Assistant de Langue en France: Partie Deux

Ten weeks of teaching have gone by since I started with TAPIF... and now I have less than 10 left! Now that I am settled into the position, I wanted to write a follow up to my original Assistant de Langue post.

Before beginning my teaching assistant position in France, many of my fellow teachers were curious to hear what I found to be better and/or worse with the French school systems. The fact is, there is no education system that is absolutely flaw free-- the U.S. is definitely struggling with our current set up. It's been interesting to compare the two, because I feel like the U.S. could benefit from some of the procedures here, but I also think France could benefit from some of our ideas.

Assistant de Langue en France

I have had this post in draft mode for weeks, trying to organize my thoughts because I just don't even know where to begin with to describe my last month or two with TAPIF. As much as it's been beyond confusing and, at times, seriously stressful... I am still so happy that it has given me an opportunity to combine my two greatest passions in life.

I guess you could say that confusion has been the presiding feeling over the last few weeks. I came here assuming all the schools and their administrators would have already figured out when they wanted me to teach, what grades, and what classes. This was not the case. We actually started this discussion after I met with my assigned schools and from there it was difficult for them to all decide when would work best for them.  Luckily, it all was resolved after a month of back and forth and I received a definite schedule.

Today, I had my first day of teaching in one of my schools-- it felt SO good to get back to teaching. When I think about it, I haven't been in a classroom as a teacher in at least 5 months. It is always such a rush to be up in front of my students and be able to get them excited about what we are learning. It definitely put me in a great mood to be back doing what I love again.

Les Écoles Française

It felt so great to get back into the schools twice this past week, even if it was just to observe for the day. I definitely feel complete when I am able to work with my students and I have been missing it very much since May. I have been anxious to receive more information about hours, grades, and even what days I would be teaching and where since I arrived 3 weeks ago. The majority of the other assistants received this information as early as two weeks ago, some just last week, but that was because they will be working in the middle schools and high schools. Apparently, the process of placing assistants is different in the elementary schools because I still have very little sense of what is going on.

View from the school in Saint Chamond

So far I know this much: I will be working in two elementary schools, one in Saint Chamond and one in Rive de Gier which is the next town over. I will be teaching four hours in Saint Chamond on Tuesdays and four hours in Rive de Gier on Thursdays and both will require a significant commute due to their location. I will have Fridays completely free from work. Because students only have a half day on Wednesdays, it is likely I won't work then either.

However, I will also be teaching other schools from a distance through Skype. I don't have much information about this either, but I know through process of elimination it'll likely be on Mondays for four hours, or possibly split between Mondays and Wednesdays. The point of this will to practice speaking with kids in small groups for about 10-20 minutes a piece. When they finish with me on the computer, they will return to their teacher who will have a written activity of some sort to accompany my lesson. Apparently, they are introducing this into the assistantship because schools that are far away from a larger town don't tend to benefit from the program. This way, they will be able to interact with a native English speaker, even if at a distance.