Classes on my own – Monday, Oct. 10

Today was my first day doing some teaching on my own. Classes last 55 minutes. During two of the classes, the teachers started sending the students to me one by one to prepare them for their oral exams.

For the first class today, I was supposed to let the students talk for 3 minutes about themselves, basically 3 minute introductions. I don’t think any remotely succeeded. But generally they were able to answer all the questions I prompted them with (I had a list of things they should know how to say about themselves). Then I sat down next to them and when through what they said, little corrections and what not. While they were talking, I took feverish notes so that I would be able to remember what they said and what mistakes they made. Each meeting took about 10 minutes, so I didn’t even finish 5 students – there are close to 20 in the class.

The second class was completely new, so I presented Livermore and let them ask questions about me. I felt this introduction went much better than the ones I did on Friday.

For the third class, I was supposed to listen to the students talk about an Anglophone subject of their choice or the internship they did last year (Anglophone or not). The three I managed to see, either didn’t even have a topic or managed one minute. Most of our time was spent with me prodding them for details, in a mixture of English and French, and then recommending a number of related topics they could talk about.

My last class of the day, I was supposed to have the students describe an image I presented to them. Since the students are studying to work in Hospitality, I picked a photo of an IHOP waitress picking up plates in the kitchen to deliver to tables. Thankfully I had asked to see the students in pairs since the image was way beyond their capabilities. I had cleared it with the teacher, but apparently she didn’t think about the vocabulary that would be needed to describe the image. So I did a lot of vocabulary explanations and a lot of talking in French. The funniest part was that there was one student that I thought was by far the best and mentioned it to the teacher; apparently, he never speaks in class and doesn’t seem like a good student to her. She thinks it is because he finds me pretty and wants to impress me – if it gets the students to talk, that is fine by me…

I still haven’t heard back from 3 of the professors about my work this week… which isn’t okay. Two of them – it isn’t the end of the world; they’re at the middle school and I already know my general hours, just not what I might be expected to do with the kids or exactly which 4 of the 5 classes I will see. The teacher I really want to hear from is the last one from the high school; I almost feel that if I don’t hear from him – that I shouldn’t be expected to do his classes this week for the two hours he is supposed to have my time. I don’t even know when his classes are – so it really interferes with making any plans for Tuesday and Friday.