What do you actually do in France?

I do actually teach even though Facebook makes it looks like I’m just off travelling around Europe.

There’s now less than two months left of my year abroad and it’s a lil bit scary that time is flying by so fast! I do, however, feel as though I’m making the most of my time in La France (much cheese, much wine, so many clichés).

I planned to blog so much more than I actually have and so to make this up to myself I’m going to try and write more posts and spam Facebook with it. Sorry.

When you ask your students to describe a scene from The Simpsons in English to their partner without looking

I’m not sure that I ever even explained much about my job here, more specifically the schools that I work in. Better late than never, ey?

For the past five months I’ve been working in two lycées, the French equivalent to high schools. I teach students taking the baccalauréat (usually aged 15-18) and also the BTS (a qualification that students take post-baccalauréat, usually 18 – early twenties) with the aim of finding a job afterwards or going to university. We don’t have a BTS equivalent in the UK so I had no idea what it was when I arrived. The good thing is that you can do a BTS in a range of subjects and it’s a highly respected alternative qualification for those who may not want to go to university. I kind of like it and wish the British government would have a little read into it. Who knows, it might even help reduce uni dropout rates…

Lycée number one is called Pierre Bayle.

It’s a huge school that teaches the baccalauréat général, so students can specialise in science, literature, management or economics among others.

Pierre Bayle is the epitome of your standard French high school. It’s a big, unattractive building with horridly yellow walls and students making out in the corridors. This, I have remarked, is worse than in English high schools. The number of times I’ve seen my students just going for it in plain view of EVERYONE is crazy and actually makes me feel a bit weirded out. But whatever, we’re in France.

As the school teaches the general baccalauréat, I almost always have complete control over my lesson topics and plans: i.e., the teacher will usually say do whatever you want or I will be given a topic the class are working on and have to prepare something related in some way. Sometimes I work with the teacher but it’s really nice to have control of my own class. I’m not getting too comfortable though. I’ve been asked so many times “so, do you want to be a teacher then?” and before they’ve even finished the sentence I’ve already screamed “NO”. Being a teaching assistant is so much fun but I am not, and never will be a teacher. Non, merci.

My favourite lesson plan so far: 

I did a lesson on the future with my 15 year-olds and made them a worksheet asking them to predict the future of celebrities such as Miley Cyrus, Justin Bieber, Kanye West and One Direction. The answers were very imaginative… Justin would be in jail for drug dealing, Miley had disappeared off the face of the earth, overdosed or become bald, One Direction lost another member and had to split up. Finally, Kanye went crazy and got divorced from Kim. Maybe my students are psychic and predicted his recent Twitter meltdown.

 

Lycée number two is called Bazeilles.

Bazeilles is a Lycée Technique d’Hôtellerie, Restauration et Tourisme where students learn to cook, waitressing and housekeeping skills and can study the tourism industry. Many of my students want to be chefs or restaurant managers in France or in England (yay).

Cooked for by our students in the restaurant

You often see students wandering around in chef whites or with all their cooking equipment, and the school has huge professional kitchens where students learn the tricks of the trade.

I don’t think I could have been assigned a better school… You only need to look at my token Instagram food photos to know this. When I was assigned Bazeilles and googled it I had no idea what the school was because similar establishments just don’t exist in England. I wish they did.

Students are doing the equivalent of A-Levels in subjects such as cooking and waitressing to a very professional level and it’s amazing!

Where are my students?

At this school, I teach English lessons usually with a focus on hotels and food as well as in a more practical way (role-plays, during cooking classes, etc). As everyone is probably aware, I’m food-obsessed so I love helping out in cooking classes and teaching lessons about food-related things.

It’s not really work to be making patisserie on a Tuesday morning is it? I also partake in role-plays such as the check-in and check-out of hotels where I play the token English guest for example. It’s lots of fun and not what I expected to be doing on my year abroad!

There’s lots more to say but I think I’ve waffled on enough for a Friday evening.

Until next week’s ramblings..

Grace x