Pom- Pom Girls and Moustaches

Welcome to Carpentras!

On Tuesday, I showered and got ready with my new French shampoo and soap but then ate my regular old American breakfast- Forme Flakes Nature et Boules Maïs (enrobées de miel) with raisins secs, une banane, and le lait demi-écremé.  Ok… not exactly my American breakfast, but cereal, raisins, banana, and milk nonetheless J  I spent my morning at home, reading in French and checking in with friends and family on facebook and in the afternoon, I headed into Carpentras for a rendez-vous­ with Professor Alain Cocouret, an English teacher at Lycee Jean-Henri Fabre.  It took me ~25 minutes to walk to school from my house, and luckily I was able to find the sale des professeurs without much of a problem.  Alain took me on a tour of the school and introduced me to some of the important people that work there (unfortunately my talent with names doesn’t extend to the French language because he was speaking so quickly that I didn’t catch everything…) and got me multiple different keys: for the classrooms, the hallways, and a different (closer) outdoor entrance, as well as keys to use the VCR and DVD players in the classrooms.  I also got a carte to use for lunches- for 2.50 euros, I can eat at the school and apparently, the lunches in France are much better than the ones in the US!  There are multiple different courses, and one of the teachers I spoke to said that it’s a pretty excellent deal. 

That's my school!

After all of that, my intro to the school was over, but since I didn’t have anything left to do in the afternoon, I asked if it would be ok if I sat in on some classes.  Alain ran it by the head man (le proviseur) and since he said it was ok, I was set to go.  I thought that I would just get to sit in and see what a typical English class is like, but instead, Alain changed his lesson plan to run a question-and-answer type of class, where the students had to ask me questions (in English) and I responded (in English) so that they could get more practice speaking and listening to the language.  One side note- it seems like all of the English teachers have British accents and did their English training in England, which surprised me initially but I guess makes a lot of sense since the UK’s much closer than the US!  It should make for some interesting lessons this year, because there are often times that the English people say things differently than Americans do.  The first class I was in was with six 19-20 year old boys who are in a BTS program, which means that they finished their bac and are now doing two years of more like vocational school before entering the work force.  They seemed like the guys that I could have found in my high school’s tech class, and weren’t all too keen on having to learn English.  That’s one other thing that I hadn’t thought about; in my classes, I studied French with other students who had chosen to take the language, but here, English is a required subject so it’s almost like a math or science course that students ‘have’ to take, whether they like it or not.  The boys in the class wanted to know things like, “How old do you have” and “Do you have a boyfriend” and actually had a very spirited discussion about how rugby and (American) football are different.  Their accents (when they speak English) are very strong, but I thought that they did a pretty good job of getting their questions across when they tried.  I stopped for just a second in a class of “freshmen” (the French have séconde, première, and terminale classes at the high school level) so that the teacher could introduce me, but I didn’t have time to respond to questions. 

Alain’s second class was much larger, with around 35 séconde students.  He had intended for my time to only take half an hour, but they had so many questions that we took the whole hour.  They had the same stereotypical questions (every class asked me how old I was an if I had a boyfriend- and apparently, they thought I looked younger than 22… go figure) along with “Are you shy?” (Kind of?  I’m a little nervous in the situation I guess), “Are you fussy?” (When it comes to love, he meant- apparently the fact that I don’t have a boyfriend means I’m difficult… awesome.), “What are your favorite artists, and “What are your favorite movies?”  I was surprised when someone asked me “Have you met any stars?” but then realized that they have the impression that American is full of movie stars that we just see on the streets.  One other interesting impression that they have of us that I only figure out when they asked “Are you pom-pom girl?” is that they think that all American boys are football players and all American girls are cheerleaders.  Hahahaha.  Riiiight.  The other thing that made me laugh was « Do you like Frenchies ? »  because I didn’t quite hear the girl that asked it and Alain repeated the question and asked me “Do you like French cheese?” so I was responding to that and the students looked a little confused… but we figured it all out in the end J 

Alain was done at 5, but one of the other teachers had a class from 5-6 and she invited me to join them.  I’m shocked that students have class that long!  We talked a little bit about the schedule that students have and they students all decided they wanted to move to the US when they heard that we only have class 8-3 M-F, because they have class 8-6 M-F AND on Saturday mornings until noon!  Yikes.  This class was a séconde class too, and asked many of the same questions as the class before them, but were more interested in the stars I’d seen (David Hasslehoff and Barack Obama were my only claims to fame) and “if zeee men in zeee Amereeca are beautiful.”  Umm… sometimes?  We all got a laugh out of a boy who asked “Do you have favorite expression?”  because I asked him if he had one and he responded, “Women wis a (gesture- pointing out above the upper lip) yes, moostache are like man without moostache.”  I’m not sure where he got that one from, I cracked up. 

I wasn’t sure how things had gone overall on the day, but Alain sent me an email afterward and told me that all of his students want to know when I’m coming back, so hopefully they liked me!  We’ll see how things go J  After finishing three hours of class, I wanted over toward the center of the old part of Carpentras for a minute or two and then got a call from Beatrice, another English teacher who had invited me over for dinner.  She was born in Carpentras and lived here until she was 10 or so, and this is her first year back in the area because she wanted to move closer to her parents, who still live in Carpentras.  She’s taught English for ~25 years, first in Dunkirk in the very north of France and then more recently in Antibes, in the French Riviera.  She’s another one of the professors with a strong British accent J  We had some delicious salad- apparently the fashion in the south of France is to have balsamic vinegar and olive oil as “dressing,” which was very tasty!  She made rice and heated up some Mexican chicken and peppers to put on top for our main dish, and then let me try several different types of French cheese after.  I liked them all, which I think is a good sign – I’d like to get along with French cheese!  I’m so glad she invited me to come over.  It’s really nice to have the chance to meet new people, and all of the professors and other people I’ve met at Fabre seem extremely friendly.  I think it’s going to be a great year!

With one more post, I should be all caught up with recent life- I’ll try to get it done today or tomorrow, before I head to Marseille!  Hope you’re having a wonderful day J