L'école

In case anyone is under the mistaken impression that I am here on an extended holiday, please let me reassure you otherwise. For I am a working woman (and not the Parisian, Moulin Rouge sort of 'working woman', thank you very much - a proper, state-employed salariée).

My title is teaching assistant, or assistante anglaise, and this can involve anything from recording those annoying language tapes they force on you at school to taking up to 15 children on my own and trying to inflict some of the Queen's own on them. My experience so far has mainly been of the latter variety, with varying degrees of success.

I work in 3 schools:

- A lycee (Sixth Form college) - this involves teaching lost of people my own age and sometimes older, and they still insist on calling me 'Madame'.

- Two collèges (Secondary schools) - one has a climbing wall (hooray!), but makes me come in just for an hour on Thursdays, ruining my Day of Rest (boo!). The other has 'problem children' from a special home for delinquents in the town, whose distraction tactics involve such joys as sticking their fingers in power sockets and making buzzing noises. How special.

We have a great little clan of teaching assistants in Chambery and we've spent many a happy evening eating crepes or sat in a bar bemoaning our three hours of work the following day. 12 hours a week takes up more time than you'd think...honest.

The good bits
- My commute to the lycee involves cycling past a chateau and a field of horses which I always say hello to. My favourite is called Albert. He looks just like the others and is always the one sticking his head over the fence to have a nosey at the strange English girl pootling past.

<--Albert

- I'm broadening the older students' vocab with important modern words. This week it was 'minger'.

- I seem to have achieved near celebrity status in one of the schools, where English people are seen as very exotic.

The bad bits
- School starts at 8am. This is very, very WRONG.

- I said 8am. This needs repeating.

- All schools are uphill from Chambery, which is bad for early morning cycling motivation.

- I do an introductory lesson with each class where I present myself. Rather too many times now, I've been asked if I have children. No. Do I want children? Probably. When do I want children? In the future. How many children do I want? No idea! What will I call my children? Er, any more questions, maybe about my pets?

Conclusion of the Confusion
I work in 3 different schools
with 10 different teachers
with 15 different classes
making 30 different groups.
Merde.

Le stage

A couple of days after arriving it was time for our 'stage'. This roughly translates as 3 days of being taught how to teach.

We (Beth and I) rocked up in Grenoble, expecting to meet another 40 or so English people from the area. The tram was full of a surprising number of foreign voices: Spanish, Italian, German...The 40 English students turned out to be around 300 future assistants, coming from places as far spread as Alaska, Trinidad and Jamaica. So much for a Heinz Beans and Marmite convention with like-minded Anglophiles!

After an utterly terrifying 3 hour lecture on insurance and legalities, we were herded into 5 coaches and driven to a remote mountain village.

Literary Garage we passed en route.

Highlights of our training included the Alphabet rap, animal bingo and a 50-year-old, leather-clad dominatrix/teacher singing The Beatles to a bemused and terrified audience. I think the German bloke near me liked it.

Highlights of the stage

1. Our nightly expeditions to the one bar in the village, which is in fact on the road back to Grenoble. The few mulleted locals looked rather surprised as double the population of the village poured into the tiny bar. Good times.

2. Every day we had two four-course meals of varying wholesomeness and taste. One night, on being presented with a second tray of chocolate eclairs for pudding, an American assistante was so pleased and surprised that she yelled "SHUT UP!!!" at the offended waiter. (NB: Apparently, this translates as 'Wow, what a surprise!'.) Needless to say, we didn't get any more. Luckily, the American was an expert at smuggling eclairs back into our dorm. We felt about 10 years old again!

3. We stayed in single-sex dorms of 6. One night I got up to go to the toilet. In the meantime, the others had worked themselves into a state of paranoid hysteria, convinced that a French man had just climbed out from Beth's bed in an attempt to attack everone.

So there I am, pottering back along the corridor in a semi-asleep state. I stop outside our door. Is it the right room? Can't see a bloody thing. Fumble for my torch.

The others hear murderous footsteps approaching, a knife being drawn and a victim-seeking light flickering ominously outside.

Luckily my true identity is revealed before either side attacks. I gain a new respect for my image of authority in pyjamas....

The suspected murder site...

Lessons learnt
"French children do not want to learn English."
"The teachers probably won't want to talk to you much, and may well ignore you."
"Try to remember how you treated your assistants at school"
Oh bollocks.