Free Time for TAs

Outside of teaching, the TAs have a little bit of free time. I have Wednesdays off, and we all have the weekends off. We also have four two-week breaks during the year where we don’t teach and can relax and travel.

During the first break, all three of us went to Prague and Budapest. During the winter break my parents came and visited Deauville and I also visited some relatives in England. This past break in February, I went to Dublin, then came back to Deauville and met my family who visited again (my siblings couldn’t come the first time because their passports weren’t valid for three months after the intended date of departure), and then went skiing with another one of the TAs. Next break, we’re all going to go to Greece. Two weeks (the length of each break) is a good amount of time to go somewhere, and it’s pretty easy to get to the Paris airport with trains and public transportation!

The Basilica in Lisieux

Giant's Causeway in Ireland

Cliffs of Moher in Ireland

My family & me in Rouen

Prague

During the weekends, sometimes we’ll go to nearby cities like Le Havre, Honfleur, Bayeux, Lisieux, and Caen. I like to take walks, read, color, and watch Netflix, too. A significant amount of time is also spent trying to figure out plans for when we return to the States—applying for jobs and grad school and making big decisions!

Thanks for reading!  

Lesson Plans

As we approach our 3^rd break, it’s a good time to reflect on how teaching has been going and how lesson plans have been working out. In this blog post, I’m going to be writing about a great class that I had recently. The CM1 and CM2 class (4^th and 5^th grade) at St. Arnoult is always a delightful group of kids. They are energetic, enthusiastic, and fun.

We started off the class doing our rituals. For this, we have flashcards that represent different questions (like “what’s your name,” “how are you,” and “where do you live”). The kids raise their hand and say the question, and once they get the question right they can come up to the front of the class and ask their peers to answer it. This usually takes 5-10 minutes. After we did our rituals, the kids had the floor to ask me any questions they had about schools in America. They were very curious about it, and we discussed differences between the US and France, like how in some schools in America and England the students wear uniforms, the different names of each grade level, and what happens at graduation. The class was especially interested to hear about the tradition of throwing your cap up when you graduate!

After that, the teacher for the class had found a short video of what elementary school is like in England, so we watched that. In it, they talked about what time different things start during the school day, what classes they take, and what recess and lunch are like. When it was finished, we reviewed a little of what happened in the video and then learned the poem “Come in Please” with motions. It goes like this:

Come in Please  

1, 2, 3, 4

Come in please

and shut the door.

5, 6, 7, 8,

It’s time for school,

You’re very late.

9, 10, 9, 10

Don’t be late

for school again!

 

After that, we reviewed school materials like a backpack, pencil, pen, notebook, glue, etc. We played a game where I put the flashcards on the board, they closed their eyes, and then I removed one and mixed up the remaining flashcards. They then had to figure out which flashcard was missing.

At this point, class was almost over, but they really wanted to do Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, so we did that. They then requested we do the Hokey Pokey, so we got in a circle in the room and did that too! They really enjoyed being silly and shaking their arms, legs, hair, and tongue, and it was super fun. Plus, the whole song was in English, so they got to practice their vocabulary! The class period was a hoot and I think that they learned a lot.

Until next time!

Extracurricular Activities

Hello! Today I’m going to be talking a little about extracurricular activities as a TA.

                

During school times, there are no organized activities, but when the students have recess, we are able to hang out and play with them. The students typically always have a game of soccer going on, and it’s common to also have a game of catch or some version of hide and seek. The kids also play with jump ropes a lot, practicing going fast and doing crossovers. They also like to play “l’horloge” where one person stands in the middle, swinging a jump rope from one end in a circle close to the ground, and the other students stand around them in a circle and jump over it when it comes to them.

                

This trimester, I’m leading some after-school extracurricular activities that should be really fun. The theme for this section of activities, or APEs, is books. On Mondays, I help lead a Recipe Book activity with the CMs (4^th and 5^th graders) and we will be compiling a list of recipes and making them. Some recipes we are going to be making include ants on a log, fruit salad, a regular salad, an energy bar, and banana pops.

               

The rest of the days (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays) I lead a puppets activity, where we will be reading or listening to different fairy tales such as Red Riding Hood, Sleeping Beauty, and Goldilocks. After we read the stories, we will make puppets for the different characters and then put on a little play with them. I’m doing this activity with CPs, CE1s, and CE2s (1^st, 2^nd, and 3^rdgraders). The first week, we decorated a cardboard theater for the plays.

              

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you have a wonderful day!

Christmastime in France

Hello again!

This month I’m going to be talking about everything Christmas!

The first weekend in December in France, there is always a telethon for funding research for genetic diseases. So instead of our normal Friday afternoon doing our APEs (after-school activities) and garderie (homework help and watching the kids until their parents pick them up) we took them to the APE room and they had their snacks from 4-4:30, then we took some of the kids to the high school/middle school to watch the mayor light up the Christmas lights in the city.

As we started walking to the school, it hailed and the sky was orange which was pretty surreal. Because it was so cold, we went quickly, but once we were there we stood around for a bit. Then, the mayor took a torch and lit up a bigger flame and at the same time all of the Christmas lights in the city turned on, and that was pretty cool. In Place Morny, by our house, there is a nice setup with trees in the center and Christmas lights radiating out from the center. After the lights were lit up, we went into a room in the school and did garderie until 6 when it was over.

As far as Christmas lesson plans go, so far in most of my classes (all ages) we have been listening to and learning the song “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” The kids love to sing along and dance to the song! With the younger kids, we have been learning and practicing Christmas vocabulary. With the older kids, we’re going to be writing letters to Santa and have been learning Christmas and toy vocabulary, as well as English and American Christmas traditions.

Last weekend I had the opportunity to go to Strasbourg, France and visit my host mom from when I studied abroad there in college. We went to the Christmas market and I got to see her 5-week old granddaughter. It was a magical time, with lots of little vendors and Christmas lights all over. In the cathedral, there was a humongous nativity scene which was super cool to see. To top it all off, on Sunday morning, it snowed!

Ornaments at the market 

Christmas tree in a square in Strasbourg

Strasbourg Cathedral in the snow

My family is coming to visit over the break, and I am getting excited to welcome them to the house and Deauville! We found some Christmas decorations in the closet under the stairs, including Christmas lights, a Christmas tree, and some ornaments, so we have a little corner of Christmas that always looks so cheerful!

Until next time!

Denise

A Day in the Life

Hi, to everyone reading this blog! I hope you’re having a fantastic day!

                

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Denise, and I’m currently a TA in Deauville, teaching English to French kiddos aged 3-10 years old. In this blog post I’m going to be talking about a typical day in the life of a Deauville TA, or at least my own typical day. Actually, this is going to be more of an overview of my week, so let’s all get pumped for that!

The "Maison des Americains," our home

                

My schedule is pretty complicated, so it depends on the day what I’ll do. I’ll try to be as clear as I can be, though! If I have classes in the morning (Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Fridays) I’ll wake up at 8 to get ready, and leave our house in Deauville at around 8:45 to get to the school in St. Arnoult, which is a town about 7 minutes away by car, and set up for classes starting at 9. I teach the MS class (preschool) and then the combined GS/CP class (kindergarten and 1^st grade) on Tuesdays and Thursdays, splitting the GS/CP class into two different 30-minute classes on Thursday. For example, I will take the GS kids and teach them a 30 minute lesson, then the CPs. I also teach the combined CM1/CM2 class (4^th and 5^th grade) on Thursday morning.

Place Morny, near our house

A lot of the classes are combined, because there aren’t a lot of people who go to that school. There are only 4 classrooms for an entire school of kids younger than preschool to 5^th grade at St. Arnoult, and there are only two main teachers at Tourgéville, the other school where I teach. It makes for an interesting vibe in each class; there are many different levels that you cater to, all at the same time.

I don’t have morning classes on Monday, but we typically have a meeting with us three Americans and our director to talk about how everything is going from 10:30 to 11:30. On Wednesday I have no class, which can be a nice break to catch up on sleep and lesson planning and other errands I might need to run. This Wednesday I got to go to the Humane Society in the next-door town and walk dogs with one of the other Americans, and had a blast. I am looking forward to getting my dog time in by going there a lot in the future!

                

So, after the morning is over, I go to the school in Deauville for lunchtime, which starts at 11:45. Let me just talk about the school lunches that they serve here. They are amazing. First, they serve an appetizer-type thing. Sometimes it’s soup, sometimes it’s a salad, sometimes it’s something else, but every day it’s good. Then, they serve sliced baguette, and then they serve a meat and a side. After that, they usually serve a fruit or another type of dessert. Sometimes they serve a little cheese and bread before the dessert. Everything they serve is made very well and is delicious.

               

In the actual cafeteria, it’s very much unlike an American cafeteria, or at least the cafeterias I grew up with. There are tables with six people at each table. There are actual, real-life place settings for each person, with a plate, fork, knife, spoon, and glass. Food is brought to each table individually in separate dishes with enough food for six people, and there are pitchers of water at each table. The animateurs (that includes me and the other Americans, as well as many other people) sit at the tables with the kids and eat with and supervise them during this time. The younger kids at school have recess and then they eat, but I eat with the bigger kids, who switch with them and eat first and then have their recess.

               

I leave at a little after 1PM each day to go teach, and at this point the kids have finished lunch and are still playing so I don’t get to be there for the whole recess. I take the car to Tourgéville if it’s a Monday or Tuesday and to St. Arnoult if it’s a Thursday or Friday. I start teaching at 1:30 at both of them. On Mondays and Tuesdays, I teach a combined CE2/CM1/CM2 class (3^rd, 4^th, and 5^th graders), then a combined CP/CE1 class (1^st and 2^nd graders), and then a MS/GS class (preschool and kindergarteners). On Thursday afternoons, I teach a combined CE1/CE2 class (2^nd and 3^rd graders), and on Fridays I teach that same class but divided into two different groups (30 minutes for each group), and then I take either the CM1s or the CM2s and teach, but the grade I take alternates week by week.

              

The kids I teach are super energetic (sometimes scary energetic) and a lot of them are very motivated to learn English, which encourages me and raises my spirits. English lessons are 45 minutes long for the older kids and 30 minutes for the younger ones, and time can definitely fly by if I have planned my lesson well and they’re interested in it.

                

After class time is over, I lead after-school activities, or APEs as they call them here, at the school in Deauville, starting at 4. On Mondays and Tuesdays it’s kind of a rush to get back to the school, because I finish teaching at 3:45 at Tourgéville. The activities are led by the animateurs. The kids have signed up for which activity they want to do, depending on which activity is available for their grade level. I lead a Craft activity with CMs, Board Games with the CEs, an activity about Art Vocabulary with CMs, and then an American Folk Dance activity with the CPs throughout the week. These activities can be super fun, but they also have their challenges. I think the kids for sure enjoy them!

                

After the activities (APEs) are done at 5, the animateurs have garderie. This is a time where the kids are allowed to play outside for a little bit, and then we go inside and help them with their homework. Usually they have reading, spelling, or math to do. They can go back outside after their homework is done, but recently since the time changed, it has been too cold and dark to go back out, and so we play games inside.

                

Deauville Beach

At 6, the Americans are finished with garderie and go home. At this point, I am usually pretty exhausted, so I start getting dinner ready, change into more comfortable clothes, and chill out and plan lessons or do some other activity (recently I’ve been on a kick of listening to podcasts. If you have any good recommendations, please let me know!) until I write in my journal and then go to bed. I try to go to sleep by 9:30, but a lot of days that doesn’t happen. Then it starts over again!

               

I hope this has been informative for you and that it gives you at least a little sense of what it’s like to be an English TA in Deauville! There is so much more to say about specific events and stories, things that have happened, and our travels over our recent fall break, but I think I’ll save those for a later entry. So stay posted!

                

I appreciate you and wish you all the best! Goodbye for now! 

Christmas Time

The holiday season in Deauville wore bright Christmas lights running down every street to create refuge in winter’s time. In December, the sunsets as early as 5pm. These early ends to daylight would be depressing had it not been for Deauville’s bright holiday aesthetic: the roundabout entering the town was surrounded by dancing horses of light, the place Morney had a factitious starlit sky, and the Casino was brighter than ever before.

The holiday season spent into the schools as well, from the courtyards to the classroom. Each class is decorated with a jolie sapin (pretty Christmas tree) and the English lessons gravitate to this most wonderful time of year.  In English class, we’ve spent our late November and early December days of Christmas flashcards, Christmas classics, traditions and the choral sounds of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas” graced our ears for the months to come.

With one of my classes we prepared the aforementioned holiday jingle for holiday event with the parents. As I work at three different schools, I had the pleasure to attend three different Christmas holidays where the teachers meet the parents and exchange holiday cheer. Deauville even hired a magician for an afterschool event to celebrate the season.

The joy and restless children brought us to the final major event in Deauville before the break: turning on the town Christmas lights. The whole school and a large part of the town attended the event, the little ones sang, and an even younger child had the honor of pressing the button for the lights. Despite the cold and dark times of the year, Deauville finds a way to keep the reverie shining.

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.