A Monday November Kind-of Day

Teaching English abroad carries a conception that doesn't always have much luminosity: the before and after are recently polished glass, but the in-between is often obscure to our perception. Even in the first couple months when the routine and works tastes new, it's difficult to grasp what you're doing from the day-to-day because the day-to-day is fleeting and ever-changing. After the completion of two months and being well into my third in Deauville,  the everyday begins to have a rhythm.  To elucidate what being a TA in Deauville means, let us follow the beat of my average Monday sat working.

9am-930am English with CE at St Arnoult 

             Every morning I begin the day at St Arnoult, a small town about an eight minute drive outside of Deauville. On Monday's I begin the day with the CE, who are the second to oldest group of children we teach. At this level we begin to do a few writing exercises, but the teaching is still mostly auditory.

930am- 1015am English with CM

            CM is last two years of primary school in France, before they go off to Middle School[college]. This is the age we begin to write sentences in English together. At this age the years of repetitive English is beginning to stick and you get to teach more and more interesting material to learn how to communicate in English. Because writing often takes more time than the oral exercises, each class with the CM is 45 minutes instead of 30. 

1030am-1145am Meeting with English Team

            After finishing up at St Arnoult, I make my way back in the Yaris to Deauville to our Monday morning meetings. Due to the commute, I often arrive like the rabbit from Alice in Wonderland, only to find out that the big hand hits the six as I walk through the door. In this meeting we talk about what each of the TAs are doing in their respective classes and what we would like to do in the upcoming weeks. This is also a time to meet with Ivan (our advisor) about any other questions/problems in our Deauville life. 

1145am-135pm Recreation/Lunch with the Kids at Deauville

            Everyday we supervise recreation and lunch in Deauville. There are two services: the younger kids eat first while the older kids play and the second they switch. I always work the first service because I often leave before the second service is done eating to go to my next school to teach. At first the constat moving back and forth was difficult, but it keeps me attentive and engaged. This time always passes before you notice that it's gone.

2pm-245pm English with CE at Tourgieville

            After another commute I find myself in Tourgieville for the afternoon. I am only at this school 3 days a week because this school does not have class on Friday afternoons. To give them equal time in English class, the classes with this age group are adjusted to be 15 minutes longer each session. While they're the same age group as my morning class, we do not do the same content; the difficulty of the content and the way it is taught is similar but done throughout different periods. 

245-315pm English with GS/MS at Tourgieville 

            This is the youngest age group I work with, and admittedly the hardest to keep engaged. With the young ones you have to change what you're doing every three minutes or they lose interest. It's possible but it can be a challenge. 

4pm-5pm After School Activities 

            Once I have finished up at Tourgieville, I make my way back to Deauville to teach after school activities. On Monday I work with the CP, which is the youngest group at this school. Currently I do yoga inspired sport activities with them for about 45 minutes. The rest of the time they kids enjoy a snack that they bring from home.

5pm-6pm Homework Help

            The end of my everyday is spent in homework help. I work with the CM in Deauville/ I answer any questions they have and verify that they have finished their homework before the play. 

The homework is often French grammar or math. It's surprising to see how differently elementary education is taught here versus back home. Once it reaches six, we go home and there are still a few kids left who are supervised by an Animateur until 630 when the school closes. 

A Spooky Time in Deauville

             As we reach the end of October, an excitement rises in the air in the Deauville school system. In October there is the first vacation of the year: All Saint's Day Holiday Break. However, the break is not the cause of all of the excitement. Rather, the cause is a tradition that the children inherently link to our presence in Deauville as Americans. In Deauville, October with the Americans means time to celebrate Halloween.
            Right before the beginning of vacation the town hosts an after school Halloween event where all the kids and school employees dress up in costume, eat candy, and explore a haunted house. It's a very exciting night where everyone was able to have a lot of fun to get together and to celebrate after all the hard work we have all put in since the beginning of the school year.

 Barton carving pumpkins for the events

            Halloween in Deauville ends with this evening event, but it is far from the beginning. During the entire month of October Halloween is the subject in English class. At first glance, you might wonder how Halloween vocabulary could be useful enough to spend an entire month on; to my surprise there was little challenge finding useful applications.             

            Halloween is full of classroom ideas: you can count candy in English, learn the colors and names of all the costumes, learn simple emotions to express how costumes make you feel for example. In my classes, I was able to teach numbers using songs I found on youtube that count monsters with my youngest groups (Five Little Monsters ) and with my older group we learned all the different costumes and monsters you can dress up as. With the older kids you are able to play many games with only the use of flashcards that the children love. The classic game that we did with halloween vocabulary is to show them a set of flashcards, then put all of the images on the board, ask them to close their hides and then you remove one or two images and ask the kids "What's Missing?". Normally when I play this game I divide the class into two teams and it's almost surprising how often they ask if we can play that game again with our new content. 

 My personal masterpieces 

           As Halloween comes to an end, we are shifting gears to studying Thanksgiving and Christmas. Until then, during the time off Barton will be off to Scotland and London for the break, while I head down to Aix-en-Provence and then Tenerife to find my way to the sun. It's funny how fast Deauville began to feel like home, and how quickly I look forward for my upcoming months here. Until next time!

- Chase 

Your local neighborhood superhero

Our Arrival

Welcome all! Today marks two weeks since Barton and I have been in Deauville; we could not be happier to be here. I hope to provide you with a brief insight of our lives as TA's in Deauville.
      Reflecting back, it's crazy to think it's only been two weeks since our arrival. Only two weeks since we were descending the train and rolling our bags to the city. Upon our arrival, we were surprised to be welcomed by rows of 50 stars, red and white strips hanging on every street and our friend Aaron who did a summer internship through sister cities in Normandie. At the time I didn't think much of the flags-- we were tired from our trip: first to D.C to Iceland, then Paris and now Deauville. So we went to our house, settled in and took relaxing walks upon the beach to catch up with our friend.
     It wasn't until the next day when Ivan came to get us to set up our bank accounts that the mysterious rows of flags was clarified. At the beginning of September every year, Deauville hosts an American film festival, and we happen to be lucky enough to arrive just in the nick of time.
     On our first day Ivan walked us through what the next couple of weeks would look like: week one get acclimated to the four different school, week two begin to train and work solo with child, week three complete a training with the teachers of Deauville and week four begin teaching our classes.
On the first day, the idea of leading a class was a bit of a scary thought, but as time goes on you realize how much Ivan really helps you out.
     Yes, it's a lot of work. You plan your own lessons, you plan your own activities, you work the lunch times but you have even more preparation.
      When it comes to planning a class there is a lesson guideline to start the path followed by a multitude of resources at your disposal. We still have one week of training remaining, and there have already been enough resources and materials to feel comfortable going into your own English class.
     Activities are another story. Everyday the children do activities called APE, which are actives geared towards providing additional education in a fun way. Normally the activities come from the animateur's interests. Since I'm a yoga instructor back home, they thought it was only nature that my activity would be yoga.
     Continuing down the list of our responsibilities, the next one is working lunchtime à la cantine, except in France lunch is a class where we learn the rules of life. You're really there to make sure they learn the rules, as far as "working" the kids serve themselves and clean up their own messes.

     Everything I've described so far happens at the main primary school in Deauville, Fraccasse. So far this is where we have spent most of our time. Today, we did observations at the school for the youngest ones, l'école materinelle  Tomorrow we go to observe teachers in the other two schools in Tourgeville and St Arnoult.
     We have not yet decided who will be at which school, however we do know how it will work. One of us will be at Fraccasse with the older kids, another with the younger kids at Fraccasse as well as at materinelle, while the third one commutes to the other two schools that are few kilometers away( How far is that in miles again?)
     I'm sure I'll have a lot more to say about the schools once we have finished training. Until then thanks and I hope you've seen a little into our wonderful world in Deauville.


   

                                           Aaron and I on the beach the night we arrived

- Chase


   




 

The final countdown!

It's scary how time flies, and it's still hard for me to believe it's already June and that we'll all be leaving in a few short weeks. As the school year begins to wind down, we start wrapping up loose ends, begin reviewing what we've learned this year, and start to relax as summer quickly approaches.

As teachers, we continue to finish and great exams, organize papers, play review games, and also pick out who will get the english awards for each class. However, as APE instructors, we get to start wrapping up the activities, plan for next year's themes, and also prepare for the big spectacle at the end. Being in the last few weeks, it can kind of feel like you're going in a million different directions trying to sort through everything and start cleaning up. Luckily, our english classes will end the 29th, so we'll have a few days where we can organize the flash cards/worksheets and straighten up the rooms.

Of course, in a few weeks the moment will come when I have to say my final goodbyes to the kids, and I'm already anticipating a rather bittersweet moment. I know I'll hate to say goodbye, but I know at least that I'm leaving them better than they were originally, and I know I've done my job. Although it's sad, I know I'll definitely be back to France, and hopefully I'll even get to visit the kids some day. So, this isn't adieu, but rather à la prochaine.

Lesson Plans in Deauville

Hi, it's Rachael here for my final blog post for my time here in Deauville. It is bizarre to think I have less than two months left living and teaching in France. It is finally warm in Normandy, and flower boxes are once more filled with May flowers after quite a bit of April showers.

A view from the top floor of the Maison des Americans which we lovingly refer to as "The Tower"

The end of the year brings with it several celebrations. The animator team is organizing a family celebration to be held on France's Mother's day, where we will sing some songs and play a couple of games to honor the students and their families.

The students at Deauville and Saint Arnoult are also preparing to sing songs in English at the end of the year spectacle. There will be lots and lots of practice and repetition of songs in class before the big show.

With the end of the year, comes the end of our English lessons. We are given a curriculum guideline at the beginning of the year to follow, and this last period we have includes a lot of review. Since we have less material for the end of the year, we will be starting to conduct some story based lessons where classes will work with one story over the course of many lessons to review English and build their confidence from having completed an entire story in English.

The role of TAs in Deauville will be changing next year, but I thought I'd go ahead and give some of my favorite lesson plan ideas that could potentially be incorporated into next year's teaching.

1. I love using the whiteboard to tell stories. I usually take a story they recognize—like Goldielocks—and then change details along the way, such as the bears to penguins and the porridge to ice cream. The kids love it, because it's entertaining and its a great way to review vocabulary and keep everyone in English.

2. The "question hat" has become a part of our routines for the CE2 classes and up. It is literally just a hat with some lamented questions in it that students draw from and answer. Now they also pose their question to another student of their choosing. It's a quick and easy way to get everyone speaking in class. The students beg me before class to let them choose a question when I pull out the hat.

3. I love ending each class with a song. We usually work on one song over several weeks, and usually only learn the chorus. I only do this the last couple minutes of class, but the repetition over the weeks is typically enough for them to learn it. We start out just listening to the song, and then I have them sing it line by line repeating after me, and eventually we just sing with the song. My goal is that somewhere down the line years from now, one of my students will visit an English--speaking country and impress everyone by singing along with "Ring of Fire" and thank me for bringing some Cash into their lives.

4. Total Physical Response (TPR) is one of the most successful strategies I have used as a teacher. From preschool to high school, it is difficult to sit in those desks for so many hours and TPR lets students get up and move and make a kinesthetic connection to the vocabulary. If it is possible to use TPR with the vocabulary, we do it. To start, I call out the vocabulary term and act it out and the students repeat. Eventually, I just call out the term and they repeat it and act it out to show they recognize it, and finally, I let them quiz each other. Sometimes we also have competitions to see who knows the most.

Ultimately with lesson plans and activities you need to know your classes and students. Some activities work really well with one group of kids and totally flop with another. As teachers, we need to be prepared to be flexible and adjust instruction to fit the students' learning needs. My best advice is to differentiate your teaching, it may seem like more effort, but your students will be more engaged and learn so much more, which benefits them and you in the end.

Happy Planning!

Springtime in Deauville

So we've finally left the cold, gray winter time of Deauville, and now have the beautiful, sunny and colorful springtime upon us. In the spring, there is a lot going on. Firstly, it starts to warm up and everyone starts going outside, as well as the markets become more frequent, and more festivals ar taking place in town. Just recently, we had Easter, along with Poisson d'avril and carnavale at Fracasse. All of this took place right before our 2 week Easter vacation, so needless to say everyone was very excited for the first official weeks of spring.

Needless to say, we're all out and about traveling with family and friends, but even in Deauville there are several events and festivals, such as the book festival happening this weekend. As we enter our third and last trimester, things begin to pick up as the end of the year approaches. Along with regular studies, some children are even taking a 3 day field trip to Gouville sur Mer to learn about the wind (in which I will be accompanying).

Although there's a lot going on with events and such, lessons are going smooth and we begin the final subjects to teach, and also begin reviewing some of the topics we've done throughout the year, as well as prepare for any items and tests that need to be done. It may seem intense, but it really is very calm and easygoing. A lot of classes at this point involve a lot of oral activities along with interactive games and activities where the students can really begin to utilize the language in a fun and engaging way.

So, here's to spring and the uplift and joy it brings us all!

TA Freetime Activities

Whether its actually teaching courses, APEs or preparing lessons, as a TA in Deauville, a lot of our time is taken up by school. When we do get some free time, there are some activities to choose from in town, like Zumba class, choir, volleyball, walking on the beach, etc. However, I think the best opportunity we have here in our free time, would be the four two-week breaks spread throughout the school year.

Over these breaks, I have tried to maximize my time here by traveling. Since most weekends I spend in Deauville, with the exception of day trips in Normandy and time in Paris, I make sure to travel a greater distance for the two-week breaks. Traveling from Deauville usually means taking a train to Paris and from there connecting to other modes of transportation to continue the journey. The following are the trips I have taken so far.

October
Our first break I spent traveling in London, Edinburgh, Dublin and Galway. Despite having only been out of the USA for a couple months, it was still strange to walk around and hear people speaking English. I used pretty much the entire two weeks to travel around the United Kingdom and Ireland, trying to take day trips into the countryside when possible. When I got back, it was difficult returning to school, since I had not taken much time to actually relax. I recommend in the future making sure you have a couple of days in Deauville to rest before starting up at school again.

Connemara Day Trip from Galway, Ireland.

Cliffs of Moher in Ireland

December
The second break of the school year was around Christmas, and instead of going home to Kentucky, I decided to travel to Munich, Vienna, Prague and Budapest. I decided that, for me, it was more important to travel as much as I could while here, than to spend the money on a flight home. This was a great time of year to travel to Germany, Austria the Czech Republic and Hungary. In each of the cities they had Christmas Markets set up, so despite not being home for Christmas, I felt like I was still getting to celebrate it. I was in Vienna for Christmas, and chose to spring for a nice hotel, instead of my usual hostel, since I would be alone for the Holidays. I definitely felt homesick, but it was actually a lovely way to spend Christmas if I couldn't be at home. I came in and out of the hotel the whole day, alternating between art museums, palaces, cathedrals and FaceTiming my family at our various Christmas events. It was hard traveling through the Holidays, but I met a lot of great people along the way, and the adventures I had were well worth missing one Kentucky Christmas.

Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria, Germany

February
The February break marked the halfway point of our time here in France. We were all fortunate to have loved ones visiting us over this break. My older sister met me in Paris, where we stayed for a couple of days before heading to Italy. We went to Rome, Florence and Venice, before coming back to stay in Deauville so I could show her around Normandy. It was a lot of fun to be able to show someone from home my little world over here, and to have her try all the French foods I love. It was hard to say goodbye, but not too bad, since we had turned the corner on our time here.

Ponte Vecchio in Florence, Italy

Le Mont Saint Michel

In a month, we will have our final two-week vacation. After that we have a couple of long weekends, and then it will be summer and we will head back to America. For my last hurrah traveling around Europe, I will be going to Spain, Morocco and Portugal. I have not planned the long weekends yet, but I am thinking I will explore more of France.

Even though most of my time here revolves around school, I am so grateful to have those long vacations to explore Europe. Taking the time, energy and funds to do so can be overwhelming, but I have not regretted one trip. When I leave for the summer I can go satisfied with my time here and its balance of work and adventure. My advice to future TAs is to seek those adventures when you can, because we have been given the unique opportunity that allows us to do so.

Salut Fevrier!

Salut tout le monde!

It is finally February here in Deauville and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly time flies! Currently we are all on vacation during our winter break, with each of us going to various parts of France and Europe to explore. Since last month, all has been going well, following our lesson plans, getting into the groove of things with our classes and after school activities.

One thing I wanted to discuss is what a TA might do outside of classes and other various TA duties. To be honest, there isn't nearly as much free time as one might think there is in your typical week: between lesson planning, teaching, APE (after school activities) and the planning you do for that, and other duties such as English Circle or TOEFL help, there's certainly plenty to do. However, there are certain things you can do outside of work. Two things I do are sing in the Trouville Choir and also I'm active in the contra dance (a type of folk dance) community in Paris.

In my undergrad I studied both French and also Vocal Performance, and so when I got here I asked if there was a local choir I could join- choirs are a great way to make new friends and also practice your language with some specialized and not so specialized vocabulary. The Trouville Choir is directed by Laura Rabia and they sing in multiple languages (especially in French and Latin), but the choir is open to many types of singers. We meet 2 times a week normally, and on occasion we'll also have outside of rehearsal get togethers to celebrate the new year or something. We also host several concerts throughout the year in various towns.

As for the contra dance activities that I do, that is something I've done for several years in the states and I've continued here in France. It's not as popular here as in the US, but folk dance in general is a very thriving community and another great way to meet new people and make new friends. Here in France I've helped instruct some dances and lead a workshop.

In my normal day to day downtime, I often do a lot of reading and watching of netflix (gotta love the netflix), or sometimes I'll just go out and walk about town or on the beach. Also, if you like to read, invest in an E-reader, but we also have a very interesting collection of regular English books and novels that have been left here over the years in case you don't have an E-reader.

Well, that's about all for now, until next time!

Extracurricular Activities for a Deauville TA

Coucou from Deauville! It's Rachael again, and this month I will be letting you all in on the extracurricular activities that we participate in as TAs!

Being a TA in Deauville means not only, teaching English classes, but also dedicating some of your time to other responsibilities requested by the city. These responsibilities are as follows:

Midi
Midi responsibilities occur during the lunch and recess time for the students at Fracasse. The school divides the children into two groups (older and younger) for separate lunch and recesses. During lunch, TAs eat with the students and manage their zone in the cafeteria. This means ensuring that students are eating and generally behaving themselves.

For the recess portion of Midi, TAs monitor recess in the courtyard with other animateurs, playing with the kids and ensuring their safety.

APEs
APEs are the after school activities that TAs contribute to four days a week. They are an hour long and meant to be enrichment activities for the students. Each trimester has a theme to which the APEs can correspond, for example the current theme is Italy. Deauville TAs are responsible for planning and teaching these APEs either independently or paired with another TA.

The abstract Mona Lisa my CE2 APE created for our DaVinci activity. 

Guarderie
In the morning, guarderie consists of signing the students in and monitoring them as they work on a quiet activity, such as reading or coloring until the school day starts.

In the evenings, Deauville TAs stay after the APEs depending on their schedule, and help students with their homework. Often this means giving practice spelling tests, or listening to them recite poems.

English Circle
The Deauville English Circle is an opportunity for employees of the city to practice their English on a bi-weekly basis. TAs facilitate the English circle by preparing conversation topics or games to play with the group to practice their English skills.

TOEFL Tutoring
For two months out of the year, Deauville TAs host TOEFL tutoring workshops for high school students in Deauville and the surrounding area, preparing to take the TOEFL exam in order to study at an American university, many are working towards gaining a scholarship to study at the University of Kentucky.

During the workshop TAs may answer questions regarding the test, listen to students practice speaking, and encourage students to work with the study materials provided. TAs are used as a language reference for the students while the work to practice and understand the TOEFL test.

English Tutorials
Deauville TAs also have the opportunity to give English tutorials approved by the city. The frequency and nature of these is determined with the TA and the family. They can range from babysitting in English or focusing on English conversation with a student. TAs are paid by the family for these tutorials and not through the city.

Extracurricular activities make up a huge portion of our contribution to the city of Deauville and as American representatives.

I hope this information was helpful in giving a better picture of what we are doing this year in Deauville! À la prochaine!