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.