Tout en travaillant

After a little incident on the tram lines caused me to be fifteen minutes late to my first lesson with another new class, my day didn't start particularly amazingly. Did get better though! My new sixième are sweet and, as always, fascinated by me. I could already spot the troublemakers a mile off though...let's see if I ever have to deal with them head on how they will be. I mean, they're only ten and eleven...but my guess is that they can be little tykes! After a quick introduction, this time with interested rather than blank faces (see yesterday's cinquième for further details!), we moved quickly on to being able to identify and place things in a room. i.e. "The bin is next to the door" or "the bag is under the table" and then doing a little exercise to consolidate it. Was really enjoyable to try and help those struggling to get a better understanding of what it is they had to do.

And then finally, an "old" hour, spent with the troisième INTER in their histoire/geo class...a nice quiet hour and a chance to chill out after my rather panicky morning. The troisième are not a bother, and a really entertaining class...always nice to work with! They handed in their tourist information leaflets that I had started with them a few weeks before, and I was so impressed with them. Bar the two that I know always don't work. A boy and a girl. It's really upsetting to watch, as the girl is the worst in the class and the boy has a pretty good standard of English...and he is dragging her down. The only way to stop them is to separate them...which I do in my own classes, but feel if I did it in another teacher's class I would be overstepping the mark.

The usual frantic rush of trying to find an empty room for my solo classes was, as ever, present with my cinquième INTER. Being that difficult age between loving animation films because you're young and loving animated films because you're not...I'm not completely certain whether they are enjoying it as much as the rest of the classes. I set them a pretty hard exercise to unscramble the names of the pirates (in hindsight, harder than a wordsearch!) so I guess that also didn't help. I must say, I will be using the room I found if it is ever free again when I need it...the projector projects onto an entire wall, so it is pretty much like being in a cinema. Fab!

It is really great to see my other troisième class, the EURO ones, improving. After a few weeks of working on debating they are finally getting the hang of it! And the boys (who I have more contact with, due to them being worse!) have finally got their act together and started making better arguments than the girls. I never thought that would happen! I was so disappointed in one of the best students in the class, who spent her time making disparaging comments to the rest and saying that her arguments would beat any of theirs. To be completely honest, her English was not on form today and she really was no better than any of those that had actually tried. I (and the normal teacher) were so annoyed with her that we ended up taking her aside at the end of the class for a quick chat. The fact that she was saying to me that she was "bored" in class, yet refusing to move up into the INTER class suggests that a lot of her bravado is probably down to the fact that she is one of the best in the class. Never a good way to be, and I hope she learns before she gets all her classmates' backs up.

My final hour of the day was spent in a solo class with the sixième INTER. I find that age so cute! They came to find me fifteen minutes before the class started and even asked some of the teachers where I was because they were so excited to come and didn't want to miss it. Why can't they all stay that enthusiastic? A nice end to my longest school day to be honest.

Staffroom chat: one great thing I've noticed about the Normans is that it seems like nothing is alcoholic enough. Example one: Cider. Not strong enough, add Calvados = Pommeau. Example two: Apple ice-cream. Add Calvados, typical Norman dish. Hopefully my point comes across well enough here!

So my entire evening was spent at Thomas' flat. And what a lovely flat it is, much as he moans about it! After an hour or so catching up, we were joined by Flavie, Pierre and his American friend. Cue a great mélange of both English and French...although I still feel really intimidated when I'm speaking to a room full of native speakers. Hopefully that will improve in time. After they left Laura arrived for our German lesson. On my part...not going too well! I just can't understand the intonation, or remember anything that is said to me long enough to repeat it back. I may just buy a German language book and have a look at that first before I attempt another lesson. Luckily I was seeing Dana who also came to the flat...so while Thomas and Laura worked, well, we chatted. But in French, which makes everything better! It is of course the lovely Thomas in the picture today, with his best concentration face, and Laura reflected in the mirror. So lovely to catch up...although so much so that I completely lost track of time and had to bomb off to get a tram so I could prepare everything for tomorrow.

Words I learnt today:-
- Auto-suffisant - self sufficient
- Autruches - ostriches
- Lamas - llamas
- Chatouiller - to tickle
- Tache de rousseur - freckle

- Hundred - cent
- Million - million
- Billion - milliard
- Trillion - trillion