Well I am now over two weeks into my time in l'Hexagone, and I suppose it's being going fairly smoothly. Aside from the whole 3 degree centigrade thing of course. I have been settling into my new job and despite still using English more than French at the weekends and while teaching, I have been managing to speak a decent amount of French to my colleagues to sort out problems and make sure that I'm doing the right thing.
At the training day in Strasbourg, we were told that our schools should be giving us 10-15 days to observe classes before actually being put in front of them alone and told to educate them. Considering the lack of training we've had, I felt that even just a week of observations would do me the world of good. I would then be able to find out which topics the different classes are covering, their level of English and what I was actually expected to do with them. So I decided that these observation days weren't just going to be offered to me and I'd have to ask for them. I was going to have to be assertive. So basically I went to the head of English and told her what I'd been told in Strasbourg and emphasised that it would really benefit me and make my lesson plans a whole lot more effective and interesting if I could spend just a week learning the ropes. I was met with a reply of "well THAT'S new, we don't usually do things like that here." I'll take that as a no then... It's so easy in this kind of situation to think that that would never happen back home, and if it did I'm sure the parents would have something to say about the fact that the teachers are effectively using us as a babysitter for half the class so they can focus on a smaller number of kids at a time.
You're probably wondering what the title of this post refers to. Truth be told, I feel like France doesn't like me yet as much as I like France. Yes, I like croissants and croissants aren't good for me, but it's more than that. I feel like it's going to take me slightly longer to feel properly settled here than it did in Italy. It's not a bad thing, just something unexpected. I've begun to have a theory as to why I've experienced more feelings of culture shock here in my first 2 weeks, than I ever did in Italy. It wasn't so much that I didn't experience feelings of alienation and homesickness in Italy, in fact I was almost always craving a bit of "me" time with nothing but an episode of The Great British Bake Off and a slice of Victoria Sandwich to keep me company. But I think that is to be expected when au pairing. You are so completely immersed into your host culture that wanting to escape it occasionally is inevitable. The majority of the differences I found between the UK and Italy were positive ones: the weather was infinitely more cheerful, the food could put even the grumpiest of year abroaders in a good mood, and the lifestyle suited me perfectly. So although I was "culture-shocked", it was almost always in a positive, managable way.
Here, it's different. It's not that I don't like France, on the contrary it's one of my favourite places I've been to (I would never have chosen to spend 7 months of my life here otherwise!), but having been here before and having studied French for many more years than Italian, I sort of had a better idea of what to expect from my experience here. At least the lifestyle side if not so much the teaching side of things. I expected that this would have set me up nicely and I'd bumble along just fine, however instead I've been experiencing a completely unforeseen combination of emotions. First of all, going somewhere knowing what to expect and it being exactly as you imagined it, while seeming like an ideal situation, is not nearly as adventurous or comforting as I'd hoped. In fact, at times I have even been disappointed that I was experiencing the same sort of things from French culture that I'd experienced before on holiday here. This made me think "what am I actually doing living here if I can find out everything I want to know about a place from just going on holiday or by sitting in a lecture theatre in the comforts of university?" Whereas there have been other times (usually job related), when things are just so so different to how I'd expected that it has moved beyond adventurous and is just plain frustrating. When you walk into a school for the first time and are immediately thrust into a classroom with a group of 15+ lively, occasionally rude, almost always uninterested teenagers and told to educate them for an hour with no topic, no guidance, and no resources beyond a whiteboard pen to work with, you start to have thoughts that "this would never happen back home".
What I'm starting to realise though is that while that may be true, and Britain may do things differently, I'm not here to have an experience identical to the one I would have at home. I'm here to experience a different culture and see the ways other groups of people around the world approach things. While to begin with I may not like the way things are done here, at least I'll have a ton of funny stories to come home with and if anything I will go home with a new-found appreciation for British life. As long as I don't let my expectations and experiences make me see France as somewhere any less amazing than I know it really is, I don't think that can be a bad thing.
Anyway, rant over. Sorry about that. I shall move on to happier musings...
This week I started at my second school. I'm only there for 3 hours a week, but it's nice to have a change of scenery and it's walking distance from my appartment. This one is slightly different in that it's a professional school where they teach things like catering, marketing and management. I was warned by the teachers at my main school that this was the "chavvy" one, and the previous assistant who I had been in contact with thought it was a good thing that I wasn't spending all of my time there... So I went in there expecting the worst. But the day I spent there turned out to be the best of my week! The "kids" there are slightly older, some of them are actually a year or two older than me. I'm not teaching whole classes there though, only doing one-to-one conversation classes so hopefully the age issue won't cause any problems. In my main school, they've told the students that I don't speak any French, the idea being that they are encouraged to only speak to me in English, but the teachers in this school seem a lot more willing to let me use French. In a way I like this because pretending not to speak a language is harder to keep up than it sounds, but I do think that they would improve a lot quicker if they had a native speaker only using English. I suppose it's just about getting the right balance.
Starting at the new school meant standing through yet more class introductions. I know what kind of questions to expect from them now, but they still make me laugh. In my first two hours there I got asked for my number twice by 16/17 year old boys, and invited to go to Oktoberfest with them. Inappropriate, but hilarious.
I would say it has been a successful first full week for me in the world of work! My only embarrassing moment came when I opened the staff room door and made a teacher jump, resulting in him spilling coffee all over the floor. But we'll pretend that never happened and that I blend in... I don't really in the slightest. It was raining the other day so I wore my hair up, not something I usually do because it makes me look like a 10 year old boy, and not something I shall be doing again in a hurry because I was questioned by an unidentified colleague as to why I was using the staff loos and not the student ones, then proceeded to get told off by the cleaning lady for "hanging about in the corridors", when I was early for a class. To add insult to injury one pupil's reaction at being told by his teacher that I was paid to speak English to him was, "But she's so young! Can I get paid to speak French to her?" I need a way to make myself look more sophisticated and French. Haha not going to happen, as the employed, adult member of French society that I now am, I spent part of my first pay cheque on a onesie. In fact my two housemates and I got matching ones...
It feels very surreal sometimes to be in the staff room hearing all the gossip about the students when I only left school myself two and a half years ago. As an assistant you're in a strange limbo world between the pupils and the teachers- closer in age to the kids, but working as a member of staff. I have felt more settled into the life of a teacher this week though- I am now the proud owner of my own set of whiteboard pens, one teacher is making me responsible for grading his class and giving them their termly conversation mark, and I even got offered a glass of wine at lunch in the staff room! Well, if it gets you through the day...
As I mentioned earlier, it's got properly chilly the last couple of nights but our landlady has yet to switch on the heating. We thought that we were lucky having an older couple in charge of the heating because they would feel the cold more and put it on early, but as yet, no such luck. We got around it last night by going out to a hotel bar where one of the teachers was playing a gig with his band. It was nice to go out and try some of the local food (I had tarte flambée, it's like pizza, only better. A crispy base, cream instead of cheese, and topped with onions and bacon), although the band's lyrics were un peu bizarre. My favourite line was "Baby, I wish I had a dishwasher because I spent so long washing up that you cheated on me." They were singing in English and we seemed to be the only ones there who understood the hilarity so we had fun being the only ones uncontrollably laughing to ourselves. The other people there were just nodding along, as far as they knew, they were listening to a sophisticated English-speaking band whose music was totally serious.
I'll leave it there for now because the internet has decided that now would be a good time to hate me and slow right down, but I'll be back in a week or so with my last update before the holidays. Thank you all so much for continuing to take the time to read about what I'm up to!
Until next time amigos :)
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