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!

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!

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!

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!