Hello all!
It's been a while since I've updated so my apologies! I had quite the logistical nightmare organizing my teaching schedule, but finally I have it settled. I am now only teaching four hours a week at two different schools, one public and one private. This schedule works well as I have only one teaching assignment Thursday and am free all day Friday. This is really helpful as I have time to research for my thesis and do homework for my grad classes. We are well into the semester now and I am definitely feeling more busy. For our teaching program, we have to attend undergraduate classes at NYU to observe the professors. We have 7 total, 4 to observe specific techniques like directions, use of English in a French class, etc. and 3 general observations of many aspects of the course. Definitely a lot to juggle with teaching and other classes, but very valuable as well. Next week I will have a break from teaching as it is the French fall holiday, Toussaint. NYU also has the following week off for a fall break so I will be going to Prague with some friends in my program! I am very excited for that as I feel it is a much needed break! Last week, Devin was here and we did a ton of fun things! We went to a mass at Notre Dame, which included some peaceful protestors who had to be forcefully escorted out by security. We also visited Le Pantheon, Sainte Chapelle, La Conciergerie, the Eiffel Tour, a dinner cruise on the Seine and Arc de Triomphe. We also took a day train trip to Giverny to visit Monet's home and gardens. It was a great week full of things I loved going back to, and a few things I hadn't done before. In general, all is busy but well! I am excited for Prague and will definitely update about that!
Au revoir!
Monday, October 12, 2015
Sunday, September 20, 2015
La Vie is Busy
Hello all,
A quick update for everyone about my time so far. I've now finished two weeks of classes. I have five classes all once a week. My longest day is Wednesday where I have class from 10-8 pm! But things are going well. I generally like my classes and have some really great professors. I am thinking of writing my thesis on something about the effect of or importance of mistakes in language learning. 25 pages in French, can't wait! I have a new teaching schedule starting tomorrow, so I will be working everyday but Wednesday, at three different schools! It will definitely be busy, but nice to have new groups of kids. I will update on how it all went at the end of this week! The people in my program are really great and we have been spending a lot of time together! This weekend I had some of the group over for a little get together at my apartment. It was a lot of fun, despite the stairs, and the fact that my apartment building lacks any apartment numbers. Last night, we went to an amazing light and fireworks show at Versailles. It was truly a one of a kind experience and made me fall even more in love with Versailles! Pics below! Weather is more fall like than Paris is usually in September, but I don't mind as I love fall! I am so grateful to be here and and really happy I am meeting so many cool people! Au revoir!
A quick update for everyone about my time so far. I've now finished two weeks of classes. I have five classes all once a week. My longest day is Wednesday where I have class from 10-8 pm! But things are going well. I generally like my classes and have some really great professors. I am thinking of writing my thesis on something about the effect of or importance of mistakes in language learning. 25 pages in French, can't wait! I have a new teaching schedule starting tomorrow, so I will be working everyday but Wednesday, at three different schools! It will definitely be busy, but nice to have new groups of kids. I will update on how it all went at the end of this week! The people in my program are really great and we have been spending a lot of time together! This weekend I had some of the group over for a little get together at my apartment. It was a lot of fun, despite the stairs, and the fact that my apartment building lacks any apartment numbers. Last night, we went to an amazing light and fireworks show at Versailles. It was truly a one of a kind experience and made me fall even more in love with Versailles! Pics below! Weather is more fall like than Paris is usually in September, but I don't mind as I love fall! I am so grateful to be here and and really happy I am meeting so many cool people! Au revoir!
Thursday, September 10, 2015
La Vie en Grad School
What a week it's been! I finished my first week of classes and though I'm tried and have actual homework (what? It's been a year since that), I am really excited for the year to come. I enjoyed my classes and really like my professors. I am taking a research course for my thesis which I'm oddly excited about, #nerdalert. I'm already thinking of possible topics and leaning about something involving how making mistakes in learning a language can be beneficial. My next class is a grammar and culture class with probably my favorite professor so far. The course is organized into themes and we will have various class "field trips" where we practice speaking and learn more about French and more specifically, Parisian culture. Wednesday is my longest day because I have three classes and am at the NYU center all day. In the morning, we have an hour long phonetics course focused on pronunciation. Though that sounds boring, our professor is very enthusiastic and passionate and I think I will find it more interesting than I anticipated. My next course is my teaching methods and pedagogy class. This professor is very organized and though much of what we covered is things I've learned in previous teaching courses, it will be interesting to learn more in depth about language courses. We have required observation hours where we observe some of the undergraduate French courses, which I am very excited for! My final course Wednesday night was stylistics and semantics. This professor seems very knowledgeable but I am not as interested in the topic, especially with regard to grammar. However, I think this course may be one of the most beneficial as it will greatly improve my writing in French, which will help my thesis. So classes went well! This evening, all the grad met up at a French university, Cite Universitaire, in the 14th arrondisement, where I lived last time I was in Paris. We took advantage of the 3, 25 euro dinner we got as university students, and spent the evening getting to know each other. I am in a wonderful group of people and can't wait for the next year withe them!
Au revoir!
Au revoir!
Wednesday, September 2, 2015
La Vie en Yoga
Tonight I went to my first public yoga class in a year! I went to a studio I found online while doing research about my neighborhood. The studio is in a block of buildings about a 5 minute walk from my apartment. They have easy online registration for classes, as well as an app, and student discount. I had some trouble getting into the building, as there were numerous gates and codes, but eventually, I found the space. It was a very nice, seemingly new space. At reception, I was asked to remove my shoes. Then I confirmed my registration and was shown the changing area with storage lockers. (Parisians generally do not wear workout wear out and about like we do in the states). I changed and locked up my things and nervously headed into the studio. There were two other students and the instructor. As I stretched nervously thinking, what am I doing here, two more students arrived. This was a relief as I was hoping less attention would be paid to me and my beginner skills. I have done yoga on and off the past 3 years. I started practicing more seriously when I found a wonderful YouTube teacher with 100s of free videos, and some subscription classes. I completed a 30 day power yoga series in July and have since practiced yoga in some form nearly everyday. However, I hadn't been to a real public class in over a year, and this studio was a far cry form the free 24 hour fitness yoga I was used to. We started with breathing and some "omms" and I began to wonder if this would been even too hippyish for me! (which would be pretty crazy!) But, I stuck it out and managed to make it through, and enjoy this hour long class. I don't think I've ever had such an intense workout, but I was really proud of what I was able to do. Some poses I feel like I've mastered in my home practices, and man, with the aid of the instructor, I improved on immensely. I really felt accomplished at the end of the session, but enjoyed the much needed corpse pose at the end. The class was primarily conducted in French, definitely a challenge, as I don't understand most yoga poses in their sanskrit names anyway. However, I managed to understand and watch others if I was confused. Overall, I really enjoyed the experience and plan to go back twice a week to continue to improve my practice. One last anecdote: a girl in my class put on stilettos and left the studio, pretty good Parisian image there.
Namaste!
Namaste!
La Vie a l'ecole
Yesterday was my first day teaching English at a French school. It is one of two schools I will be working at this year. It is an "ecole maternelle" which means the kids are generally 5-6 years old. I taught a group of 10 students my fist lesson on saying "what is your name?" and "hello my name is.." in English. I was for the most part on my own, with the exception of a very brief check in from my boss and from the head teacher of the school. In general, it went very well! The 3o minute lesson plan given to me by my company took about 15 minutes, so I'm improvised a lot adding games and eventually, extra coloring time at the end. For the most part, the children were well behaved, with 3 who were causing a bit of trouble at the end, and 1 who refused to participate as she was very shy. One girl told me she knows most English words because her mother speaks English, so I don't know it this will help or hurt the class, but we shall see. I felt pretty in control of the kids, even though I found it a bit strange to just be sent of on my own to teach these kids. But I think they had fun and many of them were happy to say hello and goodbye to me as they left school. I know that I need to further develop the lessons, so that will be my goal and challenge for next week. My other school doesn't start for a few more weeks, but I will definitely update with a comparison of the schools.
Au revoir!
Au revoir!
Monday, August 31, 2015
La Vie en Errands
Today was an extremely busy, errand filled day. First I woke up and did yoga as I do almost everyday. Then I needed to go to those Fotomaton things that are significantly featured in the film Amelie. I had to get passport photos for program, even though they said 2 months ago they had everything they needed from me. But alas after a semi-argument over email with a student assistant I decided to go to one of these Fotomaton's and get my pictures. After that, (and a loss of 5 euros for that), I took the metro to the first school I will be teaching at tomorrow. I live in the 4th arrondissement, and had to take two different lines to get to the school in the 17th. It took about 40 minutes with a little added time for Google maps getting me lost in the neighborhood. But, I finally found the school. Then I had lunch at a nearby cafe. After lunch, I took the metro from this school to my NYU Paris building. This was to test what will be my Tuesday evening commute from teaching to class. This took about 35 minutes with a little more Google maps getting confused on the Parisian streets. But again, I managed to find it. I dropped of the passport photos and decided to take the bus back home. The bus costs 2 euros, (one metro ride slightly cheaper at 1.80 euros), and took what felt like 10 minutes to get me back home to Bastille. I decided to do one more errand and found a nearby Office Depot (I know, even in Paris #globalization). I made some photocopoies for my lesson tomorrow and bought a few more notebooks for school. After all those errands, I made it back home finally. I had a very long but interesting day observing people on the metro, bus and buying school supplies last minute. The most challenging and interesting part of the day was getting lost looking for a mislabeled metro stop. The line I was looking for used to have Porte d'Orleans as its last stop. I am familiar with this because it is where I lived last time I was in Paris. But the last stop on this line s now Montrouge. I followed signs for Montrouge as normal only to fins myself on the side of the metro going the opposite direction. After circling around forever, I found two other people doing the same thing. We went off together and eventually found the right direction for our metro. Who says the French are rude? I had quite the full day and am looking forward to going over my lesson plan for tomorrow and relaxing before Orientation Friday!
Au revoir!
Au revoir!
Thursday, August 27, 2015
La Vie en Education
Salut!
I am happy to report that I have accepted a teaching position with an English teaching organization called CapEnglish. So in addition to my graduate courses, I will be teaching English to elementary students for four hours a week! I will be in two different schools, one public and one private. The company is very generous in providing lesson plans and some supplies. The goal of the company is to give young children early exposure to English with native speaker teachers. Each lesson is supposed to be conducted in English at all times, or most of the time for the younger children. I met with the program director earlier this evening and he gave me all this information. It seems like it will be a very supportive community. I am very excited to be teaching again! I was worried that I may not be and am grateful for the opportunity. The lesson plans include a lot of games, reading and music- so I feel right up my alley. I think I will also get a different perspective with elementary children and private school experience, as last time I worked in a middle school. My first day of teaching is Tuesday! I will report back on how it went.
Au revoir!
Also my blog keeps trying to spellcheck everything to keep it in French, but for the sake of my English readers, I'll keep it this way :)
I am happy to report that I have accepted a teaching position with an English teaching organization called CapEnglish. So in addition to my graduate courses, I will be teaching English to elementary students for four hours a week! I will be in two different schools, one public and one private. The company is very generous in providing lesson plans and some supplies. The goal of the company is to give young children early exposure to English with native speaker teachers. Each lesson is supposed to be conducted in English at all times, or most of the time for the younger children. I met with the program director earlier this evening and he gave me all this information. It seems like it will be a very supportive community. I am very excited to be teaching again! I was worried that I may not be and am grateful for the opportunity. The lesson plans include a lot of games, reading and music- so I feel right up my alley. I think I will also get a different perspective with elementary children and private school experience, as last time I worked in a middle school. My first day of teaching is Tuesday! I will report back on how it went.
Au revoir!
Also my blog keeps trying to spellcheck everything to keep it in French, but for the sake of my English readers, I'll keep it this way :)
Monday, August 24, 2015
La Vie en Confusion
Hey everyone!
Update of my first few days in Paris! I've decided that moving to another country is hard. Not everything is different, but many things are. Outlets are different, buying produce at a grocery store is different, language is different. Though I have lived in Paris before, this time around things are a little more challenging. My apartment is all set up and despite the eight flights of stairs instead of the four advertised online, I'm really liking it. I've had some phone troubles as well and for some reason can't send texts or calls other than through apps like Whatsapp. This isn't a huge deal yet, but if and when my program starts, I will need to text people. So this is my first major thing to figure out. I have a list of little errands to do-buying groceries, school supplies, metro pass. I have this week and next to get everything sorted, like figuring out the bus system. But these first few days have been a bit stressful because I don't have absolutely everything figured out like I thought I would. I know that in time I will laugh at the fact that I couldn't figure out how to self-label produce or that I couldn't figure out how to get inside my nearest yoga studio. For now, I will continue to take pictures of the sights while I try to figure everything out. I have a teaching internship in the works and orientation will be here soon. Hopefully the adventures continue and my life here will get a little easier. I am still so glad to have such a unique opportunity in a city I love, despite its difficulties! Au revoir for now!
Update of my first few days in Paris! I've decided that moving to another country is hard. Not everything is different, but many things are. Outlets are different, buying produce at a grocery store is different, language is different. Though I have lived in Paris before, this time around things are a little more challenging. My apartment is all set up and despite the eight flights of stairs instead of the four advertised online, I'm really liking it. I've had some phone troubles as well and for some reason can't send texts or calls other than through apps like Whatsapp. This isn't a huge deal yet, but if and when my program starts, I will need to text people. So this is my first major thing to figure out. I have a list of little errands to do-buying groceries, school supplies, metro pass. I have this week and next to get everything sorted, like figuring out the bus system. But these first few days have been a bit stressful because I don't have absolutely everything figured out like I thought I would. I know that in time I will laugh at the fact that I couldn't figure out how to self-label produce or that I couldn't figure out how to get inside my nearest yoga studio. For now, I will continue to take pictures of the sights while I try to figure everything out. I have a teaching internship in the works and orientation will be here soon. Hopefully the adventures continue and my life here will get a little easier. I am still so glad to have such a unique opportunity in a city I love, despite its difficulties! Au revoir for now!
Saturday, August 22, 2015
Friday, August 21, 2015
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