First day of school

I'm on my lunch break and I'm not really sure what I should do with myself, so I might as well write.

First let's just say that I need to know the public transportation routes and schedule better. It's not like having a metro where you just need to know where the lines connect and the next train will come in two minutes.

When I stepped into the school I still didn't know what grades I was teaching, where the classroom was, how to find people, and I was late. It's also somehow really disorienting when you need to wait at the gate for someone to let you in, since I don't show up at regular hours. Heureusement, the first teacher completely forgot I was supposed to be in her class, so she wasn't expecting me. Her class was a CP and CE1 combination, meaning 6 to 8 years old. The lesson itself was kind of a blur. They were young enough to still be learning their ABCs so I decided to make the alphabet song my opening routine. I introduced myself, pointing to the US on a map. I somehow got them to pick English names; I don't know how because I spoke in English and it was a mistake trying to do an activity in which I needed to talk to each student individually. I didn't really have anything prepared besides a list of names I had scribbled down the night before, because I had no idea what to expect and no access to a printer at home.

I am slowly learning how the school works, like where the copier is, how to sign up for meals in the cantine, who the teachers are. At the first school there are only five classes, so it's much easier to start recognizing people. I had lunch with a few of the teachers and after eating I was able to get to my email and print out a map of the US and a spreadsheet of English names.

My second school is much bigger. I went there in the afternoon and started with a CM2 class, which is the last year of elementary school. They've had a few years of simple English by now, so I feel like I had a pretty successful lesson in which I taught them how to say, "Nice to meet you," and they figured out what it meant without me translating. I also found that it worked pretty well to have me demonstrate a conversation in sequence, then get them to try it in pairs, and then find a pair that understands the principle to role play in the front of the class. By that point most of the students get what they are supposed to say, and are beginning to guess what the conversation means.

I had younger kids for the last two sessions of the day. It really varied from class to class, what I could do. The last class was also CE1, which is pretty young, and I had to give up on giving them English names because they didn't understand the words, "pick", "choose", or "like". I eventually got them to indicate names they "preferred", but girls would pick Jack and boys would pick Vanessa, and I'm pretty sure they didn't get what was going on. Not that I would be against giving girls boy English names or vise versa; I wouldn't want to further gender construction, after all.

Anyway, I think I am more ready to take charge of my lessons now. It's been very satisfying to let them figure out what something means from context, but only if I am teaching that particular phrase. Until I can teach them verbs like "share" "say" "repeat after me", or "work with your partner", I'm going to have to use French, at least for some instructions. I'll try to phase it out as quickly as possible though. Having them hear all English is the ideal situation, but we're not there yet.