Two Weeks in France

Our Guest Today Is: Nicole

Hello all,

Today marks the end of my second week of work in France. These first two weeks have been primarily a time for observation, as stipulated by my work contract. Essentially, my goal these two weeks was to observe how classes run in France, and to introduce myself and get acquainted with the students.

There are six English teachers at my high school, and each of them teaches a couple classes. In most of their classes, I came in to introduce myself for the full 55 minute period using the slideshow below. The students had a chance to ask me a number of questions both about myself and the US. For these classes, I will take a portion of the class and teach my own lecture each week. I also sat in on “Euro” sections, which are where students take math and science in English. I’ll be assisting in these sections with pronunciation and vocabulary. I also got to see other classes just for fun, like history.

Even though I presented this same slideshow like twelve times, I still had so much fun doing it.

Here are some excerpts from the slideshow I showed the students:

This map shows where I’ve lived. I had students guess how far it is between the stars, and they were shocked by how big the United States is. Yes, it really does take 6 hours to fly from New York to California!

God I hope Mr. Pratt never reads this, but each time I presented this photo in a particular English teacher’s class, she would say, “well it might have been an all-girls school, but that history teacher doesn’t look too bad!” *wink*. You’ve got admirers overseas, Mr. Pratt.

Every time this slide came up there was this unanimous audible gasp around the room. Students were shocked and amazed to see the university, and kept saying “are you sure it wasn’t a castle beforehand?” I told them that this is just the front entrance and there are several other quads but usually they all looked at me in annoyance like “why is she lying about the number of quads? Surely there cannot be more than this.”

Students would stare blankly at this picture until I clarified, “that’s me.” Then they would look from this picture back to the real-life me like “wow you’ve really let yourself go.” I would say, “this picture was taken just a few months ago, in May,” and they would send me pitying glances at the apparent downfall of my beauty regimen.

One of the English teachers really had students study up on my presentation, and they had to take this quiz afterwards! Others had to write a one page essay about my life. It was so bizarre (weird, cool, touching, awesome!) to read about myself from their eyes. (Nicole likes horse riding; she went to Madeira; she lives here in Mayenne!).




Throughout my observations, I was weirdly proud of knowing the answers to questions in class… even though I have already been to high school and have in fact already completed college. In observing a science class, I was so proud of myself (I got Question #2 right… it’s True – people in industrialized countries do often eat more processed foods than in developing countries!!!). Even in English class I kept giving myself a mental pat on the back… for knowing high-school level foreign language vocabulary in my own language. It essence, the two weeks of sitting in on high school classes have just affirmed my nerd status – I really like school. I love being presented with fascinating new ideas every day, I love getting questions right, and it is such a meaningful experience when good teachers guide you through the whole process.



I hope to be one of those good teachers.



All the best,

Nicole.