Toussaint Travels

Happy Halloween everyone!  Today is Halloween, and, as there are several American assistants with whom I’m work, it’s imperative that something’s going to happen tonight.  So, this old man has had to forsake his reticence towards Fancy Dress parties and ‘follow the crowd’.  I’m all prepared with my vampire costume ready to see how true the stereotype of Americans loving Halloween is.

Thanks to ‘le décalage horaire’ (turning the hour back), autumn’s well and truly made itself present in Angers as you can see:

Now for an update on my life since I’ve last written to you. I’ve spent the majority of the holidays travelling around France, exploiting my young persons railcard. It has to be said, the French train system, SNCF is extremely impressive and very well organised. Quite frankly, it shits over the railway companies in Britain from a great height. But that’s another story, let’s leave political talk regarding privatisation aside!  I’ll now list the places I explored:

1. Tours:  This was the first place me and some of the assistants here visited. What a fantastic city. It’s located in the ‘Centre’ region, to the right of mine (Pays de la loire). It’s seems to be almost a mirror of Angers: tramway, castle, cathedral, gardens and an array of fountains!   

2.Nantes: Twinned with my capital, Cardiff, Nantes didn’t seem as nice as I thought. I was glad I wasn’t placed there for my year abroad.  Although there were some nice areas, it seemed a very dirty city due to the river and evidence of industrial works alongside it.  I met up with a friend from uni, Josie who’s working in a small village near Rennes, in Brittany.  

3: Paris: Such a beautiful city! I stayed there with my friend from uni, Matt and boy I was glad to have a guide for my first time there to help me with the metro!  Obviously for my first time there, I had to see the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Jardin des Luxembourg (next to which he lives!) and other famous landmarks.  I’d easily go back there again, despite the negative opinions some people hold of it.  

Anyway, I’ve gotta go get dress myself up as a vampier! Take care, Rhys x
Bon, faut que j’y aille pour me déguiser en vampire !

Les vacances, enfin – The holidays, finally!

Bonjour à tous,  I’m writing this post on the first day of the  two weeks holiday celebrating, All Saints. Just for some cultural background, in France, All Saints day takes place on the 1st November. It’s a sombre time where families gather and go to place flowers on the graves of loved ones.    Despite only being at the school for roughly three weeks, half of which was filled with observations and training days, I’m actually so glad to take a break;  it’s been a stressful couple of weeks settling in and adapting to the French school routine.

During these holidays, I’m going to take advantage of them by travelling around a bit.  Firstly, this Wednesday me and some of the other assistants are going to visit a nearby city of Tours.  Then, on Thursday, a friend of mine from uni who is an assistant in a small town in Brittany and I are going to meet up in Nantes to see this sights, including the big elephant (It’s a huge mechanical robot on which you can take  a ride around a carpark, cool eh?).  After this, I’ll be spending three days in Paris visiting another friend from uni.  I’ve never been to Paris before so you can imagine how excited I am about this!

Also throughout the holidays, I’m going to start building up some ressources to use in the classroom ready for a mammoth laminating task. Also, for the French learners the verb to laminate – plastifier  and another important word I’ve learnt since teaching, sellotape – le scotch.  It made me laugh when one of the teachers was asking me if I’d seen ‘the scotch’; all I could think of was the English version which refers to an alcoholic drink!

I’ve also been engaging in one of my favourite past times: cooking.  Last week I made a cottage pie with some of the assistants. Then, This weekend has also seen me experimenting with my new novelty: curry paste!  I’ve invited some of assistants over to share a ‘yellow curry’ and a ‘tandoori’ curry!  We bought about 10 potatoes from the market all for 1 euro; can you believe it? So in they were thrown , served along with rice and a bowl full of a chopped up baguette; you’ve gotta be French and cram your carbs in !! Et le vin, bah oui !

Pour les autres assistants en France, bonnes vacances ! Faut que vous vous reposiez
I hope the other assisants in France have a restful holiday!
Will write soon.
Rhys 🙂

Cottage pie

Yellow curry!

Thrown in the deep end!

Since I’ve last updated you on my time here, several things have happened:

Castle with the assistants!

Firstly, the assistants and I spent a lovely day touring the castle last week.  Despite being October, it was still fairly mild then and most of us were complaining about the heat when we climbing the ancient steps! Suddenly, the temperatures plummeted over night it seems towards the end of last week.  Now it’s just being home as we’ve definitely left summer behind in the pathway of Autumn.  This isn’t a bad thing; I always been someone who prefers the colder months where we  wrap up warm, clutching onto hot drinks!

This change of seasons also indicated a change in my role in the schools.  No longer am I observing, but I now start to teach. My Thursday school is spent teaching alongside two wonderful teachers.  I teach one lesson with Sebastian, then the same lesson with Manuella, the headmistress.  Then we spend half an hour planning the lesson afterwards.  Although I don’t have freedom in this school, it nice to have the work planned for you and knowing what is to be taught.

Friday night with the assistants

After spending Friday night out with the assistants, we all had a crêpe in the afternoon to fend off the hangover and to satisfy our hunger!  Sunday was a quiet day, where I had some visitors over for a coffee and a chat, and in the evening, me and MaryFrances created little teaching tools for the pupils.

Monday is my day off, and it was fairly productive, as I bought my railpass which will allow me to visit Nantes and Paris during the holidays next week at a reduced price! 🙂  After this, a friend came around for some casserole that I made.

Today is where I was plunged into the deep end. I knew I’d be progressively introduced into the classroom environment, however in my two classes this morning, the teacher just said Ok and Rhys is going to teach you English!  With no idea what to teach them, we just went over the basics ‘How are you?, ‘What’s the weather like?’ and ‘What’s your name?’  It was quite scary as I am someone who hates to be unprepared, but I guess thinking on the your feet is an important skill to master!  Then, in my later classes of the morning, I went to my classroom and a small group of about 5 students came to meet me and they were really cute and excited by the fact that I was ‘British’!

I didn’t mind being thrown into the deep end for this one because I was in a room on my own so I felt like I wasn’t judged for what I did.  In the end, I decided to teach them the Months of the year and Where they lived, as they’d done that the week before and it was good for them to brush up on the previous work I felt.  I’ll be back at that school on Friday so I’m now actually looking forward to taking my small groups in my classroom as well as the larger groups alongside the teachers.

Although I work all day Friday, the last lesson of the day is PE and if you ever asked me if I would see myself teaching PE in the future, I would never think I’d say yes because I absolutely hate sport and PE was a subject I detested at school!  Nonetheless, I really enjoy it because they’ve made it into a ‘English-cum-PE’ lesson – I basically shout commands at them such as ‘run to the tree!’ and ‘jump up and down!’.

I wish you a good week and you’ll hear from me next week! 🙂

First week at work!

Hi guys!
It’s that time again where I update you about my life in Angers.  Last week saw me start work in the schools.  As I’m pretty new at this, it was just to observe some classes for the whole day in each of my schools. I’ve been placed into three schools, which are all so similar but different at the same time.  Despite the fact that my schools are in a deprived area, the students are lovely and extremely zealous towards learning English, which makes my job much more easier and rewarding!   The level of English spoken for the kids in my third school was absolutely fantastic.  Considering that they’re between 5-10, the could think of questions on their feet with no problem!

All the teachers have been so welcoming and kind, asking me lots of questions and offering me coffee; I’m finally adjusting to the strong French coffee with no milk!  The only thing that’s a little difficult is the conversations that race at 100mph between the teachers in the staff room. However, this is really beneficial for my French as I’m sure I’ll tune in to it more over time!  Highlights of the week have been:
1. Asked : Do you eat lizards where you’re from?”
2. The teahers and pupils calling me Rice, Reez and lots of other bizarre words that rhyme with Rhys!
3. Asked :”Why are there wholes in your head?”
4 And finally being sang the Hello Good-bye song by the Beatles when I walk past the students!

Aside from this, I’ve had a wonderful weekend: a few quite drinks Friday night, party at one of the assistants apartment Saturday and chilling in the park Sunday.  Then last night, a group of us gathered in said apartment and ordered a couple of pizzas with a few bottles of French beer; fantastique!!  Today’s plan is to meet up with a few more assistants to explore the castle!

Pizza night!

Des cieux orageux / Stormy Skies

Last night I met up with some of the assistants  to get a crepe.  To my astonishment, I left just wearing a t-shirt and within 5 minutes of leaving the house, the sky exploded with thunder and was ripped apart by lightning. Thankfully, we were lucky enough to be seated in the restaurant before the rain started and remain there until it was over.   Anyway, I’ll stop reinforcing the stereotype that the British love to talk about the weather!! Mind you, I do love a good storm!

So in the space of time between my former post and this one here, I’ll update you on the things that have been going on:
Last Saturday, some of us went to explore the local market on the Jardin du Mail as the French rave about it and we wanted to know what all the fuss was about!  After looking around it, it’s easy to see why.  The stalls seemed to be never-ending, with the wonderful smell of fruit, wine, vegetables and cheese filling the tightly rammed stalls.  Most remarkable for me, was the way strawberries were strewn across tables,

Checking out the market!

with giant shovels ready to scoop them up for their customers.  I’ll definitely be buying the majority of my veg from there as they’re so fresh and cheap.  Without a doubt I think this market is great; anyone who knows me understands I take pride in cooking with fresh, healthy ingredients.  After the little wander around the market, we then headed to the little bandstand where we ate a baguette.  Then in the evening, we went to a welcome party, hosted by a former assistant, David whom none of us had ever met before.  He was a really nice man, and it’s comforting to have someone close to hand who truly knows Angers.

Enjoying our lunch at Jardin du Mail.

Then Sunday, a few of us met up for a little drink in the evening before taking a little stroll around the gardens at night.
With those ingredients, I decided to invite a few friends around and share a French meal, ‘Pot-au-feu’ with them.  We drank some wine, ate some bread, macarons and had a few hours of laughter!  It was lovely to have  people around, from all over the world and Britain.  You could often start a joke with the amount of times we have an Irishman, Welshman and a Englishman sat at a table!!  It’s been interesting to meet a considerable amount of Americans too.  We’ve had some great times together, mimicking and mocking each others accent!

Enjoying our ‘Pot-au-feu’

Yesterday was the big induction day that lasted hours, gave everyone a massive headache and in some parts, seemed irrelevant!  At the same time, it was necessary as I’ve finally found my timetable. Provided that there are no alterations, I have a Monday and a Wednesday off and finish early on a Thursday.  I’m happy I have a Monday off, as this means that it gives me a longer weekend, in the case of  travelling home etc.  I was also told that my schools are a little bit challenging and that one in particular is quite difficult.  However, there will always be teachers at hand who will help me with any issues of discipline etc.  The Inspectrice told me yesterday that the Children there love languages and have a real enthusiasm towards interactive activities, but don’t benefit from more formal methods of teaching.  For me, this seems quite appealing as I’m a lively, energetic person myself!

I’m observing lessons in one of my schools all day tomorrow, another Friday and the final Tuesday as we have a second induction on Monday. Then, we start teaching properly, the wed of that week.  The reason why they like to place is in two or more schools is to have a well-rounded view of the Education system in France.  No two schools are a like, so it’s important to return home with a well-informed  about the French schooling system.

Travel to my schools should be relatively easy as Angers prides itself on their Public Transport system. I paid for a monthly bus pass yesterday, of which the school reimburses  50%!  That’s such a great help because the pass gives me unlimited travel on all the buses and the trams too so I could just hop on any bus and walk back when I’m bored!

Well, take care my loyal readers and I shall write soon with my feedback after my observations!