Sunday 13 March 2016

Teaching Premiere!

After Christmas, I had to say goodbye to my beloved classes of Secondes (aged 14-15) and I moved on to the Premiere groups (aged 15-16). I was quite nervous because although there was only a year's difference in age, the students looked and acted so much older than my previous groups.



Here are some things that happened while I was teaching them:

  • When we came back from the Christmas/ Winter holidays, all of the kids had to tell me about their holidays and when they were describing what they did for new year they all said 'for happy new year I went to...' or 'I stayed at home for happy new year'. They thought that new year was 'happy new year'.

  • In my first week after the holidays I didn't realise I would have classes (I thought I was going to be introduced to the new groups) and so for that week me and the students all talked about the Kardashians, One Direction, my dogs, Sunderland and our families. It was fab.

  • There were couples in my groups which was strange, as I went to St Anthony's all girls Catholic school where so there wasn't PDA in classrooms like this. It was hard not to tell them to stop when they were holding hands while trying to write and gazing at each other instead of paying attention. Ah, young love.

  • Some groups were studying surveillance and so we talked about the phone hacking scandal and Big Brother, all of the students thought that in Britain there are cameras everywhere and that we are constantly watched, like on Big Brother, in our homes and everything.

  • One teacher told me his groups were studying heroes and so I prepared lessons with an uplifting video about a man who did small good deeds every day and got nothing in return, which just happened to be a Thai life insurance advert (this is the video if anyone wants to watch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I5UBikauIQM). I didn't want the students to know it was an advert because I wanted them to take it seriously, but in one class I forgot to pause the video before it showed the life insurance logo and these were some of the responses that I got on the worksheets I gave them:

1- The video is about a man who helps everything and everyone who needs some help.
2. I don't really know but I think its too much for a life insurance.

1. - A well-thinker young boy.
2.- It melted my heart, cuz its heartwarming
3. - Most badass hero ever

1. -A nice guy (a little too much...)
2. - It melted my little little heart, BECAUSE IT'S SO BEAUTIFUL!!!
3.- They just presented a nice guy to make people buy their life insurance.

  • This same group there were two boys in the front who read the questions aloud then started singing 'AND I KNOW WHYYYYY... BECAUSE I GOT HIGH, BECAUSE I GOT HIGH, BECAUSE I GOT HIGH'. It was very hard not to laugh.

  • Since Adele brought out 'Hello', whenever the students enter the class they go 'hello its me' in a monotone voice or the teacher will say hello to them and they all echo 'ITS ME'. This isn't reserved to Premiere, all of the classes do it.

  • I played a game with one of my classes and brought sweets as prizes for the winning team. When I gave them out a student came up to me and said 'its illegal what you're doing you know' so I panicked and asked what he meant and he said 'I'm joking, but we all have to sit here and watch them eating sweets, its not fair!!!!!'

  • For another group, we had to read a text about segregation during the 1960's in America and the students were very bored. One of them was staring at the wall and whispering to their friend and pointing so I automatically assumed there was a spider and starting going 'What? What is it? Where?' which they found hilarious and every few minutes afterwards they would gasp and go 'A spider!! A spider!!' to scare me.

So those were a few things that happened while I was teaching the groups of Premieres. Although obviously not all of my classes went smoothly, I had a great time. Whenever we pass each other in the corridors they ask me why I'm not with them any more and it makes me so sad.

If anyone has any questions about lessons, teaching, life in France in general or anything, feel free to ask!

Thankyou for reading :)

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