When I grow up I want to be a teacher

Ok warning everyone, since I haven’t written any articles in the past week this one is going to be long ^^
Last week was quite busy! On Wednesday I went to the school for the first time, and talked to the Language Department staff who explained to us how we were going to work, with which students (mainly children who are in Year 11, 12 and 13 = Seconde, Première and Terminale in France), what they were supposed to learn for their exams, etc. I got my timetable, and was very happy to see that I have my Thursday afternoons and Fridays off! Long weekends to recuperate and travel, yay! On the other hand, it means that I start almost every day at 8.40m. And this is verrrrry hard for me^^ I also found out that on Wednesday mornings I would go to a primary school to teach French to little children! Awwww. Here is the website of the school: http://www.kps.moonfruit.com/#
On Mondays and Tuesdays evening from 4.30 till 5.30 I will also be working at the library (literally baby-sitting the children and then doing the closing, locking the doors, turning off the computers etc.)

Anyway, on Thursday, I shadowed a student all day, that is, I followed her everywhere, to see what it was like to be a student at Slough Grammar School. Unfortunately, since I arrived a couple of minutes late, I shadowed the wrong student for the first two classes :-D Is that my fault if there were two girls named Victoria in Year 8? (the equivalent of “classe de cinquième” in French, so the kids were about 12-13 years old) In the morning I observed a music class, during which the students were in pairs and supposed to play a melody on the piano; then a Spanish class, which was so much fun! The teaching techniques in the UK are indeed quite different from the ones used in France. Children’s participation is widely encouraged and they are eager to ask questions and do role plays, games, etc.
Then I found the right Victoria who I was supposed to follow from the beginning. She had a cooking class for 2 hours. Apparently cooking is included in their “technology” subject in years 7 and 8 (Sixième et Cinquième in France) In Year 8 they do 2 hours a week of cooking for 6 weeks and then they move on to another technology option like textile, etc. So in this cooking class there were about 20 girls and boys. They all had different recipes, because at the beginning of the year each child got to pick a country (I think they had a choice of 12 different countries) and then had to cook about 6 recipes of this country. Countries available were France, the UK, the Caribbean islands, China, Thailand, the United States, India… Of course they were not allowed to choose the country they came from. Then they got to take home what they had cooked. It was quite comical to see all these children make mango and lime mousse, shortbreads, banana cake, cookies, cheesecake… And I loved it when towards the end of the lesson they asked me if I wanted to taste what they had cooked! Yum :-p

Then I went to the canteen, which was so different from the French ones. There were only a few food stalls (but most of the kids had brought sandwiches from home) and they were using the tables to put their bags on and were eating standing up or outside! After that I went to see a maths class, with a teacher who at one point said to one of the kids sorry could you speak slower? I didn’t understand a word of what you just said, I come from Australia y’a know? I jumped on my chair and told my colleague K who was with me omg omg there is one Australian teacher in the school and we found him!!! Ahah. When he came closer to talk to us we noticed that he had a tie with kangaroos, koalas and maps of Australia on it^^ He told me he was from Townsville in Northern Queensland.
After school I took the train to London to go see Gotye’s concert, an Australian artist, in an area called Sheperd’s Bush, which I found out later is London’s Australian area :-) I caught up with a friend from Melbourne that I hadn’t seen in 9 months and met her really nice friends. I was so tired though that I fell asleep on my train home and I almost missed my stop!

I got up the next morning still very early (7.30am) to go to school and this time observe only language lessons. We started with a Spanish lesson (I learnt so many words :-p) then French lessons. I was actually quite impressed by the kids’ level of French!
After school I went to get a young persons railcard (thanks to which I’ll have 30 percent discount on all trains in the UK) and an Oyster card (the equivalent of a Técély card for the Lyonnais), which gives me cheap fares on London buses and Tube. I felt almost like a local :-p
Then I spent the evening with my new friends (the other assistants from the school) doing gratin dauphinois and drinking Australian Chardonnay. A very international evening, so much fun!



On Saturday I went to the city of Windsor which is about 15 mins bus from Slough, and yet so different from where I live! Windsor is indeed very posh, with cobbled streets, luxury shops and… the Windsor castle of course. We stayed several hours in it, where we saw the guards, a chapel, a giant dolls house, numerous rooms including some used by the Queen herself to entertain guests several times a year…
I had a really good time, and now that I have visited the castle once, I can go back for free for a whole year! How awesome! So when you my dear readers come visit me, I’ll be glad to take you to the castle :-)
After this royal visit I went to do some shopping with E and K, my two colleagues and future housemates:

On Sunday it was so rainy and cold and windy that I stayed in all day with my new friends. And I finally was able to catch up on some sleep.
Yesterday I had my first proper day of teaching at school. My first lesson was at 8.40am. Basically, I have lessons with only one student at a time for 30 mins. I talked to 5 students in total (2 forgot to come), and it was very interesting. I asked them to introduce themselves and talk about their hobbies, where they live (very few live in Slough), if they had been to France, what they want to do after the baccalaureate, etc. They were all so nice and eager to learn. Then I replaced the librarian at the school’s library for an hour. Very encouraging day overall.

Today was about the same, with face-to-face lessons with students. I also found out that in the end we will only get to move in our new house on Monday because the owner (who doesn’t live in Slough) hasn’t put all the furniture in yet and can only do it this weekend. It is quite annoying but there’s nothing we can do to speed the process. The estate agents are quite useless; they keep saying contradictory things every day. I think my housemates and I will be so relieved when it’s all over and we’re all settled!
That’s all for now. Hope you are all well and please give me some news!