Boys boys boys

The Antonov 124- 2x the width of a 747

I’ve ‘officially’ started teaching, as the 8^th was prise en function day for all the assistants.  My day started at 9 am, with a group that I’d actually seen once before, when I stopped in and sat in on class last Tuesday.  It was a BTS class, which is the two-year vocational program after the bac for students interested in pursuing technical and mechanical certification of some sort, which is one of the reasons why the class is entirely boys around the age of 19-20.  Normally there are 7 students, but 4 were absent, so there were only 3 students.  (How about those subtraction skills of mine?  That’s 17 years of math class right there ;) ha)  We watched a program that Alain (the prof) had recorded about an enormous cargo plane, the Antonov 124, and picked out key words.  Sometimes Alain will teach two different versions of how to say things in English- like that it’s a ‘truck’ in the US but a ‘lorry’ in the UK.  Interesting!  He (Alain) also passed me a personal note from a student that I’d seen last week… looks like I have admirers already J

I had a bit of a break between classes, and Alain and I sped over to the market to pick up something to eat for lunch.  I didn’t have a clue what to get and was quite honestly overwhelmed by all the choices of different meats so I let him pick for me- I ended up with a container of fresh-out-of the oil frites (French fries- although I hear that they’re technically not French… ), a thick slice of beef, and a stuffed tomato.  We at a couple of fries on the go and headed back to the school, where I met Mme Burani, the teacher for the next two classes I joined.

My second class of the day was a class of terminale students, which means that they’re in their last year of high school and will take the bac in the spring.  This group in particular is taking an extra English class every week and since they’re in an engineering track, they read scientific articles and then present them to Mme Burani and another prof, who is a professor in some sort of science/engineering field.  They’ll have to do the same thing for their exam (20 min with an article for 10 min of presentation/questions in English) so it’s really good practice.  Like my previous class, they were all boys- but this time 17 or 18 years old.  They seem like a really good group and have a pretty high level of English.  Some of them actually came to visit Wisconsin on an exchange trip last year since lycée Fabre has a relationship with Wisco!  I was glad to hear that they’ve been to my stomping grounds too. 

My 'apple'- interesting.

When class was done, the students left to head to lunch.  I had another class that started at 1 (which Alain said is pretty unusual, since students are usually still eating then) which leaves me with only about a 45 minute break between classes, an extremely short lunch break by French standards.  Most of the students have about an hour and a half to eat lunch, which makes our half-hour open campus lunches from RLHS pale in comparison!  My third and final class of the day was again a group of BTS students, most of whom are interested in working in ‘automated systems.’  There are 17 boys (seeing a trend here? I didn’t have a single female student all day... haha) between the ages of 18 and 25 in the class, but most are 20 and 21.  We spent a good portion of the class doing intros, Mme Burani asked all of the students to introduce themselves individually and tell me something about themselves- usually their age, town of residence, future plans, and hobbies.  Most were pretty standard answers (the vast majority of the class either wants to work in automated systems or research and development within industry) but a couple of jokers threw in that they liked to “drink beer… very cold beer,” play rugby, “have fun with my friend,” and party.  Similar to the previous class, they’re going to have to read an article and then present it to two examiners for their final exam, so we spent the hour talking about an article they’d read.  Interestingly enough, it was about stopping global warming by eating less beef, since eating veggies or even chicken/pork rather than beef is easier on the environment because those options cause less carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases to be released into the environment.  The article ripped on Americans for eating too much beef, but I had to laugh because my personal experience has been that I’ve probably eaten more meat in the last 3 weeks than I had in the whole year prior to that at home… but my fam doesn’t eat much red meat J  One of the students laughed and gave me an ‘apple’ that he’d gotten from the cafeteria, which he assured me is actually ok to eat but just looks funny since it has more of an appearance of a potato.  Another student asked me if I had plans for the evening because there was a group going to the bars in Avignon.  Mme Burani stressed to him that I don’t have a car, so if he brought me, he’d have to bring me back to Carpentras.  She said that she thinks that she thinks that it’s a good idea for me to do things with him and some of the other boys, since I don’t know anyone my age here… but I feel like it raises both ethical and safety issues on my part.  I don’t think I would have respected TAs in college that came out partying with me and the idea that I have to trust someone I don’t know to drive me half an hour to another town and to bring me home seems a little sketchy, although I’m sure that they’re all nice guys.

Well, enough of the serious stuff!  All in all, everything went well for my first day.  It’s definitely going to be an interesting year and my experience isn’t going to be anything like those primary teachers with the little kiddies J  I’m meeting with all of the English profs on Wednesday next week and hopefully I’ll be able to talk to them about changing my schedule a little bit so that I’ll be able to get outta town every now and again.  This weekend, Amber and Alexandre are coming to visit! 

Have a wonderful day and enjoy the Badger game J  Bisous!