First Day in Class....

When I left the house this morning I might have been a little nervous. Since I don't start teaching until after the first vacation (school started last week and the kids have a vacation from oct 1-17...already love it...) Nathalie took me to her class so I could get an idea of what French classrooms are structured like, and maybe to speak a little English with the class or the professors who teach English who don't get much opportunity to speak it. Ok so a little nervous was what I started out with. When we pulled up to the parking lot, completely terrified is what I turned into.

The school itself was kind of scary looking to me. It is very different. We are used to big buildings with pretty landscaping and a giant playground...classrooms that are closed inside the building with probably a gymnasium and a cafeteria. Well this school was made of bars, the classrooms were on three stories with doors that opened outside, and the playground was just a big open area of cement where the kids were literally running in every possible direction like a billion monkeys fighting over one banana. It sounded like that too. The screaming and laughing and yelling was almost blood curling when I got out of the car.

Anyway, I'm not saying that any of this is bad at all...it was just very different. And I'm sure if I ever decided to visit an elementary school back home at recess, it would be a lot of the same thing. The point is that I was NOT prepared for this!! Then when we walked through the gate, it was like a creepy movie where everyone knew I was new and they all stopped in slow motion in front of me to stare while I passed.

So the kids line up in a formation outside and wait for their teacher. Then they are walked silently upstaris to the classroom and wait until they are told to go inside...then wait again until they are told to sit. Which I thought was pretty impressive. I sat at Nathalie's desk and everyone stared at me while she told them I was from the United States (they all gasped) and that later, they could ask me questions in English (they groaned) and I would answer in English...then they could ask me in French and I would answer in French (then in my head, I groaned. This could be very embarrassing..what if I don't understand what they are saying? What if they speak too fast? What if I understood but couldn't figure out how to answer in French? Plus they are all staring...and a few of them laughed when I said something in French because I obviously have a thick accent...and so on and so forth...)

So I spent the next hour freaking out more along those lines. How can I do this? I have no idea what I'm doing! I've never taught anyone anything before! What kind of teacher I should be when I have my own class? Should I be nice and laid back and happy, or would they walk all over that and just talk the whole time and not pay attention to me?

Somehow I was able to calm myself down. Finally, before recess, the kids were allowed to ask me questions. They didn't know many phrases in English, so they asked me "What's your name?" and "How are you?" THEY were scared of ME! No one else would try to speak in English. Then they asked me questions in French.

This was it.

 I was holding my breath.

They asked me what city I was from, if I had any animals, if I was married, and how old I was!!I breathed a giant sigh of relief. For the next half hour we went through everything they knew in English so I could have a starting point of what to teach in my class. They actually knew a lot; colors, numbers, animals, dates, weather, feelings, senses, Halloween vocab. It was really helpful.

I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to find a roommate!! Still no luck. The search continues tomorrow, I'm venturing in to town on my own to meet up with some other assistants who are looking for rooms. They are Austrian. Hopefully it works out...