I had class this morning from 11-1 with Marylise. I had gone to bed early last night in the hopes of waking up early with lots of energy. However, as I lay in bed for two hours before giving up and turning on the light and then staying up another hour before finally falling asleep, I did not feel well rested at all. Marylise gave me the handout she expected me to teach and told me what she wanted from me, well intermingled with what she will expect from me on Friday as well as what will be needed for some future Wednesday most likely about three weeks away. She is always telling me way too much all at once about events that may or may not even happen in the future. Anyway, I managed to sort out what was on today's agenda (two one hour lessons on a text explaining the new trend in British cuisine) and she sent me off to teach about 10 students. The students were lively and excitable and generally seemed to have a good time although it was difficult to get them to understand or to listen to each other when they were speaking. The second group of 10 however was very quiet and did not seem to understand a word I said. This was very frustrating and I felt like I put in an extreme amount of effort to drag everyone through the article (which I find only vaguely interesting and in most ways unimportant). I don't believe they had a very high comprehension level and this group didn't even seem able to indicate what word or sentence they didn't understand. I talked to Marylise about it and she asked me what I thought would be a good solution. So for next time I have class with them I am going to go over the lesson plan (she's already given it to me) and I am going to pick out key points and vocab words and design my own lesson plan that I think will be more at the students' level. We will see how that goes (I have three whole weeks to do that though as I will not see these particular students for a while).
Then I had a 3 hour break in which I at lunch, chatted with my roommates, and bought some folders to keep all my papers organized (inspired by Marylise's desire to give me papers weeks in advance in random bundles).
My two hours of class with Laurent went much much better. The first hour was spent with him in class mostly just watching him do a listening activity with the students and a sound clip based on a Agatha Christie novel. It involved an old lady sitting in front of a radio when something 'eerie' happened (eerie of course being one of the first words you should teach non-native English speakers). My first thought was of course, "Ooh, Mousetrap," this being a play by Agatha Christie I staged managed a year ago which had an old lady sitting in front of a radio right before the lights go out and she gets murdered. However, it turned out to be one of her many other stories that include this scene and I was a bit disappointed. The second hour with Laurent we watched a three minute film (twice) and then he sent 7 students with me to speak about the film. Next year these students will have an exam which consists of watching a three minute film, having a two minute break to scribble notes, watching the film a second time, having 12 minutes to write a summary, and then being sent into a room alone with the examiner and having to talk about the THREE MINUTE film for 20 minutes. I have already been asked by Annie to play the role of the examiner with some of her students and it is excruciating trying to get these kids to talk for 10 minutes much less 20. Partly because they didn't understand the video, or they don't understand me, or they don't have the English to speak their thoughts, but partly because they are high schoolers and they don't have the tools it takes to watch a video and then talk about it pointing out details and making connections to their own lives. All in all, I was very happy to have the chance to help out a group of Laurent's students by explaining what would be expected of them and teaching them how to talk about such a short video for a long period of time. I made them review the details which I wrote on the board in a logical order and then I put them in groups and had them try to write a summary of what they would say for 20 minutes. After they had come to a stop I told them the secret: you can talk about almost anything as long as it is in English and semi-related to the video. The video takes place in Canada? Great! Have you ever been to Canada? Would you like to go there? The video is about cooking salmon? Okay, how do you cook salmon? Have you ever cooked it like that? Would you like to taste salmon cooked like that? The salmon was cooked outside on an open fire? Have you ever cooked outside? Have you ever burnt what you were cooking?
So I had a good time with these students and they seemed to understand the enormity of talking for 20 minutes straight as well as take my advice into consideration. I am glad I ended my day this way because I was definitely feeling deflated after my first two hours of kiddos.
*On a side-note, I was writing with a small piece of chalk and it turns out it was too small because horror of horrors, I scratched my nail slightly on the black board. This is something I have always dreaded and has always given me the hibijibis just thinking about (it does now just remember it) but when it happened in real life... It wasn't too bad. I think my imagination is worse than reality on this one. I flinched slightly and then ignored it and got on with teaching.
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