............has to be by far the strangest (though miraculously grammatically correct) sentence I’ve said so far this week. It happened during my Colombian flatmate and I’s first expedition to the local hypermarket, a twenty-five minute walk away from my apartment. ‘Pas loin’ (not far), my tutor had previously assured me. Knowing the French’s obscure reluctance to provide any form of carrier bag in their supermarkets, I’d planned ahead, though unfortunately not far enough ahead to anticipate just how much cheese and pain-au-chocolats I would end up purchasing. Hence, wheezing and panting, I arrived back at the apartment almost two hours later. ‘Pas loin’, it seems, does not account for a Quasimodo-style walk, bright red fingers and a grumpy Colombian with absolutely no sense of direction.
This week has certainly been all about finding my feet. With the exception of several anonymous insect bites and an onslaught of what I like to call ‘Frenchers’ Flu’, it has been a largely successful few days. I just about know my way around both schools, have been made to feel extremely welcome by all staff (their hellos became even warmer when I produced a tin of cakes from my bag), and have even prepared some lessons ready for the commencement of my teaching next week....so keen.
My lesson observations have consisted of a variety of different subjects, the eventual goal being to give me a true taste of the French schooling system, which, to continue the culinary analogy, I would perhaps compare to a slightly over-matured Saint Agur on the cheeseboard of education; not something I would personally choose, yet once you’ve got used to it, it doesn’t seem quite so bad. That is to say that slowly but surely, I’m getting used to my 7am alarms, despite my envious knowledge that just across the water, the vast majority of my fellow Southampton students (with the exception of the nurses!) are still tucked up at 6am, no doubt dreaming of late night curry or cheesy chips if they’ve recently returned from an ‘epic night out’.
The lessons themselves have been a mixture. In 6e (year 7) music for instance, I felt for all the world like an extra in Les Choristes, and really relished the teacher’s offer for me to come along to the school lunchtime choir and help out with the pronunciation of the trickier words in Dirty Dancing’s Time of my Life. 3e (year 10, the final year of the French collège) however, was a different kettle of fish entirely. Coupled with my awkward fumbling French when I was made to stand at the front of the class and announce who I was and why I was there (believe me, I’d much rather have been in ANY other subject), was the fact that I spent the whole lesson completely and utterly lost. I’d love to blame it on the language barrier, though I fear that in all honesty it was more my total lack of mathematical know-how which proved the more difficult obstacle. I had no chance of helping poor textbook Sandrien and Julien find out the price of one lemonade if five lemonades and two orange juices equalled fourteen euros. That said, I did learn what ‘x squared’ is in French.
As for the English students, they are a mixed bunch. Questions have ranged from ‘how your favourite colour?’ to ‘do you know Kate Middleton?’ and from one particularly bold lad; ‘do you like Nicholas Sarkozy?’ My tactile (and admittedly true) answer to this last one of ‘je n’ai pas beaucoup d’avis politiques’ seemed to satisfy both pupils and teacher, who, incidentally, then gave me a sneaky thumbs-up when the children weren’t looking.
I’ve also had many a meal in the school canteens, and one thing is immediately clear; the French definitely don’t need Jamie Oliver. Both of my schools serve three course meals every day, including a cheese and biscuit course, and enough baguettes to fill the arms of at least fifty French men. Certainly a far cry from turkey twizzlers and powdered chocolate custard. Last Friday for instance, I turned up wondering what would be the French replacement for traditional English fish and chips. Their equivalent consisted of vegetable quiche, ‘lapin à la moutarde’ (rabbit with a mustard sauce), crème brûlée and finally brie, grapes and biscuits; all of which I devoured with vigour, much to the amazement of an elderly maths teacher, who told me later that I was the first English person he’d ever come across who would eat rabbit. In case you wondered, I’d now like to report in a standard English manner that yes, yes it did taste like chicken. While I’m on the subject of food, I found (and sampled) a ten euro all you can eat Chinese buffet in Le Havre today. And as a little aside from my ravings of France’s culinary genius, it was not as good as England.
So, the plan from now on? Tomorrow I have another training day in Rouen, and then next week will be let loose in the classroom, armed so far with a ‘find someone who....’ icebreaker game and my entire country summed up in a five-slide Powerpoint presentation. Given that in one of my classes, only around seven out of twenty children raised their hands when I jokingly enquired ‘levez la main if you like English’, I think I’m going to have my work cut out.
No comments:
Post a Comment