Today is the two-month mark.
Where is the time going? The weird thing about living here is, I simultaneously feel like I've been here no time at all, and forever. It's gotten much easier - the first month was an adventure, but also a challenge. I was constantly anxious about (a) money and (b) the teaching. But we've gotten paid, and while I definitely won't be winning any awards for my stellar lessons, the teaching is going better. A few of the teachers realized that I had absolutely no clue what to do, and they really stepped up to help me with lists of topics to cover, books, websites, suggestions, etc. I still have to plan the lessons myself but now at least I have some materials to work with.
Today I spent my afternoon teaching children's songs to the
stagiaires. Normally I have classes on Monday, but according to our boss this took priority. And I couldn't pass it up, it sounded too fun. It definitely was fun, too. I love teaching adults, and the teacher I worked with today was super nice as well. Highlights:
-we had to teach them the following song:
- Two little dickie birds,
- Sitting on a wall;
- One named Peter,
- One named Paul.
- Fly away Peter!
- Fly away Paul!
- Come Back Peter!
- Come Back Paul!
Hearing 13 people earnestly try to pronounce "dickie bird" was too much for me, and I collapsed into my chair and laughed until I cried (maturity has always been one of my strong points). I tried to compose myself and help them sing the song, but we had to stand up in two lines and do a little dance that went along with it, and I kid you not the teacher said, "look into each other's eyes!" As you might imagine, having to look someone in the face and say "dickie bird" set me off again. Of course, by this time, the rest of the class was laughing too (the ones that got why it was funny quickly explained it to everyone else). I felt a little bad for the teacher, because really this wasn't her fault (this song is prolly part of the national French curriculum or something). I did try to make myself useful by suggesting that they substitute "bluebird", "blackbird", or something else with a similar number of syllables if they wanted to teach the song to the children. Either it's English or really old, or both, but any American over the age of 11 is going to laugh at "dickie bird". This is also the wrong song to teach to French children, as "Peter" reminds them of the verb
péter (to fart), and one of my
stagiaires told me that "Paul" (or some word that sounds like "Paul") is slang for penis as well. Really, it's just not the best song to teach, and I wonder who keeps putting it in the curriculum year after year?
-another highlight was trying to teach them the "Itsy-Bitsy Spider". I never get tired of teaching this song to French people, especially because there are always a few who can't get the hand motion down.
Ah, what a funny entry. Haha. I've had moments where I just laughed in front of the class, too, but we weren't talking about dickie birds, so you win.
ReplyDeleteBut this sentence: "Today is the two-month mark. Where is the time going? The weird thing about living here is, I simultaneously feel like I've been here no time at all, and forever." I totally relate to that. I feel the same way.