I've decided to do something a little different this week. It was around this time last year (where has that time gone?) when I found out that I'd been accepted onto the language assistants programme and I was about to discover which region I'd been placed in. So I did what I do best, and I turned to the internet. In my excitement I read a huge amount of blogs and case studies of current and past language assistants to get an idea of what lay in store for me.

The whole time I've been writing this blog, I've tried to bear in mind that future assistants and other year abroaders might stumble across my ramblings, and therefore I've made an effort to be as honest as possible about what it's like to live abroad and not gloss over the difficult bits, or on the flipside moan too much.

Anyway, this week I thought I'd do a sort of " Week in the life" type thing and do a little diary. It's a typical week- I'm working the average number of hours I do, and I've got a mix of some of my regular classes as well as some new ones, so hopefully for anyone who is soon to start their year abroad it will give a little glimpse of what to expect!

Monday

8am Monday morning, first day back after the holidays, nobody wants to be here. Luckily I'm being eased back in gently and only had one class today. I've had this lot a few times before and they're a typical premier class (16-17 year olds). Their exams are still far enough away that they try to get away with not putting in the maximum amount of effort, but most of them are mature enough to not muck about. When I arrived at school, the printer wasn't working (what else is new?) so I had to improvise and turn a reading activity into a listening one. Then I arrived at the classroom to find that the teacher was doing oral exams and didn't tell me that I needed to take half the class to another classroom. With 10 minutes wasted, I started the lesson and it was going fairly smoothly. My new whiteboard pens wouldn't rub off the board properly though so I was forced to leave a blue cloud on there when a German teacher came in and said she needed the room for oral exams. I told the class that there was another room we could go to to finish the last 15 minutes of the lesson, but 6 or 7 of them mysteriously got lost on the way...

With my work at school finished for the day by 9am, I headed home in the sunshine to plan my lessons for tomorrow and plan out the few remaining weekends I have left here.

Tuesday

My 8am class was cancelled so I went in for 9 and did 4 classes. I did a couple on the subject of the conditional tense which was fun as we just did lots of games. Usually I really don't like teaching grammar, but this was just getting them to speak using this particular tense so we weren't restricted to lots of grammar exercises. Another lesson was on social networks and big brother society. It was a lively group but I've done that lesson countless times before so it was fine. I'd never had a class with them before so they were asking me all these questions about myself and asking how long I'm here for which felt a bit odd considering I've been here since September... My last lesson of the day was about the American Civil Rights Movement and the divided society of America in the 1960s. The temptation to do nothing but watch clips and songs from Hairspray was strong, but the group was 80% boys so instead I got them to write their own versions of Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech.

Now I'm having an evening of enjoying the fact that all my lessons are planned for the rest of the week :)

Wednesday

I like Wednesdays. It's the only day of the week that I have set hours, and I have two of my favourite classes (I know i shouldn't have favourites, but when they're as lovely as these two classes I can't help it). One of the groups is in London on a school trip so I only had one class today- the BTSs. I'm sure I've written about them before but they're the post- compulsory education class who have decided to stay on and do a Higher National Diploma, so they're my age. Most of them have done work placements abroad so they know how I feel and they're always asking me how I'm doing and if I like France. They're just a lovely group and I really look forward to teaching them because I do 1to1 conversation practice with each of them for 15 minutes. I've got to know them pretty well and some of them have really impressive English, and amazing ambitions. They all want to own their own restaurants and earn Michelin stars, or be successful YouTubers, or open French pastry shops abroad. I just think it's really cool that they know for sure what they want and how to get it, and that they're so determined, so we have some really good conversations.

Anyway, enough gushing about the BTSs, this evening I walked home in the sun (the thermometer outside the bank said it was 26 degrees but I don't quite believe that, it was beautiful outside though) and tweaked some of my lesson plans for tomorrow.

Thursday

I did my civil rights lesson again today. When I told the class that they could choose any injustice they liked and write their own "I have a dream" speech about it, one group of boys chose to write about discrimination of gingers and that their dream is that one day gingers will be equal with the rest of the world. It was very well written!

Today was the first day of the year I have sat outside in the sun for lunch :) I wanted to get away from the staffroom because some of the teachers were referring to me as "elle, l'assistante" (her, the assistant) instead of calling me by my name when I was right there. They weren't being horrible, the teachers are lovely on the whole, but it just annoyed me a bit and reminded me that there is a definite hierarchy here that is a strange place for an assistant to slip into, so I had a break from the staffroom. As an assistant you're in this weird situation where the pupils see you as a member of staff, but not one who is to be respected as a teacher, and the teachers see you as a member of staff, but one who is only just above the pupils in terms of the school hierarchy. I suppose it's fair really, but it means that you don't really feel comfortable in either category and it makes it really important to talk to other assistants who are in similar positions.

Friday

I was lucky to only have one class today. In the morning I walked into town to meet up with a friend for lunch, before going into the catering college for my lesson. There were only four pupils and they're from a group with ability, but very little motivation. And being Friday afternoon the motivation was almost zero. We got through it though and I think they learnt some new vocab so I think it was as successful as it could've been.

Saturday

I was going to keep this little diary going over the weekend as well, but my Saturday morning has got of to a bad start with the bus not turning up that was supposed to take me to Colmar, so I'm just going to go for a bike ride and work on my Special Study. I know that this post was probably incredibly boring for most people reading it, but if it helps any future assistants to get an idea of what a typical week looks like, then I'll be happy :)


In other news, I've been accepted into language school in Italy! I'll be spending May in the Marche region so if I completely fail at finding a summer job in Italy then at least my Italian should (hopefully) be up to scratch. I'm actually really excited about it (I'm also a little too excited than is socially acceptable that I'll be abroad for Eurovision and will therefore be able to vote for the UK.)

I'll leave it there for this week as I desperately need to get cracking on this essay I have to do for university. I planning on writing it over the summer but the research needs to be done from France, and with only 5 weeks left, I'm cutting it a bit fine. Maybe it was a good thing the bus didn't turn up today after all!