French schools

As long as I mentioned my good friend Lindsey teaching English in France, I might as well mention that I have two more really close friends teaching English in France and a bunch of normal friends (in French the distinction would be Lindsey and Ariana are my amies, most friends fall into the copains category).  Anyway here are some pictures of Ariana's classroom while I was visiting in Cahors, a small quirky town just an hour north of Toulouse.

Here is Ariana telling a student that he will have stories, and not the good kind, if he doesn't shape up.

Apparently that's what French teachers tell the kids.  (Vous aurez des histoires, et non pas les bons!)

She had three different classrooms, I only saw two. 

This was her favorite class because they were so well-behaved
and wanted to learn English.

The teacher in the classroom thought this child was too energetic

and a bit of a nuissance,

but Ariana loved him.

Ariana in action, regulating a game she'd made up
to teach her students English.

The most challenging piece of the program, I think, is that they don't prepare you for the classrooms at all.  There are no curricula and very little guidance about how to work with the children.  Maintaining classroom discipline is difficult, especially, I think, because French teachers seem to have a looser attitude towards maintaining a class than Americans.  I really only caught a glimpse of other elementary school classrooms with French teachers in them, but at the University level the students talk through the entire class - at least at Montpelier III: Paul Valery - it's very distracting! 

When I was studying abroad in 11th grade I was in Premier L, which is the language track.  My closest friend was the best student, she was incredibly attentive and studious in class and I don't remember there being too much classroom disruption in our French classes there.  (Also, additional note, being on the Language track, the students had extra French classes mixed in with Science and Math, extra English classes, and Spanish, German, Russian, and Chinese - I only ever learned how to write "She ate the pears I bought this morning" in Chinese).