Teaching English in France


This year I have decided to take a teaching assistantship job in France. The city that I have been placed in is named Caen in the Northern part of the country. It is in the province of Normandy and it is the city that was founded by William The Conqueror. It is about the same size as Halifax but the downtown area is very old and tightly would together like all of the old European cities. I am teaching at a high school on the outskirts of the city that is pretty high class. The French love to make sure that things are always well catered. Every meeting and function at the school is followed by desserts and wine, ciders and poires ( a pear cider), and lots of extended conversation. Not to mention the cafeteria that I eat at, which is the school cafeteria, has shown me to some of the finest food in France, and it only costs me two euro's a meal!!!

I am living on the school grounds at the moment and there are two other assistants who are living on the same floor as me. One of them is form England and the other is spanish and from Chili. We do what we can to make dinner an event(the way the french do) yet all we seem to be able to cook is spaghetti! One night we tried to cook rice and it got really burnt, next thing I knew the fire alarm was going off. As I looked out into the parking lot I noticed that there were 100 people waiting around, they were other teachers who live in the building and some of the students who travel from far away to attend the school. The three of us were a little embarassed but but the headmaster came over and had a little laugh about it with us. The headmaster is an serious guy, who will never be caught without a nice suit on.... even at 11pm during a fire drill. Also, he has one heck of a hand shake and I always have to be ready for it; he love to shake hands (as most French) and there is nothing worse than getting caught with a weak shake.

I teach 12 different classes and they range from a low level of English to really high. The subjects I can teach are my own choice and the School provides all of the teachers alot of reaserch tools to help us out with. My French is slowly getting better but it can be tiring to constantly be learning something new. Some nights I just pass right out because I have been speking french so much during the day. All in all everything is great so far and I will keep putting up posts and keeping you all updated about my year.