Teaching anecdotes and ramblings

Over the past several weeks of teaching I have found that each class in its entirety has a personality of its own. For the most part, I have enthusiastic students who enjoy learning English and look forward to having some fun in my class.

I have two classes (one class split in two halves), however, where the majority of the students pay almost no attention and instead spend their energy trying to annoy each other and, therefore, annoying me. I spent nearly all of class time trying to get them to stop whispering, making faces, and touching others' belongings. Because of this, the students in the CE2 class at the same school -- who are a year younger -- have learned a lot more English. I hate yelling at kids, and I hate that I can't make the class fun for them. I have no idea why I have so much trouble with this group; they were difficult from the start. I really dread going to teach them every week.

On the bright side, I do get to practice a lot of my French with them. I have learned all sorts of good scolding vocabulary and I have come up with such gems as, "You write with your hands, not with your mouth." Also, I begin class every day by telling them our goals (today was days of the week and months of the year) and letting them know that we can play a game if we they behave.

Enough of the complaining - my other classes are really great!

I always love going to Ecole Jean Moulin on Mondays. The CM2 class (10 year olds) have had a couple years of English and I am always so impressed by how smart they are. They are exceptionally focused and whenever I introduce a new concept or phrase, I can hear them whispering and trying to figure it out together. It's really satisfying to have such self-motivated students and I have really high hopes for their progress this year.

I always get a huge ego boost in my CM1 class at that same school. After class every week without fail, the students ask for my autograph! This in addition to nearly all my students at all the schools referrring me as "le prof (professor) d'anglais" really keeps my self-esteem at a pretty high level.

On Friday I was working on school supply vocabulary with a group of CM2 students at Ecole Anatole France. One of the words on the worksheet was 'basket' (wastebasket). In France, regular athletic shoes are called "baskets" (stemming from basketball, I assume) so there was a lot of confusion as to why one would refer to the trash as shoes.

Later, the phrase "sheet of paper" caused a lot of giggling among the students. "Isn't that a bad word?" one of them asked. I explained in French that it was only the mispronounciation of a certain four-letter word that made it sound like "sheet." They looked confused. Finally one boy pantomimed smoking, and explained to me that a similar-sounding word referred to a marijuana cigarette. So, class was successful in that I managed to learn French drug slang and I accidentally taught my students how to swear in English.