Monday November 3, 2008

Today, I have no class.  So, I decided to go to the Secours Populaire, which is the French equivalent of Salvation Army.  I wanted to see if there were any materials I could use for class, maybe some old magazines.  While I was sifting through dusty cookbooks, Pierre called me and asked if I wanted to go get a cup of coffee somewhere.  So, I met him downtown at restaurant.  I had begun to sit down at a chair across from him, but he told me that I shouldn’t do that.  I forgot that people here like to sit side by side, so they can people watch.  The restaurant is just opposite of the movie theatre.  So, we’d watch people sitting on the steps or walking in and we’d guess what movie they were going to see.  I asked him if he wanted to drink some beer and go watch “Chimpanzees in Space”.  He laughed.  He thought I was kidding.   I’m happy to hang out with Pierre.  Even though he knows my French is still nascent, he doesn’t talk to me in English anymore.  I really didn’t need to drink anymore coffee today.  I had two cups to drink before I met Pierre (I’ve been really excited about the coffee maker I purchased).  So, after the espresso, I was visibly shaking.  Pierre told me that I looked stressed.  I blurted out a categorical, “Non!”    I asked Pierre if he had gone to school, when he was in Gabon or had he been in France for most of his education.   He said, “Okay, I will tell you my life story.”  He told me had gone to school in Gabon up until he passed his “Bac”, which is an exam that every student must take in their terminal year.  I know nothing about Gabon or even where it is, except that it is in Africa.  Gabon’s official language is French, but dialects do exist, but they are spoken only at home (if at all).  Pierre told me that Gabon was a French colony until the 1960s and I asked him if there are or were any “hard feelings” between the French government and the Gabonese.  Pierre first addressed slavery, emphasizing that it was more prevalent between the different Gabonese tribes than between tribes and the French colonists.  He told me the Gabonese tribes liked the cargo that the French colonists brought to trade.  Gabon could have easily become a Dutch colony, but the French were apparently quicker gift-givers.        

I asked Pierre if he could tell me why Gabon decided to unify and liberate themselves from France.  If there weren’t any hard feelings between a group of people and the French government, did they just finally get bored of each other?   Or did someone speak up and say, “You know, I think it would be real cool of us if we got ourselves some of that national identity.”  I don’t know, that’s why I’m asking Pierre who explained to me, “It was the sixties.  It was the spirit of the age.  Hippies, you know.” 

I asked him what he learned about Gabon in his schools.  In primary school, Pierre learned the Gabon national hymn, read some books by Gabonese writers, and learned some history such as the Gabon liberation.  Learning about Gabon, he said, was more ubiquitous in primary school.  In college (middle school) and lycee (high school), he learned only French history and read books mostly by French writers.  In high school, they learned world history along with French history.  He said the main reason that French culture is taught in Gabonese schools  is because Gabon does not have much of a culture.  Before the French, he said, there were only the tribes who all had different dialects. “Nothing unified.”  After our coffee, Pierre order us some very strong beer and he asked me what sort of things did I learned in school, specifically primary school.  In fourth grade (1994, I think) , everyone in Alabama had to take an Alabama history class.   I remember learning a lot about the civil war.  Although, I think there was only one battle that occurred in Alabama and that was “The Battle of 1819”, I think.  I remember multiple class discussions directed to musings such as, “What would America have been like if the south had won.”  Also, there once lived a quiz entirely devoted to testing my knowledge of why the south lost to the north.  There were certain factors I had to list to get full credit.

Tuesday November 4, 2008

I was supposed to have one of my adult classes today at Alliance Francais.  I have a key to the building, so I decided to go over there a few hours before class and practice my lesson plan and prepare the materials.  When I walked in, the president and the secretary were talking to each other from across the front desk.   The president asked me if I was excited.  “About what?”, I said.  Then, I remembered that the elections were today.  I told him yes and that I had already mailed in my absentee ballot.  He told me that the whole world is watching the election and that France is really supporting Barack Obama.  I’ve noticed this. 

Since I’ve arrived in Vendome, everyone that has approached me, knowing that I’m American, has been very eager to talk to me about the elections.  Several people have told me that France and the rest of the world will gain more respect for America if Obama wins.  The few French newspapers that I’ve been reading here, mostly political editorials and cartoons, have depicted McCain and Palin as flaming racists.  I remember seeing one cartoon that even suggested that the Republican Party will lynch Obama.  (not for any particular reason. Just in general. Because he’s black) 

I agree with Tupac and my Dad when I say that some of America “ain’t ready for a black president.”  Nancy, my advisor, and a few people who live in my foyer consider the possibility of assassination if Obama is elected.  I agreed with them. Yes there are some potential crazies liable to wiggle themselves from out of the woodwork.  I hope not. Everyone here and in America was very excited about the voting process.  I’ve had two people here (Andrew and Michelle) tell me that the wish they could vote in the American elections.  I asked them why and they said they wanted America to have “the first black, socialist president.”   I would really like to see the looks on my parents’ faces if they ever heard the words “socialist” and “American president” together on the news (Fox News, I hope).  It is hard enough for my Dad to hear “black president.”  He prefers to say “nigger president.”  It is a joke to him.  He likes to giggle violently after he says it. “Nigger president.”   I think it’s funny too, phonetically speaking. 

After talking to the president, I sat down in my office which is found in the backroom. (No, it’s not the toilet stall.)  Then Patrick came into the building. I could hear is distinctly slow guttural voice from the backroom.  I came out to say hello.  The first thing he told me was sorry, because he forgot to tell me that there wouldn’t be any class today because of the holidays.  It has been a few days after the Toussaint and schools won’t be back in session until Thursday.  I remember asking him and Michelle in the last class if we would have class next week and they said yes.  I told him it wasn’t a big deal and that I would be well prepared for the next class, but the president, Pierre, would not let it go.  He felt like he had to defend me, I suppose.   He kept telling Patrick that it wasn’t fair for him to do that to me and that he should be more organized.  Patrick fulminated Pierre until he screamed “That’s enough!”  and immediately walked out of the building. He made a point to slam the door.  I was a little uncomfortable while this was going on, but excited at the same time. I kept thinking, Wow, I’m witnessing my first French argument that I can understand. This is kind of cool.  Oooh, bataille.       

Wednesday November 5, 2008

I didn’t stay up last night to watch all of the voting action.  I decided it would be more fun and beneficial for me to get a good night’s sleep and just wake up and read the results on the internet.   When I woke up, I went straight to my desk and collapsed in the chair.  I opened up my laptop, mashed some buttons, and inside was a little Obama president.  It was like Christmas morning for middle class American.  I looked at my phone and saw that I had missed a call during the night. It was the nine Supreme Court justices!  Rudolph, Comet, Cupid, Donner […] and Scalia.  No, actually it was Andy.  Andy is an English assistant from Brighton, UK.  I met him on Halloween night in Paris.  I called him back and he said he called me by accident, but he wanted to tell “my people” well done.  He told me he hadn’t slept last night because him and his friends stayed up all night watching the elections just until after Obama’s acceptance speech.   “We were all very tired and feeling very emotional at that point when Obama spoke. Nobody could stop crying.”  I said, Nancy, my advisor, said she and her friends were also huddled up around the television crying when Obama spoke.  I told Andy bye and thanked him again for letting me and Nicole (another English assistant) squat at his apartment.  Everywhere I went today, people who knew I was American were giving me the thumbs up or hugging me and telling me congratulations.   Yes, I am an American. I command respect. 

Thursday November 6, 2008

The holidays ended yesterday and so, I went back to school today hoping that my students hadn’t completely forgotten everything I taught them.   My CM1 class remembered the basics such as “How are you” and “How old are you” and the “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes” activity.  I taught them a new version of the activity, replacing the learned vocabulary with “Hands, Fingers, Arms, and Elbows”.  There is  also a dance that I made up to go along with the song.  So, between the two songs, there are twelve vocabulary words on the parts of the body.   I broke down the songs and I explained to them each part of the body.  I asked them to repeat the words after me as we moved slowly through the song and dance.  Then, we did the song at normal speed.  To check their comprehension, we played Simon Says.  I told them to keep both of the songs in mind as I asked them to point to a specific body part.  The class knows how to play Simon Says.  The French have the same game except it is called “Jacques a dit”.  They had a hard time remembering what they had just learned.   I figure that this is the best way to teach them the body parts.  I had spent the last week before holidays on a Parts of the Body unit.  We played competitive games like seeing which team could label their outlined body the fastest with a list of vocabulary words that they had showed them the lesson before.  They’ve been out of school for about two weeks.  I expected them to have a difficult time the first day back.  Then, I showed them a game called “Who is it?”  They understand “is it” and “it is”.  They’ve been hearing those word pairings since they began English, which I guess was last year or the year before.   Sonya showed me this game, “Who is it?”  First I explained to them what “Who is it?”  means by getting one of the children to go outside and knock on the door.  I asked, “Who is it?” and the child answered, “C’est Maria.”  Then, when Maria came inside the classroom, I introduced her to the class and said, “This is Maria.” The class generally understood what both phrases meant, “Who is it?” and “This is”.  I asked them to tell me the French equivalent and then asked them to write both the French and the English word in their dictionaries they had made.  Then, I chose Iman to come to the front of the class and I blindfolded her with a scarf.  I explained that to the rest of the class that when Iman stumbles upon you and touches you, I will ask her the question “Who is it?”  She must answer me, “This is____.”  If she guesses the person correctly, the person she guessed now come up to the front of the class and becomes blindfolded.  I was a little unsure about how some of the students would handle the “touching and feeling” aspect of the game.  I thought that some of the students may become uncomfortable with touching each other, especially from someone of the opposite sex.  This class, being the second to the oldest level in primary school, understands that they should feel a level of discomfort from the opposite gender.  There were one or two boys that displayed to the class that they were uncomfortable with a girl touching their head or their shoulder, but they recoiled very playfully.  The class thought the game was too cool and had so much fun that a lot of them forgot how to answer me when I asked, “Who is it?”

With my CE1 class, I decided to teach them colors through the theme of the autumn season.  First, I asked them, in their language, if they could name all of the seasons.   One child named me all four seasons and he was very proud that he could tell me all of them (in his native tongue).   Then, I asked the class what happens during autumn.  One child said “the leaves fall” and he motioned the leaves falling by slowly moving his hands down and wiggling his fingers.  Asked the class, “What else happens during fall?”  Two other children blurted out, “The leaves change their colors!”   I said, “Yes, exactly. The leaves change colors.”  I showed them a leaf and I asked them if they could tell me what they saw in the picture.  They said “leaf” in French over and over again.  The noise sounded like puppies trying to bark.  I found it very cute, but getting them to quiet down again was a little difficult.  Then I took some leaves I had colored and we went outside and I sprinkled them on the ground.  I told them that we pretend that we are in the ocean and that we have to find the treasure, the English colors.  We made a circle around the colored leaves and I picked four children at a time to come inside the circle. I said the color and we pretended to dive down into the ocean and I picked up the colors with them.  After we found the correct color, I asked them and the rest of the group to say the word with me as we held up the color.   We repeated the exercise until I had finished introducing all of the colors.  Then, we played it again. This time, I did not dive down with them.   Most of them could not remember what they had done very well and I would pick up the color again with them.  However, in some of the groups, there was at least one child that remembered and the other children would copy what this child was doing.  Then, we went inside and I read them a very simple book called “My Fall Leaves”.   This book is very good because it is very illustrative and repetitious.    I read “I see a red leaf” and there would be a picture of a red leaf.  The book repeated this phrase with different color leaves.  Camille, a child in the class,  translated the phrase in French. “Oh, je vois une feuille rouge!”  After I finished the book, Camille asked me to read the book again to the class in French.  So, I read it again to them in French, repeating each page in English.  I planned to give them their own version of the book that they could color, but I did not have any more class time. 

Then, I my last class for today was the CM2 class.  I decided to do the same lesson plan that I had done with the CM1 class except I added a few more things for us to do.  Every new month, I have decided to give the class a calendar.  That way, they can gradually be reintroduced to the months and not just in one lesson plan.  Besides, I usually ask all of my classes, whether they have learned the days and months or not.  I asked them questions like when where the American elections?  Most of them could answer me, November 4.  I asked them to color that box blue and I explained to them why I had chosen the color blue.  Normally, the two main political parties, I said, are symbolized by red and blue, red being republican and blue being democrat.  I asked them why they think I asked them to color the box blue.  Fabio, a Portuguese child,  answered, “Because Obama is the president!”, and then a lot of the class threw up their hands and cheered.  “The first black American president!”  They were very excited, which means their parents were very excited about Obama winning the elections.   Then, I asked them today’s date and they colored that box red.  Then, Jennifer had noticed that the boxes that had been colored, blue and red, with a white box in between, resembled the French flag.   I asked the class to sing me the French national hymn and they really enjoyed singing it to me.  However, after the song, Fabio told me that he felt left out because he didn’t know the song.  I told him, “Ca va, nous sommes dans le meme bateau” (It’s okay.  We are in the same boat.)  and he shook my hand.  Then, I sang them, in a very operatic voice, the American national anthem.   I did not sing them all of it because I think the song is way too long.  Also, I forgot some of the words so I just made it seem like was I knew the words.   Jennifer asked me what the song was about and I told her that it was about a guy looking for the American flag very early in the morning, at dawn .  Most of the class agreed that Francis Scott Key was a weird man.