My Wednesday is made equally as bright because j'attends a visit from a friend whom I studied with in Nantes two years ago (2 years ago?!). I'm eager to show Sens to her, even if that only fills an afternoon : )
Getting back to teaching has been interesting this week, and mostly positive. Monday was rough getting into a schedule, but yesterday was great. A little reminder that I like being in the classroom. For one of my classes I talk one on one with the students, usually about an article from their books. It's all in preparation for the bacculareat they'll be taking in a few short months. Yesterday I talked with two of the most energetic students in the class. Although I consider it important to read and understand a text, sometimes I prefer asking students questions that relate to the theme, but don't necessarily come straight from the book. I find it helps them to relax a bit and talk freely. The first student's text was about technology as a global aid principal in the world. i.e using the internet in villages in developing countries, and whether it's better or worse than focusing on basic humanitarian aid. From there, however, we were able to talk about her future career plans, and how she spent her spring break volunteering at a camp for people who couldn't necessarily afford a real vacation. With the second student, his article was about a Mexican woman who immigrated to the United States and the challenges that came with that. From there, we started talking about his family's history immigrating from Morocco, and how easy or hard it sometimes is for him to travel back and forth between the two cultures. Getting them to step back a bit from the difficulties of grammar and understanding every single word in the text helps I think, and it's also a great way for me to learn more about them.
To finish up my Tuesday I had class with my secondes, the class I look forward to every week. The kids are young enough that they're always energetic, and they're strong enough in English that I rarely ever speak French with them. We played a game yesterday to work on prepositions, which included setting up obstacle courses around the room, blindfolding a student, and having the rest of the students lead them around using phrases such as 'walk around the trash can', 'climb over the chair' or 'go under the table'. We of COURSE made it a contest to spice things up, and although Team Peach was looking hopeful for awhile, it was Team Banana which pulled through to win the gold. At the end of the hour we did a simplified 'campfire story'. I started the story out with 'There was once a man named Bob, who was sitting at home in his house'. Each student in the circle had to think of a new sentence, which could contain whatever plot twist they wanted, as long as they included a preposition. Later on I would add in sentences at random, just to make things interesting. 'All of the sudden, as Bob's mother was making crêpes, the electricity went out', and so on. Poor Bob. Never did get to eat those crêpes.
One teaching issue I've been pondering lately has to do with correcting students as they're speaking. Often I find myself automatically correcting the little faults in their sentences, sometimes without really noticing that I'm correcting. It just comes out. Of course I think it's important that the students understand sentence structures, verb agreements, pronunciation.... but I'm beginning to wonder, how much is too much? When does it stop helping a student and start hindering them? They certainly won't want to speak up if all I do is bark, 'in my mind, not to my mind' or 'to buy, not for buying'. Just something I've been considering recently.
Wishing you a sunny Wednesday!
ciao
alli
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