Day 11
I wonder how long I can keep up the every day journaling... it would be wild if I was like, “Day 294”... but I don’t have that much dedication, haha! We’ll just have to wait and see.
Today was my first day of teaching classes, yay!!!
I repeated nearly the same introductory lesson 4 times, so there is really not much to tell, but I will try:
I had 2 L1 and 2 L2 classes today. L1s are first-year English majors and L2s are (logically) the 2nd-years. The classes were an hour each and went like this:
1) Introduced my name & email address.
2) took roll – had them spelling their names in English, fun times.
3) explained the exam expectations
4) explained that this course is an oral class, that they would be graded on participation and that I wanted to make this experience open & comfortable – I also spoke a phrase or 2 in French to show them that my French is worse than their English, which helped them open up
5) talked about me for 30 mins, where “me” included: utopian studies, environmentalism & Jason Mraz
6) one of the oral exams will be finding an English source that they would consider a “favourite” and come prepared to answer questions about it in class... I am asking for websites, but am willing to accept any English source... I gave examples of my 3 fave websites:
www.hotguysreadingbooks.tumblr.com
and one blog: www.freshnessfactorfivethousand.blogspot.org (aka Jason Mraz’ blog).
7) After that, I told the story of how I prepared for France with various vocabularies, did not think about medical and ended up in the ER (as you’ve already read in great detail) and then
8) we talked for 15-20mins about injuries/accidents/going into labour/etc... except the few students who got distracted by
9) making up stories about crashing their airplane onto an island where they met Tom Cruise who broke one girl’s heart, kissed another girl... and the guy (who made it clear that he did not kiss Tom Cruise) got acting advice & was offered a part in his next film -- & the one guy to told me that he would “love” to talk about Ernest Hemingway*, but that his throat hurt. HAH.
10) during the conversations, I would note vocabulary words on the board that I noticed they were struggling with
Overall, I feel like it was a successful day. There were some shy students, some students who just joked around (but in English, so I didn’t mind), and other students who had to be reminded that this was an ENGLISH class – but only once and then they at least kept trying, which I felt was a great beginning.
Some students have already asked to meet with me for coffee to practice more, and want to stop by my office, and if that happens, then I will feel as though I am doing my job, because it means that they want to learn and feel comfortable enough with me to ask for help.
I do feel like I need to offer a more structured environment in future classes, because there were times when they were just at a loss for ideas, but I think I can do it ONCE I HAVE INTERNET and can prepare film/tv/music clips!!! argh.
We shall see how tomorrow turns out... I have a 2-hr class of non-English majors in the afternoon and I am a little concerned about how to fill up that much time on the first day of class... but I refuse to be anxious. I have been given such little guidance that I will not allow myself to worry about expectations.
In other academic-related news: I ran into D** after my last class and I want to take several of his classes, one of which is a sort of a translation from English-into-French course to help me with French vocab that conflicts with one of the classes I’m teaching, so he was like “just tell Ellen*** that you will be working with me on a big transatlantic project between Princeton and Sorbonne (I think? – some major French uni, at any rate) and that you need that block of time to be changed” and I was like do you HAVE a project like that, because count me in! I will ask Ellen if it is possible... people seem to think it is... and maybe that project really does exist, in which case, I will be so excited! I intend to attach myself to this guy in whichever academic fashion I can because he has so much I can learn... I intend to get as much out of this French experience as possible, & that includes networking in Academia. Even if I don’t get the schedule change, he has given me the homework for his class... should be enlightening! I hear from his students that he’s pretty harsh & his standards are really high... so I aim to seriously apply myself. And hopefully he won’t tell me I’m an idiot.
After all that, I met up with some colleagues at a pub in town (that also sold coffee, which rocked) and then we migrated to Sara’s place after a pit stop at the grocery store for what I called Alsacian tapas (a little bit of everything... sort of a sampler of Alsacian foods) and the group of us had a nice visit!
I have finished Firefly & Serenity, plus it’s late & I am exhausted after the teaching day, so I think I am going to read a bit of Dracula and then crash.
PS
Have I mentioned how I CANNOT WAIT UNTIL I GET INTERNET IN MYPLACE????
*I have no clue where he pulled Hemingway from... maybe because I’m American? But I found it entertaining... and he told me all of that in English, so it was alright :)
**D = the C18 Oscar Wilde/4 Weddings & a Funeral Scottish guy blend who fascinates me. In case you’ve forgotten. Or maybe you don’t care. oh well!
*** prob self-evident, but just in case: Ellen is responsible for the timetables and classroom assignments in our dept
I intend to attach myself to this guy
ReplyDeleteYou could have stopped there.