cheeked Mr Boombastic and one of his female classmates? This is the kid who, only the day before, had announced in his presentation on stereotypes of England that, "English people are all ugly, except Zoe. And English men are especially ugly and they smell really bad, so I think she should break up with her boyfriend and have a French boyfriend."
I grinned and said with mock hurt, "Mr Boombastic, you never told me about this! I feel betrayed!"
I'm only entering the teaching profession because I like torturing teenagers.
Seriously, though, I want to be a teacher because, as I mentioned in a previous post, I've now had that crack-cocaine high of getting through to a kid, and I want more. It's amazing how quickly you forget the crap times after a good lesson. I asked one class to write a short statement (in French) to help me with one of my dissertations, on their opinion of what the point of having a language assistant is. I collected them in after the lesson and started to read them, but had to stop because I was welling up too much to see properly. Some of the anonymous comments, roughly translated, were:
"Having an assistant is definitely a good thing because her lessons are more fun than the ones we have with our normal teacher, because she plays games and songs and does acting, but we still learn a lot."
"Having a language assistant is a good experience because we can learn about her culture. It's made me realise that not all English people are weird and that some of them are actually quite nice."
"It's been very positive for me to have had a language assistant this year because I feel like I've improved my English so much because of her. Normally, I'm too shy to talk very much in class but she's very relaxed and encourages me to try so I don't worry so much about making mistakes. I now have a lot more confidence about speaking English in front of English people."
As I read that last paper, tears rolled down my cheeks and I felt a million miles away from the nightmare lesson I'd had a couple of weeks ago, where I'd stood in that same classroom sobbing after the class had left, but for very different reasons. I realised that this was why I had to go into teaching, for all the warnings about league tables, paperwork and pushy parents I'd received. And then, because some things never change, without thinking, I picked up a red pen and corrected the ending of 'parler'.
* All right, then - imagining those days well myself. I was a late starter...
Thursday, 1 April 2010
Fish, Frogs and Cheese
Today was April Fool's Day, or Poisson d'Avril, as the French call it. I have absolutely no idea where their obsession with fish comes from, but it appears that the pinnacle of Gallic wit is to pin a paper fish onto someone's back when they're not looking. Very bizarre, but then again, we are talking about a country where Mr Bean is still found amusing.
It's getting towards the end of my stay here, so my lessons have become a lot more lighthearted and self-deprecatory. I gave one class a list of bizarre sports practiced in Britain, such as bog-snorkelling, gurning, shin-kicking, the Bognor Birdman, zorbing, and so on, and got them to decide which were real and which I'd made up. They were amazed to discover that they were all true, leading to declarations that, "Ils sont fous, les anglais!" Just in case our reputation wasn't bad enough.
They were particularly struck by cheese rolling. For those unfamiliar with British rural pastimes (we really do have top-notch eccentrics), this is a race which takes place in Gloucestershire every year. A large Double Gloucester cheese is rolled from the top of Cooper's Hill, a very tall and steep hill, and hundreds of people run/stagger/fall down after it in an attempt to catch it. The person who manages to grab the cheese first is the winner, but since it can reach speeds of up to 70 mph, there are usually plenty of injuries, although so far, there haven't been any deaths.
There are some great clips of last year's event here, although I'm slightly disappointed that they've gone all health-and-safety mad by now having lots of races with smaller groups instead of everyone at once. Still, there aren't many times in your life you get to hear someone yell, "Get the cheese!" at the top of their lungs.
My students were absolutely dumbfounded; after I explained how it worked, there was a stunned silence followed by a bewildered, "But... WHY?"
I looked at the girl. "You spent today trying to stick paper fish to people, right?"
"Well, yes."
"And you think the British are weird?"
Of course the real answer is that if you have to ask why someone would want to roll down an enormous hill, risking serious injury, while chasing a 70-mph cheese, then you're simply the kind of person who will never understand.
It's getting towards the end of my stay here, so my lessons have become a lot more lighthearted and self-deprecatory. I gave one class a list of bizarre sports practiced in Britain, such as bog-snorkelling, gurning, shin-kicking, the Bognor Birdman, zorbing, and so on, and got them to decide which were real and which I'd made up. They were amazed to discover that they were all true, leading to declarations that, "Ils sont fous, les anglais!" Just in case our reputation wasn't bad enough.
They were particularly struck by cheese rolling. For those unfamiliar with British rural pastimes (we really do have top-notch eccentrics), this is a race which takes place in Gloucestershire every year. A large Double Gloucester cheese is rolled from the top of Cooper's Hill, a very tall and steep hill, and hundreds of people run/stagger/fall down after it in an attempt to catch it. The person who manages to grab the cheese first is the winner, but since it can reach speeds of up to 70 mph, there are usually plenty of injuries, although so far, there haven't been any deaths.
There are some great clips of last year's event here, although I'm slightly disappointed that they've gone all health-and-safety mad by now having lots of races with smaller groups instead of everyone at once. Still, there aren't many times in your life you get to hear someone yell, "Get the cheese!" at the top of their lungs.
My students were absolutely dumbfounded; after I explained how it worked, there was a stunned silence followed by a bewildered, "But... WHY?"
I looked at the girl. "You spent today trying to stick paper fish to people, right?"
"Well, yes."
"And you think the British are weird?"
Of course the real answer is that if you have to ask why someone would want to roll down an enormous hill, risking serious injury, while chasing a 70-mph cheese, then you're simply the kind of person who will never understand.
Monday, 29 March 2010
I'm The King Of The Castle
There's a saying in France that, "Le client est roi" - the customer is king. It's often viewed as being rather tongue in cheek, because everyone has at some point experienced being totally ignored by someone supposedly in the customer service sector. I remember in my first week of being here, I was waiting in a long, long queue in Fnac (yes, yes, I know), which only had one girl on the till. After about ten minutes of queuing, another girl turned up to help her out. I, in my English naivety, brightened up, expecting her to throw her jacket off and get the till opened as quickly as possible to start serving customers, as I would have done. Oh no. Instead, she wandered leisurely over to her colleague, fait la bise, naturally, and then started up a little chat with her about the weekend. So now, instead of doubling the speed of service, she actually stopped the only cashier from working - and I was the only one who was surprised by this.
Yet the fact remains that, once you get used to little idiosyncracies like this, you do actually get great service in France. Shopkeepers and even fast food servers do actually speak to you like a human being and use full sentences. You might be nothing when you're in a queue (which may explain the French's distaste for such things) but when it's your turn to be served, it doesn't matter how long it takes. Unlike in the UK, you never feel like the person is constantly checking their watch and hoping you'll hurry up so they can reach their speed-of-service target. In a pharmacy, after I'd paid for my prescription and was about to leave, the pharmacist engaged me in a long, in-depth discussion about how pretty she thought my dress was, and after I had my travel vaccinations, the doctor kept me chatting for ten minutes about the imperial monetary system in the UK. Previously, I would have felt guilty about such time-wasting, but my head has become accustomed to this very French way of not caring about keeping others waiting. Right now, I'm the customer, and it's my right to be the king.*
Even in the supermarkets, you never feel rushed. One little act of politeness I will most certainly miss when I return to Blighty in just under two weeks is the fact that cashiers wait until you have finished packing your bags, putting your change back in your purse, and are ready to depart (with a bonne soirée, naturally) before they begin scanning the next customer's items. There's no pressure, just respect, and both the cashier and the person behind you will wait quite patiently because that's what's expected. You're not herded through with a two-minutes-per-customer target time like you are in certain UK supermarkets.
Furthermore, aside from in McDo (as the French call it) and Quick, you will never see a spotty, sixteen-year-old waiter or waitress. Putting plates on tables isn't a standby for the unqualified or a Saturday job for teenagers; it is considered an art form. I don't eat out very often, an assistant's wage being nothing special, but even in the cheap restaurants or family-run crêperies that I visit, every single waiter knows how to clear and carry plates in the 5*, silver-service fashion. Good service is seen as a God-given right here, and I can't help but love a country in which I can pay less than 10 euros for a two-course meal and a quart of local cider, and have that cider poured expertly for me by a guy who's probably got more qualifications than I'll have by the time I'm thirty.
* The French attitude to time infiltrates in other ways, too. While I was in Guiana, my boyfriend and I had an hour's gap between two of his lessons. He lives five minutes from the school, and I worriedly asked him if he thought we'd have enough time to eat lunch. He looked at me, shook his head, and replied, "You have become so French..."
Yet the fact remains that, once you get used to little idiosyncracies like this, you do actually get great service in France. Shopkeepers and even fast food servers do actually speak to you like a human being and use full sentences. You might be nothing when you're in a queue (which may explain the French's distaste for such things) but when it's your turn to be served, it doesn't matter how long it takes. Unlike in the UK, you never feel like the person is constantly checking their watch and hoping you'll hurry up so they can reach their speed-of-service target. In a pharmacy, after I'd paid for my prescription and was about to leave, the pharmacist engaged me in a long, in-depth discussion about how pretty she thought my dress was, and after I had my travel vaccinations, the doctor kept me chatting for ten minutes about the imperial monetary system in the UK. Previously, I would have felt guilty about such time-wasting, but my head has become accustomed to this very French way of not caring about keeping others waiting. Right now, I'm the customer, and it's my right to be the king.*
Even in the supermarkets, you never feel rushed. One little act of politeness I will most certainly miss when I return to Blighty in just under two weeks is the fact that cashiers wait until you have finished packing your bags, putting your change back in your purse, and are ready to depart (with a bonne soirée, naturally) before they begin scanning the next customer's items. There's no pressure, just respect, and both the cashier and the person behind you will wait quite patiently because that's what's expected. You're not herded through with a two-minutes-per-customer target time like you are in certain UK supermarkets.
Furthermore, aside from in McDo (as the French call it) and Quick, you will never see a spotty, sixteen-year-old waiter or waitress. Putting plates on tables isn't a standby for the unqualified or a Saturday job for teenagers; it is considered an art form. I don't eat out very often, an assistant's wage being nothing special, but even in the cheap restaurants or family-run crêperies that I visit, every single waiter knows how to clear and carry plates in the 5*, silver-service fashion. Good service is seen as a God-given right here, and I can't help but love a country in which I can pay less than 10 euros for a two-course meal and a quart of local cider, and have that cider poured expertly for me by a guy who's probably got more qualifications than I'll have by the time I'm thirty.
* The French attitude to time infiltrates in other ways, too. While I was in Guiana, my boyfriend and I had an hour's gap between two of his lessons. He lives five minutes from the school, and I worriedly asked him if he thought we'd have enough time to eat lunch. He looked at me, shook his head, and replied, "You have become so French..."
Thursday, 25 March 2010
Things I Never Knew About Teaching...
... when I was still at school.
- Teachers know everything that goes on in the school, even if they don't show it. They do notice when best friends fall out, and when pupils date each other. Carefully Coiffed, a 16-year-old boy in one of my classes, used to be - let's be frank here - a little shit until he recently started going out with the most intelligent girl in his class. Now his hand shoots up at every question, just to impress her, and every teacher in the staffroom is rooting for that particular relationship to last, at least until the summer holidays. And they're both still convinced we don't know.
- Teachers can spot masticating teenagers a mile off. Do they seriously think we don't know the old trick of putting chewing gum under your tongue when you answer a question? Come on. It was only six years ago that I was still at school. The same goes for surreptitious texting in the classroom, no matter how subtle they think they're being.
- Teachers never seem to tire of discussing pupils in the staffroom; it's the favourite topic of conversation. All the gossip, and dissection of their fashion senses too. Honestly, they'd be mortified if they heard what their maths teacher had to say about their new skirt.
- Teachers also appear to sense no shame or irony in announcing that a pupil they have taught for the past five years knows absolutely nothing about their respective subjects.
- It feels really quite weird for a 22-year-old unmarried female to be called 'Madame' by her 19-year-old pupils. And yes, some of them do call me that, despite the fact that I introduced myself as Zoe. I imagine it's equally weird for a fifty-something woman with three kids and thirty years of marriage under her belt to be called 'Miss' in the UK.
- Teachers know everything that goes on in the school, even if they don't show it. They do notice when best friends fall out, and when pupils date each other. Carefully Coiffed, a 16-year-old boy in one of my classes, used to be - let's be frank here - a little shit until he recently started going out with the most intelligent girl in his class. Now his hand shoots up at every question, just to impress her, and every teacher in the staffroom is rooting for that particular relationship to last, at least until the summer holidays. And they're both still convinced we don't know.
- Teachers can spot masticating teenagers a mile off. Do they seriously think we don't know the old trick of putting chewing gum under your tongue when you answer a question? Come on. It was only six years ago that I was still at school. The same goes for surreptitious texting in the classroom, no matter how subtle they think they're being.
- Teachers never seem to tire of discussing pupils in the staffroom; it's the favourite topic of conversation. All the gossip, and dissection of their fashion senses too. Honestly, they'd be mortified if they heard what their maths teacher had to say about their new skirt.
- Teachers also appear to sense no shame or irony in announcing that a pupil they have taught for the past five years knows absolutely nothing about their respective subjects.
- It feels really quite weird for a 22-year-old unmarried female to be called 'Madame' by her 19-year-old pupils. And yes, some of them do call me that, despite the fact that I introduced myself as Zoe. I imagine it's equally weird for a fifty-something woman with three kids and thirty years of marriage under her belt to be called 'Miss' in the UK.
Friday, 19 March 2010
Why It's Great To Be A Foreigner
I have a little confession to make. I often abuse my status as a foreigner - as well as the general perception that the English are all monolingual - for my own good. When approached by some market researcher/charity collector/general annoying timewaster, I simply smile apologetically, tell them I'm English, and walk away. It works almost all of the time; I have only been challenged once, and then I just ran away before he could catch me.
What makes it worse is how I do it: to make it more effective, I say, "Pardonn, je sweez on-glay" in my best (that is to say, worst) British accent, and deliberately make the gender agreement error in order to reinforce my linguistic incompetence. I discovered the hard way that people are less likely to believe that you don't understand what you're saying when you reply, "Chuis anglaise," in a reasonably authentic French accent; imagine a foreigner trying to fob you off by saying, "Sorry, mate, don't have a scooby doo what you're on about," in an Eastenders accent.
Of course, that trick works less and less these days with the growth of globalisation. Everybody speaks English these days and it's getting harder to use as an excuse for getting out of talking to somebody. A few years back, I was in Paris with my boyfriend at the time, and we were constantly getting hassled by beggars. Telling them we were English never helped because they'd learnt their spiel in several languages for the tourists. In the end, we pretended to be German: as soon as they approached, he rattled off a list of phrases he'd learnt from playing Medal of Honour, such as, "Can I see your papers, please?," "Look out, he's got a Bazooka!" and, "The American has dog biscuits in his pocket." They usually went away fairly quickly; I'm not sure if it's because they didn't understand German, or because they did and they decided they didn't want to be near anyone with a Bazooka or dog biscuits in his pocket.
Still, I'm not sure if even German would work as a shield against being harassed any more, as we become more and more multilingual. Hopefully, my conversational Arabic will help for a few more years yet, although it could potentially get me into trouble as I've learnt most of it from Hakim songs so most of the phrases I know are just chat-up lines. And, you never know, learning Irish Gaelic one weekend when I was bored may well come in useful in this respect one day. At the very least, there's always the Latin - as long as I never get asked to fill in a questionnaire by a public schoolboy or the Pope.
What makes it worse is how I do it: to make it more effective, I say, "Pardonn, je sweez on-glay" in my best (that is to say, worst) British accent, and deliberately make the gender agreement error in order to reinforce my linguistic incompetence. I discovered the hard way that people are less likely to believe that you don't understand what you're saying when you reply, "Chuis anglaise," in a reasonably authentic French accent; imagine a foreigner trying to fob you off by saying, "Sorry, mate, don't have a scooby doo what you're on about," in an Eastenders accent.
Of course, that trick works less and less these days with the growth of globalisation. Everybody speaks English these days and it's getting harder to use as an excuse for getting out of talking to somebody. A few years back, I was in Paris with my boyfriend at the time, and we were constantly getting hassled by beggars. Telling them we were English never helped because they'd learnt their spiel in several languages for the tourists. In the end, we pretended to be German: as soon as they approached, he rattled off a list of phrases he'd learnt from playing Medal of Honour, such as, "Can I see your papers, please?," "Look out, he's got a Bazooka!" and, "The American has dog biscuits in his pocket." They usually went away fairly quickly; I'm not sure if it's because they didn't understand German, or because they did and they decided they didn't want to be near anyone with a Bazooka or dog biscuits in his pocket.
Still, I'm not sure if even German would work as a shield against being harassed any more, as we become more and more multilingual. Hopefully, my conversational Arabic will help for a few more years yet, although it could potentially get me into trouble as I've learnt most of it from Hakim songs so most of the phrases I know are just chat-up lines. And, you never know, learning Irish Gaelic one weekend when I was bored may well come in useful in this respect one day. At the very least, there's always the Latin - as long as I never get asked to fill in a questionnaire by a public schoolboy or the Pope.
Thursday, 18 March 2010
The Good, The Bad, And The Homicide-Inducing
I have a number of students who make me light up just by walking into the classroom. There's Sensitive, a lovely, quiet boy with a side parting and a propensity for wearing roll-neck jumpers; he blushes every time I talk to him, and after I recently found my name and a rather flattering cartoon of me surrounded by hearts in his textbook, I now know why. Then there's Sunshine, who won my heart in her very first lesson with me by telling me that her favourite hobby was, "smiling," - and she wasn't lying. There's Earnest, who works harder than any student I've ever known and always has her hand up, but regularly bursts into tears because it never seems to make a difference - she has an A* for effort and enthusiasm but an F for actual ability. There's Philosopher, a brilliantly imaginative boy who often teaches me things when he weaves in original ideas and information from books he's read or documetaries he's seen into his presentations, and who is desperately trying to cultivate a moustache in an incredibly endearing way. There's Mr Boombastic, a cheeky little so-and-so who tries to chat me up in class (in that very French, charming way) but who is all talk - he turns as red as a beetroot if I ever joke back to him.
And then there's Prima Donna*. She is a tall, willowy blonde who is naturally going to be a famous singer one day, so she doesn't need to worry about a silly little thing like English. Unfortunately, she's also the coolest kid in the class so everyone else follows her lead: when Prima Donna talks while I'm trying to explain something, so do all the others.
Every teacher has a student - usually more than one - who gets to them. I know various ex-teachers who, years on, still shudder when they say certain names aloud. My family and partner know Prima Donna's name well, such is the amount of dread and foreboding in my voice when I mention her - and I usually do have to mention her a lot. I will admit that her class have, on at least one occasion, driven me to tears - thankfully once they'd left the classroom - out of sheer frustration. One of the problems of being female is that it's difficult to be heard over lots of noise; if I raise my voice, it just becomes high-pitched and shrill. There's a reason Margaret Thatcher had to have training to lower the pitch of her voice if she wanted any hope of sounding authoritative in Parliament, or even of being heard at all.
So when you manage to finally get somewhere with a student like that, you could practically bottle the relief and euphoria that flows through you. There is a human child in that devil spawn after all!
It happened completely by accident. I'd planned a lesson on star signs and horoscopes, not expecting much, so I was amazed to hear Prima Donna say, "Ah, c'est cool, ça," when she read the sheet I'd given her. It turned out that she was massively into astrology, so she got stuck in to dissecting the character analysis for her star sign straight away. And where Prima Donna goes, the others follow and soon they were excitedly discussing their star signs and writing horoscopes for each other.
I couldn't believe it. I don't expect that it will last long, but it felt incredible when, instead of the usual pouts, churlish silence when asked a question and haughty looks, she even called me 'Madame' and asked about some of the vocabulary. God knows what'll happen in the next lesson - I obviously can't do the Zodiac every week - but I feel a little glimmer of hope at least.
As an added bonus, I asked them how many believed in their horoscopes and about a third did. Then I gave them what I told them was their horoscopes from the day before - in fact, I'd taken some from the internet over a month earlier and doctored them a bit. Almost all of them gasped about how spookily accurate they were; in the next vote, the number who said they believed in horoscopes doubled. I still haven't decided whether or not to 'fess up.
* Up until an embarrassingly late age, I had only ever heard this word spoken, and so I thought it was actually Pre-Madonna. It made sense to me: a wannabe diva who hadn't quite got there yet. It wasn't until I finally read the libretto of Phantom of the Opera that I realised my mistake...
And then there's Prima Donna*. She is a tall, willowy blonde who is naturally going to be a famous singer one day, so she doesn't need to worry about a silly little thing like English. Unfortunately, she's also the coolest kid in the class so everyone else follows her lead: when Prima Donna talks while I'm trying to explain something, so do all the others.
Every teacher has a student - usually more than one - who gets to them. I know various ex-teachers who, years on, still shudder when they say certain names aloud. My family and partner know Prima Donna's name well, such is the amount of dread and foreboding in my voice when I mention her - and I usually do have to mention her a lot. I will admit that her class have, on at least one occasion, driven me to tears - thankfully once they'd left the classroom - out of sheer frustration. One of the problems of being female is that it's difficult to be heard over lots of noise; if I raise my voice, it just becomes high-pitched and shrill. There's a reason Margaret Thatcher had to have training to lower the pitch of her voice if she wanted any hope of sounding authoritative in Parliament, or even of being heard at all.
So when you manage to finally get somewhere with a student like that, you could practically bottle the relief and euphoria that flows through you. There is a human child in that devil spawn after all!
It happened completely by accident. I'd planned a lesson on star signs and horoscopes, not expecting much, so I was amazed to hear Prima Donna say, "Ah, c'est cool, ça," when she read the sheet I'd given her. It turned out that she was massively into astrology, so she got stuck in to dissecting the character analysis for her star sign straight away. And where Prima Donna goes, the others follow and soon they were excitedly discussing their star signs and writing horoscopes for each other.
I couldn't believe it. I don't expect that it will last long, but it felt incredible when, instead of the usual pouts, churlish silence when asked a question and haughty looks, she even called me 'Madame' and asked about some of the vocabulary. God knows what'll happen in the next lesson - I obviously can't do the Zodiac every week - but I feel a little glimmer of hope at least.
As an added bonus, I asked them how many believed in their horoscopes and about a third did. Then I gave them what I told them was their horoscopes from the day before - in fact, I'd taken some from the internet over a month earlier and doctored them a bit. Almost all of them gasped about how spookily accurate they were; in the next vote, the number who said they believed in horoscopes doubled. I still haven't decided whether or not to 'fess up.
* Up until an embarrassingly late age, I had only ever heard this word spoken, and so I thought it was actually Pre-Madonna. It made sense to me: a wannabe diva who hadn't quite got there yet. It wasn't until I finally read the libretto of Phantom of the Opera that I realised my mistake...
Wednesday, 17 March 2010
What A Lot Of Gaul
When I was in my first year of university, my classmate (the one who is now my partner) and I devised a mischievous plan as part of our ongoing battle against our jobsworth, oh-so-patriotic French tutor. For our oral exam, we would debate the motion 'The French believe that the world revolves around France'. We would do it completely over-the-top, tongue-in-cheek, and annoy her so much that she would give us 2.1s instead of Firsts, but hey, it's first year and the grades don't count, so it would be worth it for the sheer entertainment value. Unfortunately, for a number of reasons (of which cowardice was not one) the plan never transpired. Now, two years later, I'm discovering that our proposition was not quite as ludicrous as we'd once believed.
When it comes to taking undeserved credit for things, the French beat Gordon Brown hands down. It is absolutely incredibly just how many things - small, insignificant and thus all the more frustrating things - that they will claim as French without a hint of irony. It struck me how much this was the case when my housemate happened to play 'A Whole New World' from Aladdin one day. It was in French and I didn't know the words so, as I was baking in the kitchen, I began to sing along with the English lyrics. She looked at me, open-mouthed: "C'est quoi, ça?"
I smiled. "Well, it's the original lyrics. You know, from the original film."
She snorted with laughter. "What are you talking about? The original film is French!"
"You can't possibly be serious. Walt Disney was American! All Disney films are American."
"Quoi? Disney is French. He built Disneyland in Paris, didn't he?"
In the end, it took twenty minutes on Wikipedia and a number of YouTube clips of the same song in German, Hungarian, Chinese, Arabic and so on to convince her.
Something like that is so ridiculous that I can laugh it off. I can even cope when, after promising my housemates an authentic English dessert, I made them an apple crumble, only to be told, "Ah, but apple crumble is French!"
What I cannot allow to slide is the heinous violation of my heritage that comes from a Frenchman claiming that they invented the sandwich. I am not proud of what I did, but there are some things an English girl has to do to protect the honour of her country. I'll be packing my suitcases, but when the Rennes police find the dead body of a Frenchman with a picture of the Earl of Sandwich shoved up his left nostril and, "Show me another French word with a w in it!" scrawled on his corpse with a board marker, they won't need too many clues to find the perpetrator.
When it comes to taking undeserved credit for things, the French beat Gordon Brown hands down. It is absolutely incredibly just how many things - small, insignificant and thus all the more frustrating things - that they will claim as French without a hint of irony. It struck me how much this was the case when my housemate happened to play 'A Whole New World' from Aladdin one day. It was in French and I didn't know the words so, as I was baking in the kitchen, I began to sing along with the English lyrics. She looked at me, open-mouthed: "C'est quoi, ça?"
I smiled. "Well, it's the original lyrics. You know, from the original film."
She snorted with laughter. "What are you talking about? The original film is French!"
"You can't possibly be serious. Walt Disney was American! All Disney films are American."
"Quoi? Disney is French. He built Disneyland in Paris, didn't he?"
In the end, it took twenty minutes on Wikipedia and a number of YouTube clips of the same song in German, Hungarian, Chinese, Arabic and so on to convince her.
Something like that is so ridiculous that I can laugh it off. I can even cope when, after promising my housemates an authentic English dessert, I made them an apple crumble, only to be told, "Ah, but apple crumble is French!"
What I cannot allow to slide is the heinous violation of my heritage that comes from a Frenchman claiming that they invented the sandwich. I am not proud of what I did, but there are some things an English girl has to do to protect the honour of her country. I'll be packing my suitcases, but when the Rennes police find the dead body of a Frenchman with a picture of the Earl of Sandwich shoved up his left nostril and, "Show me another French word with a w in it!" scrawled on his corpse with a board marker, they won't need too many clues to find the perpetrator.
Tuesday, 9 March 2010
What's In A Number?
As well as the variation in levels, another difference I noticed between schools in Guiana and Brittany is the demographic of teachers. The majority of teachers in my boyfriend's schools were around 35 or under; in my school, almost all of them are in their late forties and there's only one under 35. Bizarrely - and I think this is just a coincidence - a large proportion of them are in interracial marriages, that is to say, a white French woman married to an African, Arab or Asian man. I have no idea why all the non-racist people in France appear to have gathered together in one school, but there you go.
However, the age difference is unsurprising when you look at how teaching works in France. Unlike in the UK, teachers in France are actually civil servants: once they've passed their exams*, assuming they remain fit to teach and don't turn out to be paedophiles, they have employment for life. Hence why they go on strike far more often than their British counterparts.
The designation of French teachers works rather like the Army: instead of applying for jobs in individual schools, as we do, they instead get posted to schools by the government. They can choose the académie (academic region) or at least make a request, but they don't choose the school they are assigned to. In theory, each posting is a contract for a few years, but they can choose to extend it if they wish.
Unsurprisingly, the more experience you have as a teacher, the more clout you have when it comes to getting your preferred académie. NQTs almost always get the dirty jobs that no one else wants, while seasoned veterans can practically pick and choose. This is why so many new or new-ish teachers end up in the overseas départements. They know they're likely to get in because no one wants to go there due to the poor school results, but if they apply for anywhere better, they'll be lumbered with worse - ie the suburbs of Paris - so they hedge their bets and figure that at least they can get a tan. Or, if we're being less cynical, the teachers who choose to go to the DOMs are young, single and still looking for a bit of adventure and jungle trekking before they settle down in the south of France.
Brittany, on the other hand, is one of the most desired académies - supposedly due to its high school results but I'm tempted to believe that the amazing cider has something to do with it too. Which is why my school is populated with highly experienced teachers who have done their bit, slogging it in the ZEPs (Zone Education Prioritaire - basically ASBO Central), and are finally settling into probably their last posting in a cushy job in a nice Breton lycée, with kids who know how to spell Proust and who say, "Bonjour Madame," every morning to you.
I promise I'll stop blathering on about education theory and get back to the guess-what-my-students-said-this-week anecdotes soon.
* Which are competitive; in other words, if there are 50 places and 100 entrants, the top 50 will pass and the rest will fail, even if they get, say, 95%.
However, the age difference is unsurprising when you look at how teaching works in France. Unlike in the UK, teachers in France are actually civil servants: once they've passed their exams*, assuming they remain fit to teach and don't turn out to be paedophiles, they have employment for life. Hence why they go on strike far more often than their British counterparts.
The designation of French teachers works rather like the Army: instead of applying for jobs in individual schools, as we do, they instead get posted to schools by the government. They can choose the académie (academic region) or at least make a request, but they don't choose the school they are assigned to. In theory, each posting is a contract for a few years, but they can choose to extend it if they wish.
Unsurprisingly, the more experience you have as a teacher, the more clout you have when it comes to getting your preferred académie. NQTs almost always get the dirty jobs that no one else wants, while seasoned veterans can practically pick and choose. This is why so many new or new-ish teachers end up in the overseas départements. They know they're likely to get in because no one wants to go there due to the poor school results, but if they apply for anywhere better, they'll be lumbered with worse - ie the suburbs of Paris - so they hedge their bets and figure that at least they can get a tan. Or, if we're being less cynical, the teachers who choose to go to the DOMs are young, single and still looking for a bit of adventure and jungle trekking before they settle down in the south of France.
Brittany, on the other hand, is one of the most desired académies - supposedly due to its high school results but I'm tempted to believe that the amazing cider has something to do with it too. Which is why my school is populated with highly experienced teachers who have done their bit, slogging it in the ZEPs (Zone Education Prioritaire - basically ASBO Central), and are finally settling into probably their last posting in a cushy job in a nice Breton lycée, with kids who know how to spell Proust and who say, "Bonjour Madame," every morning to you.
I promise I'll stop blathering on about education theory and get back to the guess-what-my-students-said-this-week anecdotes soon.
* Which are competitive; in other words, if there are 50 places and 100 entrants, the top 50 will pass and the rest will fail, even if they get, say, 95%.
Sunday, 7 March 2010
Wonderwall
The other day, I used Wonderwall by Oasis with one of my classes, as music is generally a good way to get them talking without realising it. One of the follow-up activities was to get the students to read out some of the lines for pronunciation practice.
"And affter all, you're my wonderwall," one of them read.
"That's good," I replied, "You just need to think about that first vowel in 'after'. It's 'ah-fter', remember, like the vowel in 'aunt' that we practiced before?"
"Affter."
"Not quite - listen again. Ah-fter. Can you say that? Ah-fter."
"No, 'e said affter in ze song."
The student was so determined that she was right on this one that she made me play that section of the song again, grinning triumphantly when Liam Gallagher did, of course, sing 'affter'. And what could I do? I explained that he spoke a Northern dialect which does in fact use the short 'a', as well as dropping 'h's, which I'm always telling them off for doing. I explained that I spoke Standard English with at least the remnants of an RP accent*, and that was the dialect usually taught to foreign speakers of English. However, I couldn't actually tell them that what they were saying was wrong. Damn you, Liam Gallagher.
The UK has an amazingly high number of dialects - far more than most European countries, I'd wager, especially given its size. In France, there's only really Parisian, Breton, Ch'ti, Southern and Tours (the latter being generally accepted as the 'best' French) - there are more than that between Birmingham and Edinburgh alone. This makes life pretty difficult for teaching English because the majority of people don't have the standard accent; I do wonder how the Scottish and Mancunian assistants nearby get on. Should they try to change their accent for teaching purposes in order to avoid confusion, or just speak normally and acknowledge that they have a different but equally valid way of speaking?
Most of the time, it doesn't matter too much as I only really insist on certain aspects of pronunciation, such as 'h', 'th' (instead of 's' or 'z') and stress. I only picked on that particular vowel because it was a common mistake: my students tend to blend a lot of vowels together so that (because of the dropped 'h'), the words: 'hut', 'hat', 'hot', 'out' and 'ate' are pronounced almost identically - something a bit like 'put' but without the 'p'. Still, I've learnt my lesson and will never use Oasis for pronunciation exercises again. I can only thank my lucky stars I didn't use that song where they manage to somehow fit four syllables into the word 'sunshine'.
* Which moving to Suffolk, going to university, and dating a Northerner have begun to kill off.
"And affter all, you're my wonderwall," one of them read.
"That's good," I replied, "You just need to think about that first vowel in 'after'. It's 'ah-fter', remember, like the vowel in 'aunt' that we practiced before?"
"Affter."
"Not quite - listen again. Ah-fter. Can you say that? Ah-fter."
"No, 'e said affter in ze song."
The student was so determined that she was right on this one that she made me play that section of the song again, grinning triumphantly when Liam Gallagher did, of course, sing 'affter'. And what could I do? I explained that he spoke a Northern dialect which does in fact use the short 'a', as well as dropping 'h's, which I'm always telling them off for doing. I explained that I spoke Standard English with at least the remnants of an RP accent*, and that was the dialect usually taught to foreign speakers of English. However, I couldn't actually tell them that what they were saying was wrong. Damn you, Liam Gallagher.
The UK has an amazingly high number of dialects - far more than most European countries, I'd wager, especially given its size. In France, there's only really Parisian, Breton, Ch'ti, Southern and Tours (the latter being generally accepted as the 'best' French) - there are more than that between Birmingham and Edinburgh alone. This makes life pretty difficult for teaching English because the majority of people don't have the standard accent; I do wonder how the Scottish and Mancunian assistants nearby get on. Should they try to change their accent for teaching purposes in order to avoid confusion, or just speak normally and acknowledge that they have a different but equally valid way of speaking?
Most of the time, it doesn't matter too much as I only really insist on certain aspects of pronunciation, such as 'h', 'th' (instead of 's' or 'z') and stress. I only picked on that particular vowel because it was a common mistake: my students tend to blend a lot of vowels together so that (because of the dropped 'h'), the words: 'hut', 'hat', 'hot', 'out' and 'ate' are pronounced almost identically - something a bit like 'put' but without the 'p'. Still, I've learnt my lesson and will never use Oasis for pronunciation exercises again. I can only thank my lucky stars I didn't use that song where they manage to somehow fit four syllables into the word 'sunshine'.
* Which moving to Suffolk, going to university, and dating a Northerner have begun to kill off.
Friday, 5 March 2010
Why Teachers Have High Blood Pressure
During my trip to French Guiana (see previous note if you're reading this on Facebook), I had the interesting experience of helping out my boyfriend, who is also a language assistant, with some of his classes. I expected a lower level; firstly, he teaches younger students than I do, and secondly, Rennes is one of the best-performing academic regions in France while Guiana is one of the worst-performing. However, it was still a hell of a shock.
In one troisieme class (equivalent of Year 10 in the UK), I asked one girl if she had any pets. She thought about it for several minutes before mustering all the efforts of at least four years of learning English to reply, "Me dog."
In a seconde class (Year 11), we revised the simple past and got them to write a single sentence describing what they did in the holidays. After extensive revision on how to form the past with regular verbs, a game to practice their formation, the words "play -> played" written on the board and ten minutes of writing time, one boy still managed to produce "I play football".
What the hell is an assistant meant to do with a kid like that? Now, I realise that my experience of language learning was very different to that of these children; plus, as someone who loves languages and finds them easy to learn, I know it is important to remember that not everyone will pick things up quite as quickly. But there is no way to achieve the oh-so-lofty British Council ideals of 'cultural exchange' and 'aiding spoken fluency' when the students' level of English is so poor that you are reduced to revising basic grammar every lesson. Frankly, in those situations, it is difficult to see the point of having an assistant at all, aside from the fact that some of the real teachers don't even speak particularly brilliant English either.
One of the problems stems from the lack of setting in the French education system; thanks to good old liberté, égalité, fraternité, almost all lessons are mixed-ability, an idea I have always detested. At best, this means that the strongest students are bored (or pretend not to be strong so as not to get bullied)so they mess around, the weakest students don't have a clue what's going on and are embarrassed about it so they mess around, and the average students don't stand a chance of learning anything among all the chaos. At worst, you end up with extremes like one seconde class in which my boyfriend is expected to be able to teach the same lesson to a girl from St Lucia who is practically bilingual, and a boy who can't read the sentence, "Where did you go?" off the board.
One more particular bete noire of mine: just about every ESL/TEFL resource will tell you to pair weak students with strong students during groupwork activities because they can help each other. No, no, and no. As someone who had to put up with this for years at school, I can tell you that it doesn't work. I just got incredibly frustrated at the other person and at never being able to stretch myself by being able to have a discussion at the level I wanted. Then, when I got to university and suddenly wasn't top of the class anymore - far from it, in fact - I got to experience being the weaker student in the pair. That's no better, because I just ended up tongue-tied and not wanting to say anything at all for fear of embarrassing myself in front of a peer who was so much better than me.*
Segregation in education has its problems, sure, especially when you take it to extremes, as in Germany. But there are times when I get sick of all this twaddle about everyone being the same, and this is one of them.
* The fact that, two years later, I ended up dating that very same peer I was too terrified to speak French to is irrelevant. *grin*
In one troisieme class (equivalent of Year 10 in the UK), I asked one girl if she had any pets. She thought about it for several minutes before mustering all the efforts of at least four years of learning English to reply, "Me dog."
In a seconde class (Year 11), we revised the simple past and got them to write a single sentence describing what they did in the holidays. After extensive revision on how to form the past with regular verbs, a game to practice their formation, the words "play -> played" written on the board and ten minutes of writing time, one boy still managed to produce "I play football".
What the hell is an assistant meant to do with a kid like that? Now, I realise that my experience of language learning was very different to that of these children; plus, as someone who loves languages and finds them easy to learn, I know it is important to remember that not everyone will pick things up quite as quickly. But there is no way to achieve the oh-so-lofty British Council ideals of 'cultural exchange' and 'aiding spoken fluency' when the students' level of English is so poor that you are reduced to revising basic grammar every lesson. Frankly, in those situations, it is difficult to see the point of having an assistant at all, aside from the fact that some of the real teachers don't even speak particularly brilliant English either.
One of the problems stems from the lack of setting in the French education system; thanks to good old liberté, égalité, fraternité, almost all lessons are mixed-ability, an idea I have always detested. At best, this means that the strongest students are bored (or pretend not to be strong so as not to get bullied)so they mess around, the weakest students don't have a clue what's going on and are embarrassed about it so they mess around, and the average students don't stand a chance of learning anything among all the chaos. At worst, you end up with extremes like one seconde class in which my boyfriend is expected to be able to teach the same lesson to a girl from St Lucia who is practically bilingual, and a boy who can't read the sentence, "Where did you go?" off the board.
One more particular bete noire of mine: just about every ESL/TEFL resource will tell you to pair weak students with strong students during groupwork activities because they can help each other. No, no, and no. As someone who had to put up with this for years at school, I can tell you that it doesn't work. I just got incredibly frustrated at the other person and at never being able to stretch myself by being able to have a discussion at the level I wanted. Then, when I got to university and suddenly wasn't top of the class anymore - far from it, in fact - I got to experience being the weaker student in the pair. That's no better, because I just ended up tongue-tied and not wanting to say anything at all for fear of embarrassing myself in front of a peer who was so much better than me.*
Segregation in education has its problems, sure, especially when you take it to extremes, as in Germany. But there are times when I get sick of all this twaddle about everyone being the same, and this is one of them.
* The fact that, two years later, I ended up dating that very same peer I was too terrified to speak French to is irrelevant. *grin*
Saturday, 6 February 2010
Foot in Mouth Disease
And the nominations for this year's "Please Just Let The Ground Open And Swallow Me Up" award for most embarrassed student are:
- The student who, when I asked for an example of a song that uses franglais, piped up without thinking, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?". To which I simply grinned and told her it was very kind and we'd talk about it later.
- The lad whose so-called friend had told him that the English word for soudeur ('welder') was, in fact, 'blowjobber'. He had just announced to the class, during a discussion on future careers, that this was what he wanted to be. I'm not sure who was more embarrassed, me or him, when I had to explain to him what the word actually meant...
- The student who told the class that his biggest complaint about his parents is that his mother is a dominatrix. Another of those occasions where it's difficult to decide if it would be worse to explain what he just said, or not to...
- The lad I saw this afternoon in the lingerie section of a large department store in Rennes. My students always seem amazed enough as it is when they see me out of school - as if I sleep upside down from the rafters like a bat when I'm not teaching - but the look on his face was priceless when he realised he'd been caught traipsing round looking at bras and enormous knickers with his Mum. That's the last time he'll be asking for my phone number in class.
- The student who, when I asked for an example of a song that uses franglais, piped up without thinking, "Voulez-vous coucher avec moi ce soir?". To which I simply grinned and told her it was very kind and we'd talk about it later.
- The lad whose so-called friend had told him that the English word for soudeur ('welder') was, in fact, 'blowjobber'. He had just announced to the class, during a discussion on future careers, that this was what he wanted to be. I'm not sure who was more embarrassed, me or him, when I had to explain to him what the word actually meant...
- The student who told the class that his biggest complaint about his parents is that his mother is a dominatrix. Another of those occasions where it's difficult to decide if it would be worse to explain what he just said, or not to...
- The lad I saw this afternoon in the lingerie section of a large department store in Rennes. My students always seem amazed enough as it is when they see me out of school - as if I sleep upside down from the rafters like a bat when I'm not teaching - but the look on his face was priceless when he realised he'd been caught traipsing round looking at bras and enormous knickers with his Mum. That's the last time he'll be asking for my phone number in class.
Wednesday, 3 February 2010
French Drivers
It's common knowledge that the French regard zebra crossings and pelican crossings as pretty stripes on the road that are there for decoration and little else. Even when the green man is lit up, cars are still allowed to drive over the crossing if they're turning right, so they're fairly pointless. You can't rely on any car to stop for you, regardless of whether you have right of way or not.
Of course, there are exceptions. I almost always have cars stop for me if I'm wearing a skirt; I have done several experiments and my findings are consistent on this one. Also, when my mother is in France with her walking stick or in a wheelchair (she's disabled rather than old, I hasten to point out), the cars always stop courteously for her. You're treated well in this country if you're disabled or a young female; everyone else can va se faire foutre.
Which brings me on to the single most French experience I've had in my four months of living here. Having finished teaching this morning (long live the French system of no school on Wednesday afternoons), I was on the bus back to Rennes when I saw a little boy, about ten years old, hovering at the side of road next to a zebra crossing. Holding two French baguettes, he was clearly trying to decide whether to cross or not. The bus driver had no intention of stopping - indeed she seemed to speed up - and she tutted, moaning, "Bloody pedestrians!" Then, suddenly, she noticed the baguettes, slammed on the brakes, saying, "Oh, wait, he's got bread," and smiled at him as he crossed the road.
I swear this is true. Only in France do vehicles stop for bread, not people.
Of course, there are exceptions. I almost always have cars stop for me if I'm wearing a skirt; I have done several experiments and my findings are consistent on this one. Also, when my mother is in France with her walking stick or in a wheelchair (she's disabled rather than old, I hasten to point out), the cars always stop courteously for her. You're treated well in this country if you're disabled or a young female; everyone else can va se faire foutre.
Which brings me on to the single most French experience I've had in my four months of living here. Having finished teaching this morning (long live the French system of no school on Wednesday afternoons), I was on the bus back to Rennes when I saw a little boy, about ten years old, hovering at the side of road next to a zebra crossing. Holding two French baguettes, he was clearly trying to decide whether to cross or not. The bus driver had no intention of stopping - indeed she seemed to speed up - and she tutted, moaning, "Bloody pedestrians!" Then, suddenly, she noticed the baguettes, slammed on the brakes, saying, "Oh, wait, he's got bread," and smiled at him as he crossed the road.
I swear this is true. Only in France do vehicles stop for bread, not people.
Thursday, 28 January 2010
Bisous
Let's talk about kissing.
The French do it a lot. An awful lot. No amount of swine flu paranoia can sway that near-stranger's lips from their inevitable path towards your defenceless cheek. It's just what's done.
I can safely say that I have kissed more people in the last four months than I have in my entire life up to my arrival in France. In fact, I probably broke that record in one night at a birthday party I bellydanced at just before Christmas, where I was shepherded round to meet everyone, complete with bisous.
I don't have any personal space issues but all this physical affection for people I've just met does jar a little with my English sense of restraint and propreity. There are people I saw almost every day at school for seven years of my life with whom I have never had any physical contact, and yet I'm expected to embrace every Jacques, Pierre and Jean-Claude that my housemates bring back to the apartment. Sometimes I'll forget, and when a random friend-of-a-friend is introduced to me as I'm chopping onions in the kitchen, I'll simply look up, smile and say, "Salut," then carry on with what I'm doing. Then I'll notice them hovering, a fixed smile on their face in an attempt to mask their thoughts about the rude, cold English, and remember where I am, before going over to faire la bise.
I hadn't realised just how important this was for establishing relations until today. Normally, when I meet friends/lovers/fuckbuddies of my housemates, it's very casual and we start off on 'tu' terms. This suits me down to the ground, because I hate the tu/vous distinction; I never know which one to use and generally end up talking in roundabout sentences to avoid having to say the word 'you' until I've worked out where I stand.* But today, I was in the middle of the delicate process of baking a banoffee pie when I was introduced to a housemate's friend, and so I simply greeted her from where I was. This was the first person I haven't kissed, and I don't think it was a coincidence that she was the first visitor to vouvoie me. I can only assume that she decided I'd set a certain level of formality between us by not doing the bise. The problem is that I refuse to offer tutoyer because of my age; I've heard too many horror stories about young people saying to older people, "Et si on se tutoie?" and receiving the crushingly civil reply, "Comme vous voulez". And so we ended up with awkwardly formal small talk until my housemate laughed, told us not to be so ridiculous and tutoie one another. All because of one bloody kiss.
Except, of course, that it isn't just one kiss; it's two. And that's just with reasonable people - it can be three or even four with some. It's incredible how much time this takes up, especially at work. I have to arrive in the staffroom at least five minutes early each morning in order to have time to do the rounds of kissing before classes begin. And if, on my way to a lesson, I happen to spot a pack of as-of-yet ungreeted 4-kissers (because they always seem to group together, like wolves), it's actually quicker to take a detour and go the long way round to avoid them. Then hometime comes, and it's the same kissy-kissy business again.
Bisous, everyone.
Update: according to Combien de Bises?, two is the average for my département, but if I go any further East, I'll be in dangerous four-bises territory...
* A while back, I was walking along the street in Montfort and met a woman who clearly knew me. I recognised her from somewhere, but couldn't think where. That would be an awkward enough situation in any language, but it was made worse by the fact that I had no idea if we were on 'tu' or 'vous' terms! The irony is that so many French people I've met must think I'm incredibly rude because of the strange way in which I speak and avoid asking questions, which is all due to my cringing fear of accidentally offending them...
The French do it a lot. An awful lot. No amount of swine flu paranoia can sway that near-stranger's lips from their inevitable path towards your defenceless cheek. It's just what's done.
I can safely say that I have kissed more people in the last four months than I have in my entire life up to my arrival in France. In fact, I probably broke that record in one night at a birthday party I bellydanced at just before Christmas, where I was shepherded round to meet everyone, complete with bisous.
I don't have any personal space issues but all this physical affection for people I've just met does jar a little with my English sense of restraint and propreity. There are people I saw almost every day at school for seven years of my life with whom I have never had any physical contact, and yet I'm expected to embrace every Jacques, Pierre and Jean-Claude that my housemates bring back to the apartment. Sometimes I'll forget, and when a random friend-of-a-friend is introduced to me as I'm chopping onions in the kitchen, I'll simply look up, smile and say, "Salut," then carry on with what I'm doing. Then I'll notice them hovering, a fixed smile on their face in an attempt to mask their thoughts about the rude, cold English, and remember where I am, before going over to faire la bise.
I hadn't realised just how important this was for establishing relations until today. Normally, when I meet friends/lovers/fuckbuddies of my housemates, it's very casual and we start off on 'tu' terms. This suits me down to the ground, because I hate the tu/vous distinction; I never know which one to use and generally end up talking in roundabout sentences to avoid having to say the word 'you' until I've worked out where I stand.* But today, I was in the middle of the delicate process of baking a banoffee pie when I was introduced to a housemate's friend, and so I simply greeted her from where I was. This was the first person I haven't kissed, and I don't think it was a coincidence that she was the first visitor to vouvoie me. I can only assume that she decided I'd set a certain level of formality between us by not doing the bise. The problem is that I refuse to offer tutoyer because of my age; I've heard too many horror stories about young people saying to older people, "Et si on se tutoie?" and receiving the crushingly civil reply, "Comme vous voulez". And so we ended up with awkwardly formal small talk until my housemate laughed, told us not to be so ridiculous and tutoie one another. All because of one bloody kiss.
Except, of course, that it isn't just one kiss; it's two. And that's just with reasonable people - it can be three or even four with some. It's incredible how much time this takes up, especially at work. I have to arrive in the staffroom at least five minutes early each morning in order to have time to do the rounds of kissing before classes begin. And if, on my way to a lesson, I happen to spot a pack of as-of-yet ungreeted 4-kissers (because they always seem to group together, like wolves), it's actually quicker to take a detour and go the long way round to avoid them. Then hometime comes, and it's the same kissy-kissy business again.
Bisous, everyone.
Update: according to Combien de Bises?, two is the average for my département, but if I go any further East, I'll be in dangerous four-bises territory...
* A while back, I was walking along the street in Montfort and met a woman who clearly knew me. I recognised her from somewhere, but couldn't think where. That would be an awkward enough situation in any language, but it was made worse by the fact that I had no idea if we were on 'tu' or 'vous' terms! The irony is that so many French people I've met must think I'm incredibly rude because of the strange way in which I speak and avoid asking questions, which is all due to my cringing fear of accidentally offending them...
Wednesday, 27 January 2010
FAIL
Double fail for me this morning, in the same class.
I was working on pronunciation, and in one activity, focused on the incessant and downright irritating 'h'-dropping that is so common among French people speaking English. No matter how many times I tell them, or how clearly I explain it, they always leave out 'h's where they're needed and then, bizarrely, insert them where they're not; "Ow hold hare you?" is pretty common, for example. I'm reliably informed by a linguist (a real one, not a poser like me) that this is because they know there's an 'h' in there somewhere but they just don't know where to put it. I can see this, though personally, I would have thought that the spelling was a pretty damn big clue. And while we're on the subject, Americans, go look up the word 'herb' and tell me what it starts with.
Anyway, in this activity, the students had to read aloud short passages of text, while the rest of the class listened closely to their pronunciation. If they spotted a dropped 'h', they had to yell, "Ha!" and scored a point (and, of course, if they dropped the 'h' of the 'ha', someone else could call them out too!). I should point out that this is a small, cheeky group of about 8 with whom I have a really good rapport, before anyone accuses me of bullying my students.
The game went well, and we moved on to something else. A little later, I read out some instructions that they had on a sheet in front of them. As I said the word 'hour', one of the boys yelled triumphantly, "Ha!" Twenty minutes of, "Look, I know what I said but... yes, I know it doesn't make sense but... no, there isn't any way of telling..." later, I concluded that English is a bloody stupid language.
The second fail (or epic win, depending on which way you look at it) came towards the end of the lesson. I've mentioned here before that my school doesn't have a traditional bell to mark the end of each class; instead, there is a short burst of music (usually classical, but not always), chosen by the headmaster and which changes every half term*. At the moment, it is a Mike Oldfield song, but unfortunately not 'Tubular Bells' - I have a couple of students who are demonic enough to warrant it. No, it's "Talk About Your Life" - the section where the woman sings:
"Talk about your life, I'd like to know
It's not easy going where no one goes"
A bizarre choice, but there we go. Anyway, one of the boys has a gift for mimickry and has managed to get her voice down to a T, as I discovered when I almost dismissed the class ten minutes early; I was saved only by the fact that none of them could keep a straight face.
* My suggestion of the theme tune from The Great Escape has so far been ignored.
I was working on pronunciation, and in one activity, focused on the incessant and downright irritating 'h'-dropping that is so common among French people speaking English. No matter how many times I tell them, or how clearly I explain it, they always leave out 'h's where they're needed and then, bizarrely, insert them where they're not; "Ow hold hare you?" is pretty common, for example. I'm reliably informed by a linguist (a real one, not a poser like me) that this is because they know there's an 'h' in there somewhere but they just don't know where to put it. I can see this, though personally, I would have thought that the spelling was a pretty damn big clue. And while we're on the subject, Americans, go look up the word 'herb' and tell me what it starts with.
Anyway, in this activity, the students had to read aloud short passages of text, while the rest of the class listened closely to their pronunciation. If they spotted a dropped 'h', they had to yell, "Ha!" and scored a point (and, of course, if they dropped the 'h' of the 'ha', someone else could call them out too!). I should point out that this is a small, cheeky group of about 8 with whom I have a really good rapport, before anyone accuses me of bullying my students.
The game went well, and we moved on to something else. A little later, I read out some instructions that they had on a sheet in front of them. As I said the word 'hour', one of the boys yelled triumphantly, "Ha!" Twenty minutes of, "Look, I know what I said but... yes, I know it doesn't make sense but... no, there isn't any way of telling..." later, I concluded that English is a bloody stupid language.
The second fail (or epic win, depending on which way you look at it) came towards the end of the lesson. I've mentioned here before that my school doesn't have a traditional bell to mark the end of each class; instead, there is a short burst of music (usually classical, but not always), chosen by the headmaster and which changes every half term*. At the moment, it is a Mike Oldfield song, but unfortunately not 'Tubular Bells' - I have a couple of students who are demonic enough to warrant it. No, it's "Talk About Your Life" - the section where the woman sings:
"Talk about your life, I'd like to know
It's not easy going where no one goes"
A bizarre choice, but there we go. Anyway, one of the boys has a gift for mimickry and has managed to get her voice down to a T, as I discovered when I almost dismissed the class ten minutes early; I was saved only by the fact that none of them could keep a straight face.
* My suggestion of the theme tune from The Great Escape has so far been ignored.
Monday, 25 January 2010
Zoe 1, Bureaucracy 0
Hurrah! After putting it off for four months, I've finally managed to organise social security, and it was relatively painless.
I'd been avoiding it for as long as possible, since my previous experiences with French bureaucracy threatened to end up with a bodycount that would make the average episode of Midsomer Murders look tame, and just about every French person I've met had warned me that civil servants were much, much worse. They have complete job security, which is not related in any way to job performance, and generally regard themselves as demi-gods. The fate of us mere mortals depends totally and utterly on whether or not they are in a good mood, which means it is wise to choose your moment with care.
Fortunately, I didn't get my first wage slip (which is necessary for an application) until mid-way through December, and I decided it would be best to wait until after the holidays because they would not like to be disturbed so soon before Christmas. Then January came, and I had no excuse to put it off any longer.
Now, the CPAM (which deals with social security) is, in theory, open from 8am to 5pm every weekday, which is, frankly, incredible; most essential administrative services are open for a 2-hour window once a fortnight, and always while you're at work. But the problem is that you can't just turn up at any old time, unless you want to make life difficult for yourself. For example, Friday afternoons are right out - they'll be looking at their watch the whole time and hoping to be so unco-operative that you'll quickly leave the office in despair so they can bugger off home early. Any day between 12 and 2pm is also not a good idea; whoever is on duty at that time will be so annoyed that they're not having lunch that they will be in no mood to be helpful. Eventually, I plumped for 2:30pm on a Monday afternoon, figuring that the Monday morning blues would be over but the midweek depression not yet set in, and that they would be in a good mood after a lunchtime glass of wine or two, but not clock-watching to go home yet.
Walking to the CPAM, my terrified brain was still trying to justify turning round and going back home. Was I really that bothered about being reimbursed for my doctors appointments and jabs for going to French Guiana? Did I really want that 200 or so euros off my rent, paid for by the CAF? Would any sum of money really be worth this amount of hassle? Somehow, I kept going.
My heart sank when I realised that there was an 'exceptional' closure that day, at 3pm, and I'd arrived just half an hour before - not good. Still, I was there now so I took a deep breath and went in. I'd made an effort to look nice, with a fairly figure-hugging skirt, in the hopes that if all else went wrong, I could maybe seduce the guy. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and only those of you who have dealt with French bureaucracy will understand just how desperate you can get.
I was called into the office and saw instantly that my skirt was for nothing - it was a woman. Still, unperturbed, I smiled my best look-I-know-I'm-foreign-and-this-is-going-to-make-your-life-complicated-but-please-I'm-begging-you-be-nice smile and said, "Bonjour".
Oh, wang. I forgot to call her 'Madame'. She hates me already.
I don't know if it was my half-decent French, despite being English, or if she'd just had a really good bottle of Bordeaux at lunchtime, but she deigned to help out the poor foreigner. It helped that I had come well-prepared with my passport, driving licence, birth certificate, European Health Card, NHS number, RIB (certificate of bank details) Arrete de Nomination (work contract), wage slips, certificate of financial help from the SLC, P45, Attestation Professional, Attestation de Domicile, Attestation d'Etudes, Attestation de Couleur Préféré, love letters from every boyfriend I've had from the age of 5, and a receipt from 1998 for a tin of baked beans, just in case. All photocopied in triplicate, naturally.
And now it's done. I have a social security number, and I can sleep easy, knowing that I don't have to deal with French civil servants again for a very long time. Well, at least until I have to apply for CAF and medical reimbursements next week. Sigh.
I'd been avoiding it for as long as possible, since my previous experiences with French bureaucracy threatened to end up with a bodycount that would make the average episode of Midsomer Murders look tame, and just about every French person I've met had warned me that civil servants were much, much worse. They have complete job security, which is not related in any way to job performance, and generally regard themselves as demi-gods. The fate of us mere mortals depends totally and utterly on whether or not they are in a good mood, which means it is wise to choose your moment with care.
Fortunately, I didn't get my first wage slip (which is necessary for an application) until mid-way through December, and I decided it would be best to wait until after the holidays because they would not like to be disturbed so soon before Christmas. Then January came, and I had no excuse to put it off any longer.
Now, the CPAM (which deals with social security) is, in theory, open from 8am to 5pm every weekday, which is, frankly, incredible; most essential administrative services are open for a 2-hour window once a fortnight, and always while you're at work. But the problem is that you can't just turn up at any old time, unless you want to make life difficult for yourself. For example, Friday afternoons are right out - they'll be looking at their watch the whole time and hoping to be so unco-operative that you'll quickly leave the office in despair so they can bugger off home early. Any day between 12 and 2pm is also not a good idea; whoever is on duty at that time will be so annoyed that they're not having lunch that they will be in no mood to be helpful. Eventually, I plumped for 2:30pm on a Monday afternoon, figuring that the Monday morning blues would be over but the midweek depression not yet set in, and that they would be in a good mood after a lunchtime glass of wine or two, but not clock-watching to go home yet.
Walking to the CPAM, my terrified brain was still trying to justify turning round and going back home. Was I really that bothered about being reimbursed for my doctors appointments and jabs for going to French Guiana? Did I really want that 200 or so euros off my rent, paid for by the CAF? Would any sum of money really be worth this amount of hassle? Somehow, I kept going.
My heart sank when I realised that there was an 'exceptional' closure that day, at 3pm, and I'd arrived just half an hour before - not good. Still, I was there now so I took a deep breath and went in. I'd made an effort to look nice, with a fairly figure-hugging skirt, in the hopes that if all else went wrong, I could maybe seduce the guy. Desperate times call for desperate measures, and only those of you who have dealt with French bureaucracy will understand just how desperate you can get.
I was called into the office and saw instantly that my skirt was for nothing - it was a woman. Still, unperturbed, I smiled my best look-I-know-I'm-foreign-and-this-is-going-to-make-your-life-complicated-but-please-I'm-begging-you-be-nice smile and said, "Bonjour".
Oh, wang. I forgot to call her 'Madame'. She hates me already.
I don't know if it was my half-decent French, despite being English, or if she'd just had a really good bottle of Bordeaux at lunchtime, but she deigned to help out the poor foreigner. It helped that I had come well-prepared with my passport, driving licence, birth certificate, European Health Card, NHS number, RIB (certificate of bank details) Arrete de Nomination (work contract), wage slips, certificate of financial help from the SLC, P45, Attestation Professional, Attestation de Domicile, Attestation d'Etudes, Attestation de Couleur Préféré, love letters from every boyfriend I've had from the age of 5, and a receipt from 1998 for a tin of baked beans, just in case. All photocopied in triplicate, naturally.
And now it's done. I have a social security number, and I can sleep easy, knowing that I don't have to deal with French civil servants again for a very long time. Well, at least until I have to apply for CAF and medical reimbursements next week. Sigh.
Thursday, 21 January 2010
The Bare Necessities
I noticed recently that, when you go into a bakery to buy a cake (something which I am now very, very experienced in doing), instead of asking, "Qu'est-ce que vous voulez?" ("What would you like?"), they often ask, "Qu'est-ce qu'il faut?" (roughly, "What do you need?").
Now, either I look like I'm only a réligieuse or two away from murdering someone* or the French have definitely got their priorities right. Damn straight il faut. None of this messing around with wanting; I need a cake. It takes a properly hedonistic country like France to recognise that pleasure - particularly pleasure with chocolate sprinkles on top and filled with chocolate custard - is a requirement and not a treat.
Plus, tomorrow I'm going to attempt the joys of social security (!) and dealing with French civil servants (!!), and if that's not a task that needs a damn good cake in order to tackle it, then I don't know what is.
* And at 6pm on a Thursday, after a long day culminating in my nightmare TSTG class, this is often the case.
Now, either I look like I'm only a réligieuse or two away from murdering someone* or the French have definitely got their priorities right. Damn straight il faut. None of this messing around with wanting; I need a cake. It takes a properly hedonistic country like France to recognise that pleasure - particularly pleasure with chocolate sprinkles on top and filled with chocolate custard - is a requirement and not a treat.
Plus, tomorrow I'm going to attempt the joys of social security (!) and dealing with French civil servants (!!), and if that's not a task that needs a damn good cake in order to tackle it, then I don't know what is.
* And at 6pm on a Thursday, after a long day culminating in my nightmare TSTG class, this is often the case.
Saturday, 16 January 2010
Grapple For The Teacher
I'm going to put the usual 'isn't-it-funny-how-the-French-do-this?' blogs aside for just a moment while I talk about teaching styles. No, wait, don't go!
Fine. Well, it's much cosier with only the two of us left in any case. Anyway, teaching styles. French children are used to a very old-fashioned, teacher-sitting-at-the-front-lecturing-and-students-taking-notes-all-lesson approach. Your reaction to that last sentence is a good determiner of age; if you just thought to yourself, "And what's wrong with that? Never did me any harm!" then I'm afraid you're officially old. Sorry.
Now, I'm sure that type of teaching has its merits, and I'm equally sure that when I've been teaching for twenty years and have had every last drop of enthusiasm wrung out of me by league tables and brats who don't want to learn, I will also become one of those teachers, eschewing carefully-prepared lesson plans for, "Turn to page 53 and do exercises 1 to 14, and no talking while I try to catch up on sleep". But, fortunately, I'm still in that incredibly annoying (to everyone else, most of all world-weary teachers) phase where I'm naive enough to believe I can 'make a difference' and actually care about whether or not the students like me. Couple that with the fact that I grew up with the modern, more dynamic, varied style of teaching, and you get a bunch of lycéens who don't know what's hit them.
Firstly, I refuse to sit at the desk at the front, droning on about some grammatical point or other, or to be glued to the blackboard. Instead, I walk around the classroom a lot as I'm explaining things; it means that there no longer is a back row where they can pass notes among one another, because half the time, I'm right next to them. It also means that my confused students end up accidentally listening to me, because they're turning round to watch me, wondering what the hell I'm doing over there. Maybe it's the bellydancer in me, but I like to perform among my audience, up front and personal, not up on a pedestal somewhere.
Secondly, something as normal and unoriginal as pairwork or groupwork is an unfathomable concept for students who are used to silent, individual work and occasionally answering questions. The first time I tried to get my classes to split off into pairs and work on something, it took me ten minutes to explain what I meant, and that was before I'd even mentioned the activity. They simply could not get their head around the idea of being allowed to confer with someone else, much less being asked to turn their chair around and, shock horror! face the wrong way to work with the person behind them. Even now, when they're more used to me asking them to work in groups, they still whisper as if they're doing something wrong, no matter how many times I tell them that I want them to have lively discussions with each other (as long as it's on the subject matter, in English, or both).
I like to use music in my classes because pop and rock songs tend to be a great way to sneakily practice certain grammatical structures and pronunciation, or just to get the students thinking about a particular issue. Some classes have taken to it more than others, but almost all of them were initially bewildered and horrified by the idea of singing in the classroom. And that's with the relatively safe option of singing along to an MP3; I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when my boyfriend first brought out his guitar in his classes in French Guiana... But it's paid off, because they think they're having a fun lesson, and they don't generally notice how much work they're doing. My favourite clandestine pronunciation activity was on the last day of term, when I left some music playing while they were doing a Christmas crossword as a treat. Without realising it, most of them starting singing along to the ones they recognised (carefully chosen songs that I knew had been hits here), yet just thought it was cool to be able to listen to music at school. Mwahahaha!
I also like to be extremely physical when I'm teaching - again, something which I'm sure I'll grow out of, but good for the time being. A while ago, I was trying to explain the word 'cliffhanger'. First I told them what it meant, and talked about soap operas and books, then I decided to show them why it's called that. I climbed up onto a desk and pretended to be running, telling them a story about a man who was being chased by people who were trying to kill him. As it got to the part where he tripped and fell over the cliff, I jumped and grabbed a heavy door-frame next to the desk, hanging from it. My feet were only dangling an inch or two from the floor but I played up the story, asking whether he would be rescued by a helicopter or would lose his grip and tumble into the sea, to be eaten by sharks. Then I stood up and declared, "I'll tell you what happened next week. And THAT'S a cliffhanger." I'd definitely get in trouble if my headmaster found out about it, but hey, that class will never forget the word 'cliffhanger'.
Now, I know it can't be like this all the time. I know that when I'm a qualified teacher, I'm going to need to put in the spadework, drilling verb conjugations and the like. I know that when I sit on desks, I lose a bit of authority, and when I play the clown most of the time, it's harder to make them sit and work on something quietly when I need them to. At the moment, I tell myself it's okay because I can leave the boring but necessary stuff to their real teacher, but one day, I'm going to need to work out how to incorporate both styles of teaching. My informal approach - coupled with my age and the fact that they call me by my first name - leads to a few difficulties, like getting hit on fairly frequently. Still, I'm assuming that's karma, a result of the hell I put some of my male high school teachers through by flirting incessantly with them - Mr Higgon, I hang my head in shame.
Fine. Well, it's much cosier with only the two of us left in any case. Anyway, teaching styles. French children are used to a very old-fashioned, teacher-sitting-at-the-front-lecturing-and-students-taking-notes-all-lesson approach. Your reaction to that last sentence is a good determiner of age; if you just thought to yourself, "And what's wrong with that? Never did me any harm!" then I'm afraid you're officially old. Sorry.
Now, I'm sure that type of teaching has its merits, and I'm equally sure that when I've been teaching for twenty years and have had every last drop of enthusiasm wrung out of me by league tables and brats who don't want to learn, I will also become one of those teachers, eschewing carefully-prepared lesson plans for, "Turn to page 53 and do exercises 1 to 14, and no talking while I try to catch up on sleep". But, fortunately, I'm still in that incredibly annoying (to everyone else, most of all world-weary teachers) phase where I'm naive enough to believe I can 'make a difference' and actually care about whether or not the students like me. Couple that with the fact that I grew up with the modern, more dynamic, varied style of teaching, and you get a bunch of lycéens who don't know what's hit them.
Firstly, I refuse to sit at the desk at the front, droning on about some grammatical point or other, or to be glued to the blackboard. Instead, I walk around the classroom a lot as I'm explaining things; it means that there no longer is a back row where they can pass notes among one another, because half the time, I'm right next to them. It also means that my confused students end up accidentally listening to me, because they're turning round to watch me, wondering what the hell I'm doing over there. Maybe it's the bellydancer in me, but I like to perform among my audience, up front and personal, not up on a pedestal somewhere.
Secondly, something as normal and unoriginal as pairwork or groupwork is an unfathomable concept for students who are used to silent, individual work and occasionally answering questions. The first time I tried to get my classes to split off into pairs and work on something, it took me ten minutes to explain what I meant, and that was before I'd even mentioned the activity. They simply could not get their head around the idea of being allowed to confer with someone else, much less being asked to turn their chair around and, shock horror! face the wrong way to work with the person behind them. Even now, when they're more used to me asking them to work in groups, they still whisper as if they're doing something wrong, no matter how many times I tell them that I want them to have lively discussions with each other (as long as it's on the subject matter, in English, or both).
I like to use music in my classes because pop and rock songs tend to be a great way to sneakily practice certain grammatical structures and pronunciation, or just to get the students thinking about a particular issue. Some classes have taken to it more than others, but almost all of them were initially bewildered and horrified by the idea of singing in the classroom. And that's with the relatively safe option of singing along to an MP3; I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when my boyfriend first brought out his guitar in his classes in French Guiana... But it's paid off, because they think they're having a fun lesson, and they don't generally notice how much work they're doing. My favourite clandestine pronunciation activity was on the last day of term, when I left some music playing while they were doing a Christmas crossword as a treat. Without realising it, most of them starting singing along to the ones they recognised (carefully chosen songs that I knew had been hits here), yet just thought it was cool to be able to listen to music at school. Mwahahaha!
I also like to be extremely physical when I'm teaching - again, something which I'm sure I'll grow out of, but good for the time being. A while ago, I was trying to explain the word 'cliffhanger'. First I told them what it meant, and talked about soap operas and books, then I decided to show them why it's called that. I climbed up onto a desk and pretended to be running, telling them a story about a man who was being chased by people who were trying to kill him. As it got to the part where he tripped and fell over the cliff, I jumped and grabbed a heavy door-frame next to the desk, hanging from it. My feet were only dangling an inch or two from the floor but I played up the story, asking whether he would be rescued by a helicopter or would lose his grip and tumble into the sea, to be eaten by sharks. Then I stood up and declared, "I'll tell you what happened next week. And THAT'S a cliffhanger." I'd definitely get in trouble if my headmaster found out about it, but hey, that class will never forget the word 'cliffhanger'.
Now, I know it can't be like this all the time. I know that when I'm a qualified teacher, I'm going to need to put in the spadework, drilling verb conjugations and the like. I know that when I sit on desks, I lose a bit of authority, and when I play the clown most of the time, it's harder to make them sit and work on something quietly when I need them to. At the moment, I tell myself it's okay because I can leave the boring but necessary stuff to their real teacher, but one day, I'm going to need to work out how to incorporate both styles of teaching. My informal approach - coupled with my age and the fact that they call me by my first name - leads to a few difficulties, like getting hit on fairly frequently. Still, I'm assuming that's karma, a result of the hell I put some of my male high school teachers through by flirting incessantly with them - Mr Higgon, I hang my head in shame.
Saturday, 9 January 2010
Woah, I'm an alien...
Despite it being a truth universally acknowledged that the French and English hate one another, I have mostly experienced bewilderment and curiosity rather than blind xenophobia. I have somehow acquired the reputation, among friends, colleagues and housemates, of being 'the eccentric English girl': amusing, confusing, but mostly harmless. The general French attitude towards me, and therefore my country since they generalise just as much as we do, can be summarised by the reaction that my housemate-cum-landlady Laure gives to just about everything I do, cook, eat, make or say: "Ah, c'est marrant, ça..." This translates literally as, "Ah, it's funny, that..." but is used in the same inadvertantly-patronising way as we would use, "Oh, how quaint..."
So, because I like listing a lot at the moment, here are just some of the reasons that they all think I'm mental here:
- The fact that I drink a hell of a lot of tea. They just don't tire of pointing this out; it's as hilarious to them as a Frenchman actually wearing a beret would be to us. But the fact remains that this stereotype is, generally, true - there is no situation, no crisis, that cannot be solved or at least improved by a nice cup of tea. Sometimes, after a particularly stressful day, I walk in and flick the kettle on before I've even taken my coat off, put my bag down or, on one memorable occasion, closed the door, much to my housemates' amusement.
- My longing for bread that isn't a baguette. They simply cannot understand why I go into dreamy reveries talking about sliced Hovis bread or bagels when I can buy a nice flutelle from the boulangerie down the road. And let's not even mention the night I made naan breads in the oven.
- British biscuits. Have you ever seen one of those nature documentaries where they give a monkey a mirror and it examines it with a mixture of horror, confusion and a perverse sense of curiosity? That's exactly what it looks like when you introduce a French person to a ginger nut biscuit or a custard cream.
- Pasta bakes. None of my housemates had heard of the practice of cooking pasta in the oven, which takes twice as long and makes no real difference except to ensure that the cheese forms an impenetrable crust on top and half the pasta is still crunchy, and none of them could understand it either. Poor, unenlightened things.
- Cheesecake. This was my great success. After initial confusion and reluctance to try it (imagine Peter Kay's "Cheesecake? A cake of cheese?" routine done in French), they ended up loving it, and only today, one of my housemates swallowed her pride and actually asked for the recipe, admitting that it had become her favourite dessert. I think the main problem is that, when you mention cheese here, people immediately think of roquefort or a really stinky camembert. Still, score one to Zoe for improving the reputation of English cuisine.
- The concept of fidelity. I can't recall if I've already told this anecdote on here before but I'll tell it again anyway. I used to regularly go to a particular shop when I first arrived here, and after a few visits, the guy that worked there asked me out to dinner. I was flattered but replied with a smile, "Thanks, but I have a boyfriend." This seemed to make as much sense to him as replying that I had a hamster, so he looked confused, asking, "Yes, and?" It took a second for the penny to drop and I explained, "No, you see, I have a boyfriend and I intend to remain faithful to him." Only in this country do you need to clarify that you don't want to cheat on your partner.
- Continuing on this theme, the concept of platonic friendship between men and women. Before Christmas, I met a guy, a friend-of-a-friend, I got on really well with but, despite my repeated mentions of my boyfriend, we ended up falling out because he kept on trying to hit on me. The next day, I discussed this with a female housemate, who admitted that she couldn't understand why I was so angry with him, or why I still wanted to hang out with him if I wasn't going to sleep with him. She was totally bemused when I told her that, in the UK, more than half of my friends are male and the question of me sleeping with any of them just doesn't arise.
- Toad-in-the-hole. 'Nuff said.
So, because I like listing a lot at the moment, here are just some of the reasons that they all think I'm mental here:
- The fact that I drink a hell of a lot of tea. They just don't tire of pointing this out; it's as hilarious to them as a Frenchman actually wearing a beret would be to us. But the fact remains that this stereotype is, generally, true - there is no situation, no crisis, that cannot be solved or at least improved by a nice cup of tea. Sometimes, after a particularly stressful day, I walk in and flick the kettle on before I've even taken my coat off, put my bag down or, on one memorable occasion, closed the door, much to my housemates' amusement.
- My longing for bread that isn't a baguette. They simply cannot understand why I go into dreamy reveries talking about sliced Hovis bread or bagels when I can buy a nice flutelle from the boulangerie down the road. And let's not even mention the night I made naan breads in the oven.
- British biscuits. Have you ever seen one of those nature documentaries where they give a monkey a mirror and it examines it with a mixture of horror, confusion and a perverse sense of curiosity? That's exactly what it looks like when you introduce a French person to a ginger nut biscuit or a custard cream.
- Pasta bakes. None of my housemates had heard of the practice of cooking pasta in the oven, which takes twice as long and makes no real difference except to ensure that the cheese forms an impenetrable crust on top and half the pasta is still crunchy, and none of them could understand it either. Poor, unenlightened things.
- Cheesecake. This was my great success. After initial confusion and reluctance to try it (imagine Peter Kay's "Cheesecake? A cake of cheese?" routine done in French), they ended up loving it, and only today, one of my housemates swallowed her pride and actually asked for the recipe, admitting that it had become her favourite dessert. I think the main problem is that, when you mention cheese here, people immediately think of roquefort or a really stinky camembert. Still, score one to Zoe for improving the reputation of English cuisine.
- The concept of fidelity. I can't recall if I've already told this anecdote on here before but I'll tell it again anyway. I used to regularly go to a particular shop when I first arrived here, and after a few visits, the guy that worked there asked me out to dinner. I was flattered but replied with a smile, "Thanks, but I have a boyfriend." This seemed to make as much sense to him as replying that I had a hamster, so he looked confused, asking, "Yes, and?" It took a second for the penny to drop and I explained, "No, you see, I have a boyfriend and I intend to remain faithful to him." Only in this country do you need to clarify that you don't want to cheat on your partner.
- Continuing on this theme, the concept of platonic friendship between men and women. Before Christmas, I met a guy, a friend-of-a-friend, I got on really well with but, despite my repeated mentions of my boyfriend, we ended up falling out because he kept on trying to hit on me. The next day, I discussed this with a female housemate, who admitted that she couldn't understand why I was so angry with him, or why I still wanted to hang out with him if I wasn't going to sleep with him. She was totally bemused when I told her that, in the UK, more than half of my friends are male and the question of me sleeping with any of them just doesn't arise.
- Toad-in-the-hole. 'Nuff said.
Wednesday, 6 January 2010
There's No Place Like Home
I got back to France a few days ago, revealing my utter lack of foresight and cleverness because, unlike just about every other language assistant in Brittany, I managed to be delayed due to snow going home, and perfectly on time coming back. Yes, my boyfriend and I had to wait for six hours in Dinard airport, which is the size of the average Scout Hut and boasts, in terms of catering facilities, a single vending machine which grew steadily emptier as the night drew on until, finally, some brave soul caved in to hunger and actually ate the Snickers bars out of sheer desperation. There was a distinct lack of panic or dissent among the stranded passengers which would be surprising were it not for the fact that the tannoy announcer, either deliberately or through incompetence, gave different translations in French and English. The French announcement explained that our plane was still stuck in Stansted and could not take off, so there may or may not be a flight that night; the English version simply stated that there was a delay. Given that the vast majority of the passengers were English, I'd wager that we were two of very few who actually knew the full story. Still, the time passed pleasantly enough, with my boyfriend and I exchanging Flanders & Swann and Tom Lehrer songs, to the bewilderment utter irritation delight of those around us. Eventually, some enterprising teenage boy called his friend, who evidently worked in a pizza takeaway restaurant in Dinard, and began taking orders, with twenty or so delicious pizzas being delivered shortly afterwards. When in a crisis, you can always rely on the French to ensure that, whatever else, everybody is well fed.
Anyway, I digress; we got home eventually and, though I love being in France, it felt marvellous to be home. Aside from the obvious things like friends, family, and my partner, here are just some of the things I've missed about the UK:
- Tuna and cucumber sandwiches on thick, white, sliced bread. In fact, sliced bread in general.
- Lucozade
- Pringles
- Boost bars
- A decent curry. After months of only being able to find the odd pot of Korma or, occasionally, Tikka Massala, how I longed for a Balti, a Madras, a Rogan Josh, a Biryani, a Jalfrezi, a Pasanda, a Saag Dal, a Dopiaza... How I would have given my right arm for a poppadom.
- The Suffolk accent. I never thought I'd miss this, but I couldn't help but smile as I listened to my grandad and his wife singing (Suffolk people don't talk; they sing) about the local gossip.
- Christmas crackers
- Mince pies
- My Dad's home-made Scotch eggs
- Christmas stockings
- Good old-fashioned English hypocrisy. People are just so damn honest here. One of my French housemates was looking at my Facebook profile picture and cooing over the lovely costume, when she remarked casually, "Of course, you were much thinner then. Or were you sucking in your abs?" There was absolutely no malice or ill will intended in this; she was merely speaking her mind and, of course, she was correct, although I hold the local boulangeries almost entirely to blame for this. I took no offence, knowing full well that none was intended, but couldn't help but feel a twinge of nostalgia for English false politeness.
- Topical, intelligent comedy, such as Have I Got News For You and The Now Show
- Radio 4 altogether, in fact
- Trivial Pursuit
- The words 'wretched', 'codswallop' and 'numpty'. (I clearly keep good company)
- Impromptu dancing with my Mum in the kitchen
- Corner shops that you can dash to at 11pm for a bag of ice for your Baileys
- Kahlua
- Milk in tea and coffee
- Honey Nut Cornflakes
- Self-deprecatory humour
- Christmas carols (especially my favourite, It Was On A Starry Night)
- Shoes that cost less than £100
- Primark. Yay for child labour.
- Auld Lang Syne
- Being trusted enough as an adult to buy aspirin from a supermarket instead of having to go to a pharmacy
- Words only my family use, like wallies (for pickled cucumbers), sniggies (for nail clippers), hum-hums (for those small Dairy Milk chocolates you get in tins of Quality Street) and spoinks (for Daddy-Long-Legs)
- Not having to kiss everybloodybody you meet
- Not having to make an effort when listening to a conversation or the radio
- Santa's Grotto, as my house becomes every Christmas
- Muntjack deer and foxes in the garden
- And, naturally, that English dish which caused the French to nickname us after it, roast beef.
Anyway, I digress; we got home eventually and, though I love being in France, it felt marvellous to be home. Aside from the obvious things like friends, family, and my partner, here are just some of the things I've missed about the UK:
- Tuna and cucumber sandwiches on thick, white, sliced bread. In fact, sliced bread in general.
- Lucozade
- Pringles
- Boost bars
- A decent curry. After months of only being able to find the odd pot of Korma or, occasionally, Tikka Massala, how I longed for a Balti, a Madras, a Rogan Josh, a Biryani, a Jalfrezi, a Pasanda, a Saag Dal, a Dopiaza... How I would have given my right arm for a poppadom.
- The Suffolk accent. I never thought I'd miss this, but I couldn't help but smile as I listened to my grandad and his wife singing (Suffolk people don't talk; they sing) about the local gossip.
- Christmas crackers
- Mince pies
- My Dad's home-made Scotch eggs
- Christmas stockings
- Good old-fashioned English hypocrisy. People are just so damn honest here. One of my French housemates was looking at my Facebook profile picture and cooing over the lovely costume, when she remarked casually, "Of course, you were much thinner then. Or were you sucking in your abs?" There was absolutely no malice or ill will intended in this; she was merely speaking her mind and, of course, she was correct, although I hold the local boulangeries almost entirely to blame for this. I took no offence, knowing full well that none was intended, but couldn't help but feel a twinge of nostalgia for English false politeness.
- Topical, intelligent comedy, such as Have I Got News For You and The Now Show
- Radio 4 altogether, in fact
- Trivial Pursuit
- The words 'wretched', 'codswallop' and 'numpty'. (I clearly keep good company)
- Impromptu dancing with my Mum in the kitchen
- Corner shops that you can dash to at 11pm for a bag of ice for your Baileys
- Kahlua
- Milk in tea and coffee
- Honey Nut Cornflakes
- Self-deprecatory humour
- Christmas carols (especially my favourite, It Was On A Starry Night)
- Shoes that cost less than £100
- Primark. Yay for child labour.
- Auld Lang Syne
- Being trusted enough as an adult to buy aspirin from a supermarket instead of having to go to a pharmacy
- Words only my family use, like wallies (for pickled cucumbers), sniggies (for nail clippers), hum-hums (for those small Dairy Milk chocolates you get in tins of Quality Street) and spoinks (for Daddy-Long-Legs)
- Not having to kiss everybloodybody you meet
- Not having to make an effort when listening to a conversation or the radio
- Santa's Grotto, as my house becomes every Christmas
- Muntjack deer and foxes in the garden
- And, naturally, that English dish which caused the French to nickname us after it, roast beef.
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