Teaching Terminale!

So for the final part of my assistantship in Lille, I was working with students in Terminale. They were mainly aged between 17 and 18 (although some were 19) and they were preparing for their BAC exams.

Most of the time I was given groups of 5-3 students and I had to do mock oral exams, so they had to present a 'notion' that they had worked on to me and I had to give them feedback.

 I always asked the students if they wanted to have a couple of minutes to prepare and after their preparation (reading notes) they had to present their work to me.

The majority were incredibly nervous, even though I told them so many times that I wasn't marking them or going to tell the teacher, but overall I was sooo impressed with them and always encouraged them.

Other groups still had to do proper lessons. I tried to incorporate the 'mock exams' into these classes as much as possible so that I could work out which areas they needed to improve. The problems varied but were mainly pronunciation, sentence structure and giving genders to random objects like tables (The table was nice, she was wooden and brown - obviously they weren't doing lessons on tables but this was the only example I could think of).

Other than the mock exam parts of the lessons, I tried to get them to do mind maps of the notions so that we could prepare potential exam questions together. For example, for the notion of progress I had them mind map everything that they knew about progress such as new technology, medicine, science, politics etc. etc.) and then we went through them together. After, I gave them a sheet with a question on like 'Is progress always positive?' and 2 columns with titles 'yes' and 'no'. We then as a class used the board to write our arguments for each column and then the students had to summarize and present their overall ideas to me.

These lessons worked incredibly well and most of the students told me they found it very helpful.

If anyone is looking for ideas of lesson plans or things to do with students in terminale in preparation for their exams, do not hesitate to ask me!

Sorry this post is so short, I will be doing longer posts again soon.

Thank you for reading!

Emily

Travelling to Krakow!

So my friend Jen and I booked 2 trips for during the school holidays, before we go back to England.

The first was to Krakow, Poland, mainly because both of us had always had 'visit Auschwitz' on our bucket lists and it looked like an amazing place in general.

We stayed in a small apartment that we found via Airbnb, it was within walking distance to almost everything (unfortunately I didn't get any photos of it as the majority of the time it was a real mess, thanks to us).

We stayed for 6 nights and therefore it would be impossible to do a great post on everything that we did so I thought I could put together some advice for anyone who is thinking of going to Krakow :)

1. It is very very very cheap!!!!!

I don't mean the flights or accommodation, but food, drinks, visits, exhibitions, taxis etc. are insanely well priced. The Polish zloty exchange rate is around 5 zloty to 1 pound (at the time of this post anyway) so when we paid 200 zloty in total for our trip to Auschwitz and the salt mines together, this worked out to about just under £40. Its absolutely crazy.

2. Try the local cuisine!

Honestly, I had no clue what Polish food would be like and when I heard it was mainly dumplings, sausage, stew and things like that, I didn't think I would be interested. However, I gave it a go and was pleasantly surprised! 

The dumplings (pictured below) were nothing like the ones that I have at home in England, they were so light and filled with things like cheese, potato, onion and meat. Not only were they delicious, but they were filling too, perfect for a quick lunch stop!

3. Go to a tourist information office to book day trips!

This is something that I would highly highly HIGHLY recommend. We used 'Discover Krakow' and they were amazing.

We paid 200 zloty (just under £40) for our trip to the salt mines and Auschwitz combined, this included transport and the tour guides.

We found the tourist office in the main square and the pick-up point was in the main square too for our trips. This made our trips so much easier and more enjoyable!

4. If you're undecided on any trips- GO ANYWAY!

I wasn't entirely sure if the salt mines would be my thing and after hearing we'd have to walk down over 300 stairs to get there I was a little worried but it was very very informative. Especially with a tour guide who gave us all of the background information. The salt sculptures were incredible.

Underground St Kinga's Chapel built entirely out of salt!

5. Auschwitz is something everyone needs to see at some point in their lives.

As I said, I had always wanted to visit Auschwitz. I had heard a lot about it and studied World War II and the Nazi party in many History classes, but this trip really made it feel real.

It was so eery and emotional, the whole day was bizarre. I almost feel like I dreamt it because it was so haunting.

I would 100% recommend going with a tour group and getting a guide while you're there. They give you all of the information you need and take you to the Auschwitz camp as well as the Birkenau death camp which is all ruins.

The only thing that I would say is to be respectful, it was really disturbing to see people trying to snap photographs when we were told not to.

Also there is a restaurant/ cafe at the entrance of the Auschwitz camp if you get hungry- someone asked us before.

6. Nightlife...

Krakow has ridiculous amounts of bars in and around the city centre. We mainly stayed around the main square and some nights went into the Jewish Quarter.

We went to 'Shakers' one night and ended up staying until 4am. It was just off the main square and beside lots of others.

Be careful not to get overcharged, we ended up paying different prices for the same drinks when they knew that we were English tourists!

Kamikazi shots (they only let us buy in 6s...)

At the Hard Rock Cafe in the city centre. (Top- Zara)

7. Don't be afraid to explore!!

We ended up getting lost down different streets away from the centre and saw so many gorgeous buildings and churches along the way as well as pieces of art. Krakow really is a beautiful city.

You can also get taxi tours for very cheap, they can take you to all of the main points of interest!

Different parts of the main square

Inside of this building was a small market, there were lots of great stalls selling everything from clothes to jewellery. They sold beautiful pieces of amber jewellery for great prices!

A lovely church we stumbled across while we were lost.

That's it!

I hope this post was helpful, I would recommend Krakow to anyone!

If anyone has any questions, feel free to ask :)

Travelling to Brussels

My friend Jen and I were bored during the school holidays and decided to book a trip to Brussels for the next day. We travelled via train from Lille Europe and it took around 40 minutes.

Our first impressions were good, although the weather was horrendous, the buildings were all beautiful and our hotel was nice and pretty central.

After it stopped pouring with rain, we headed into the town centre. Grand Place was stunning and as we headed further and further into the town centre, we found streets filled with shops and ended up spending quite a lot of money... Oops!

As we headed back, Grand Place was lit up with red lights and we could see the Hard Rock Cafe, so we decided to go there for tea.

After the Hard Rock Cafe, we wandered the streets for a while to find somewhere to have drinks, but we couldn't find the main night-life areas.

We had heard that Brussels has amazing bars and clubs, but we couldn't find any of those things and not many people were out and about, so we went back to the hotel.

The next morning we woke up and checked out then headed to the Belgian Chocolate shops.

We got a lot of tasters and admired all of the beautiful cakes before having a huge scoop of chocolate mousse with raspberries.

We were heading back to our hotel when we saw the Tin Tin museum! It was so cute and we both bought postcards.

Whilst looking for somewhere to sit and wait for our train, we stumbled upon the Laduree cafe, where we had pink champagne, tea and cakes before we headed back to Lille.

Overall, Brussels was lovely but neither of us thought that it had lived up to expectations. We also found that there were men who kept staring at us and following us which made us feel incredibly unsafe and we have never experienced that before,

If you're thinking of going to Brussels, I would recommend doing your research on where to eat and drink and make sure you go when the weather is nicer. We also only stayed for 2 days and crammed a lot in so maybe if we had longer we would've done more.

Another great trip :)

Thank you for reading, have you been to Brussels? If so, would you recommend doing anything that we didn't do?

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 :)

Updates from France

Its been a while since I've given any updates on life in France, so I thought I would try to cover everything that has been happening in Lille...

Life after the Paris Attacks

By now, everyone will know about the horrific events that took place in Paris. I was at a friends when I heard and hurried back to my flat to watch the BBC news coverage, it was so scary because nobody knew when or where it would end.

The next day, we (British Council assistants) received an email to give us general information and advice on how to stay safe, as the terror threat was, and still is, very very high. Especially in Lille, as you must travel through Lille to get to Paris from Brussels (which shortly after the Paris attacks went into lock down) and vice versa. The general advice was to stay indoors, avoid public transport and the city centre, be aware of everything around you and make sure your school knew where you were.

I stayed indoors for the whole weekend, apart from one trip to the shop to stock up on food. I had expected to see people looking sad or scared but instead I saw a group of young men out jogging and laughing, one of them was just in swim shorts and it was raining. Very strange.

The schools were open on the Monday but the gates had to be closed at all times, usually they were wide open throughout the day, and we were told that if the students wanted to talk about the attacks, then they could and should. Most of my classes that week were discussing how they all felt and what they thought of it all.

 I was very surprised at how open minded they all were, because there had been some awful messages all over the internet about muslims and not letting refugees into Britain, Whereas here were 15 year old students who live near Calais, where the refugees are, and very close to Paris, saying 'we must stay strong', 'it is nothing to do with religion' and 'the refugees are running from terror, why should we deny them safety? what did they do?'.

We had a minutes silence at school and then I just happened to be passing Republique Beaux-Arts on my lunch break when I saw a huge crowd of people standing around a memorial for the Paris victims and I joined them in a minute of applause. 

In the weeks following the attacks, the security around Lille city centre has definitely increased. You now have to have your bags checked in a lot of shops, sometimes with a metal detector, especially in the shopping centre Euralille, which was (falsely) rumoured to be a target. There are also a lot more armed police on the streets and in train stations, which actually makes me feel worse.

The Lead up to Christmas

The Christmas decorations in Lille were put up in mid-November, which was so exciting and they are so pretty! Most main streets have their own welcome signs and set of lights.

The Christmas market is very cute and the food and drink isn't expensive at all like I had expected. The stalls are full of home made things such as Christmas decorations, wines, foods and clothes. There is also the big wheel which gives a great view of Lille city centre.

There is also a snow machine next to the Christmas tree sometimes

 I've also visited Arras Christmas market, it takes about half an hour on the train from Lille and the market is lovely. It is bigger than Lille's and has an ice rink which is great. I also tried maroilles cheese on chips which was very strange, it tasted like a very odd garlic sauce. Apparently it is very smelly (delicious).

Vin Chaud

Other than these things, I've just been working, eating and drinking- its a hard life.

 Thankyou for reading :)

Starting Teaching...

After my last blog post, it was the school 'half term' which lasted 2 weeks and so, due to lack of money to do anything, I decided to go home. I spent 10 days catching up with friends and family before returning to Lille to begin working properly.

So far, I work around 10 hours a week, the teachers are trying to get me 2 more hours so that I will be doing the full 12 hours that I am allowed to do. I am teaching (assisting) the 'Seconde' classes who are around 15 years old.

Here are some of the main events of the past 2 weeks of teaching:

• Some days, I start work at 8am and so I go for the bus at 25 past 7, so that I can arrive and have plenty of time to climb up all of the stairs to the 4th floor and not be sweating and panting like mad. As I leave this early (and as it is winter time and therefore dark more than it is light), I have seen such beautiful sunrises, it almost makes getting up so early worth it.

• I woke up last Friday to a very annoying buzzing and immediately knew that it was a mosquito. I pulled the duvet up so that just my face was peeking and felt something tickle my face so I smacked it and hurried to turn on the light, only to see that there was a squashed mosquito on my pillow and MY blood that it had been feasting on. I woke up later on with a lovely bite ON MY EYELID and so looked like Quasimodo until I got some cream. -Thankfully it didn't swell up properly until after my classes.

• My first ever lesson, I was given half of the class to go through a sheet about Jamie Oliver, I had no idea what to do and the class were laughing and talking, completely ignoring me. One student started reading out in a silly voice and I was so stressed out I didn't even call him out on it because I was scared he would say it was his real voice.....Since then, it has become a lot easier. I actually enjoy the lessons now that I've stopped taking it personally when they would rather chat to their friend than do the work that I have set them.

• A lot of my classes struggle with my accent, so I end up talking very slow and trying to sound posh, but even then one teacher told me that the students had finished my lesson and been convinced that I was Australian!?!?!

• I was asked to play a game with the students where 2 students were suspects in a murder investigation and had to be each others alibis while the rest of the class were detectives and asked questions, but I got the game wrong and had half the class be detectives asking the other half questions. My 'wrong' version actually worked a lot better than when I tried to play the real game and the students had so much more fun coming up with their own imaginary stories. Their English is amazing, I was walking around each small group to help them with vocabulary and sentence structure and overheard one girl saying 'I was his bodyguard, I heard him shout and so I broke down the door and found him on the floor, he was blue because he wasn't breathing! I hadn't heard anything, but I looked around and couldn't see any evidence of a break in so I felt his pulse and he was dead..'.

• I had a class of 11 students who wanted to move the tables into a U shape so that I could stand at the top and help them with work, but there was one student in my class who is 12 but has been moved up a few grades because he is very intelligent. The class were all picking on him, so he did not want to sit with the rest of the class in the U shape and he sat alone. I tried to compensate for not being good enough at French to tell them to pack it in and so was being overly nice to him for the whole lesson.  Another group of students in this class instead of wanting to talk about their 'ideal school' were cutting up each others pencil cases. Ah, teenagers..

• Whenever I run out of activities, or more often when the class is refusing to take part and I can't think of anything else to do, I turn to tongue twisters. I write something like 'The big bug bit the little beetle but the little beetle bit the big bug back' on the board and each student has a go. They really enjoy it and even after the lessons I hear them telling their friends in the corridor. HOWEVER.. normally the class will then demand that I have a go at a French tongue twister and although I've done the same one several times, I still find it hard: 'Les chaussettes de l'archiduchesse sont-elles sèches?  Archi-sèches ?' 

• Each class that I have for the first time, I ask 'does anyone have any questions for me? About England? Or my life?' and some classes straight away have their hands up 'How long are you in France for?', 'Where are you from?', 'Do you gave a boyfriend?' etc. etc. - although one student said 'a little boy' instead of boyfriend because in French it is 'petit copain' or 'petit ami' which literally translates to little friend. Anyway, the more common response to my question is complete silence, they all stare and shake their heads whispering 'elle a dit quoi?' (what did she say?) , 'je ne comprends rien' (I don't understand) or simply...'Non' (no).

Other than teaching, I haven't been up to much, I've been attending a group called 'Franglish' each Tuesday, where you sit and talk to a French partner for 7 minutes in English and 7 minutes in French and then swap partners. It is interesting, but I find myself having the same conversations over and over in terrible French until I've had a couple of drinks...

The Christmas market is finally being set up and so I'm very excited for that opening very soon! Only 6 weeks to go till Christmas!

Greetings from Lille!

I have finally started my year abroad! Well actually I started 3 weeks ago, but we just got WIFI on Tuesday and I had a lot of TV to catch up on...

I am living in Lille, Nord-Pas-de-Calais, France, for the next 7/8 months and am working as an English Assistant in a French Lycée, which is a public French secondary school where the students are between the ages of 15 & 18.

So I arrived in Lille, by the Eurostar, on the 25th September. I had never been before and had no idea what to expect, although I was told that the weather would be terrible (like at home in the North East..) and that French people weren't friendly but people in Lille were friendlier..

Place du théatre

Flace du Général de Gaulle

Walkway to Rihour

Vieux Lille (Old Lille)

  

The weather was beautiful when I arrived and stayed gorgeous up until this week, when all of a sudden it turned absolutely freezing almost overnight and has rained quite a lot. The people, mostly, have exceeded expectation and all been very welcoming and friendly and always speak to me in French even if they can speak English and cannot understand a word I'm trying to say, they always help out and really appreciate my efforts.

I am living just outside of the city centre next to the Bois du Boulogne, its a quiet area but the public transport is great in Lille so I can get into the city by bus or by metro in 15 mins. I'm living in a shared house alongside 2 Russian Assistants and a German Assistant, all are very nice.

This took absolutely ages and keeps falling down during the night and giving me the shock of my life, 

I'm hoping I've secured it now,,

My Bedroom

View from my bedroom

We have a simple kitchen (with no bloody oven) and a shower room, which always has hot water so that's great but,..

The toilet is outside?!?!?!?!!?

Its enclosed which is good (but doesn't lock..) and actually doesn't cause as much of a problem as I had thought it would...BUT now that its freezing on a night, I have to force myself to go twice and not drink anything after half 9 so that I won't have to get up and go.

Anyway, so that is where I'm living and all about Lille itself so far...

Now I'm going to give some brief details of my time observing classes in the Lycée (I don't start teaching till after the school holidays)...

- So far the most popular question when the students have to 'quiz' me has been 'Do you like French people?'- obviously I'm not going to say no am I?!

- The weirdest and most random questions that I have been asked are: 'Matt Smith or Peter Capaldi?', 'Is it true that English people stop everything at 5pm to drink tea?' and 'Is it true that every English person has read Wooster and Jeeves?'

- French school days are loooooooong.. 8am-6pm with a 2 hour lunch and some students come in on Saturdays too!!

-My school has 4 floors and no lift, each floor takes 2 flights of stairs to get to... it took me most of the lessons to recover when I was on floor 4.

- French school lunches generally consist of 1 main meal such as pizza and mash (what the hell) and vegetables if you want, 3 'sides' like salads and things, a cheese (of course), some bread and then a dessert........How they can then continue with another 4 or 5 hours of school after this is beyond me.

-I cannot count the times I have been mistaken for a student by staff and by students until I manage to blurt out 'JE SUIS L'ASSISTANTE D'ANGLAIS' and they laugh and tell me I'm small.

-All French classrooms,the staff room and even the staff toilets are locked (at least they are in my school) and I don't have any keys yet, so until I found the student toilets I would hold it all day and I creepily hang about outside the staff room until someone goes somewhere and I can sneak in (They got sick of me knocking all the time).

-The French students are cheeky but also hilarious, e.g. In one class they were doing a listening exercise about Oprah Winfrey and how she managed to go from 'poverty to celebrity' (the phrase they used) and one boy at the side just randomly came out with 'started from za bottom now we're here' in the most monotone voice I've ever heard. Another example was when the class were fascinated with a stretchy rubber mouse while their English teacher was desperately trying to get them to answer questions, they were throwing it to each other sneakily and stretching it and sticking it to the window until it was confiscated.

-Most of the students don't want to ask me questions when they are supposed to and so when they have to do work they whisper something random like 'psst.. miss...do you like Arctic Monkeys?' then they squeal and whisper in French when I say yes.

All in all, its been an eventful few weeks and I've really enjoyed being at the school so far. The food has been amazing (except certain school meals) and I'm finally starting to feel more settled and can feel my French starting to progress veeeeery slowly.

Thankyou if you're still reading, the rest of my posts won't be as long- I hope!!!