En fait, j'adore ma classe de merde

At 6am this morning I dragged myself out of bed and got dressed. I had breakfast, gathered my things together taking my dinner from the fridge (it's got to the point now where I make it the night before so as to have an extra 10 minutes in bed) and left at about 7h05. I arrived at Lycee at 7h45 - it was still dark. I picked up on the metro one of each of the three papers. That is the highlight of my day. As I sat on the bus to Lycee I remember thinking, I only have to do this journey once more this week. To be honest, the bus journey wasn't too bad this morning. I was one of the first on the bus as there weren't many people waiting as one bus had just been and gone. This meant not only was I not squashed in like a sardine but also that I got to sit down - woohoo! - a rare treat when it comes to french buses. In the staffroom before my first lesson Olivia came to me with the phone number of the family who want me to give cours de conversation to their daughter who is in troisieme at college. I have to call them tomorrow to arrange a time for the first cours de conversation. Olivia said that they live near to the Lycee and that she'd show me where at lunch time. I went to my first lesson at 8am and sat down. I didn't expect the students until 8h15ish as I knew the teacher, Isabelle, was always late. I sat reading one of the three papers I'd picked up on the metro. At 8h25 I began to think that they weren't coming. I was half hoping they didn't turn up because I was quite content to sit there with my paper. On the other hand I wanted them to turn up because I'd planned a lesson on binge drinking for them. At 8h45 I resigned myself to the fact that they weren't coming. I wondered whether Isabelle had forgotten to send them or whether she wasn't in today. I she wasn't in then that would mean that my secondes last lesson, aka ma classe de merde, would be cancelled... At 9am I returned to the staff room and did some printing for my anglais renforce classes on Thursday. I went to do some photocopying only to find the photocopier was broken. I ordered my photocopying for Thursday and asked the photocopying lady whether she could do some of the photocopying for me for mes secondes last lesson. I stayed in the staffroom until 10am. I then had a lesson with the 2 terminale girls - Leslie and Angelique. We are still working on the Mafia text. The text if far too hard for them. It's a real battle for them to understand it. They do work hard though. I quite enjoy this class because it's working with the same 2 girls each week and it's working with a text rather than images. At 11am I had my BTS students. 3 of them came today. It went really well. They're really nice and they're oral preparation for talking about their work experience is coming on well. I'm pleased. Afterwards it was lunch and I went to find out if Isabelle was in today or not. She was in the staffroom and apologised saying she forgot to send me the students and besides, she had 'something to finish with them anyway'. Don't you worry about it. If you were to have told me in advance, I wouldn't had to have come in until 10am. Nevermind. I'd learnt some new vocabulary from reading the newspaper and had done my photocopying. She gave me a class list and photos for mes secondes and said she would send me half the class. Olivia said she couldn't take me to show me where my new private student lives but that if I met her at 16h in the salle de profs then she would take me in the car and then drop me off at the metro. I went back to my room at 13h for a lesson with my going blind student - Thibauld. We spoke about Macbeth this week. His English is really good, he is possibly better than my BTS students despite only being in Terminale. After Thibauld it was Agnes dreaded image class that was so diabolical last week. But, in fact, it went really well this week. I had one student talk about the global warming image and another on the famine and size zero image. Both students tried hard and their English was quite good. It went well, I enjoyed it and I never thought I'd say that with that class! At 15h arrived mes secondes. All 10 of them. One of them comes through the door and shouts 'Gill!' Well, at least he remembered my name. They are so noisy. Even when I shout at the top of my voice I can't hear myself. I got them to come in and sit down, that in itself was a challenge. Getting them to tell me their names was the second challenge. I then went on to ask them about November 5th. Not one of them knew it was Bonfire Night. All I got was 'no, it's the 27th today' (in french). I'd simplified the Bonfire Night gap fill I'd done with my anglais renforce in the year above, I even provided a vocab match at the beginning to make sure they would understand the words. They found it hard, very hard. They said to me 'c'est dur'. They couldn't do it on their own, we had to work as a class. They got a bit noisy at one point and I had to tell them that I wasn't obliged to teach them, that it was my choice and that if they didn't behave they would go back. I don't think they understood but the tone of my voice and the fact I was pointing to the door seemed to do the trick, for all of 5 minutes anyway. I gave them the gap fill and wrote the words on the board and told them to copy them down and then fill in the blanks. For saying that I'd just explained to them Bonfire Night, complete with a drawing of The Houses of Parliament, I didn't think it would be that hard for them to do it. I'd pre-taught them the vocab. Again, I had to tell them to behave. There was a lot of speaking french going on on my part. I told them they had to learn the 6 phrasal verbs for next time when I would test them. I also told them what they didn't finish in class they could do at home and then I'd mark it. I got them to put their names on the top of their sheets in an attempt to know who I had in the class because I hadn't managed to catch all the names when they'd told me at the beginning despite me having photos of them next to the names too - they all look the same! We ended up doing the gap fill together because they were finding it hard although I'm convinced that if they were to have shut up and concentrated it wouldn't have been that much beyond them. At the end of the lesson I collected the sheets in and told them again 'il faut que vous appreniez le vocabulaire'. I made them sit in silence and I said 'ooh, it's the quietest it's been all lesson' but I don't think anyone understood. I told them they could go and they sat there looking at me. One of them said 'c'est sonne' - the bell has gone. I said I knew and they could go and all I got was 'mais c'est sonne'. In the end I had to say to them in french 'je vous ai dit que vous pouvez partir'. They all left just as noisily as they'd come in. Despite me calling them ma classe de merde I quite like them because they are lively. I'd rather a lively class than a 'je n'ai rien compris' class or students who sit and don't speak. After this class, surprised not to have a headache, I went to the salle de profs to meet Olivia who showed me where my new private pupil lives. I noted that I could get the number 37 bus to the Malpasse metro stop if I didn't feel like walking back for the 3 or 5 to metro La Rose. Olivia then dropped me off at the metro and I got the metro home. I had a cup of tea and marked the Bonfire Night gap fill. For saying we'd done most of it as a class the marks ranged from 11 out of 18 to 18 out of 18. Next time I see them I'll give it them back, let them read it and then ask them questions on it, as well as testing them on the 6 phrasal verbs I told them to learn. I then started planning a lesson on food and thought I might do text language with mes secondes next time, they might enjoy that. I made my tea and then went chez Rachel for a cup of tea and to return her cheese grater. I came back and showered and I'm now writing my blog. I'm off to bed in a minute because I want to be up relatively early tomorrow as I have lots of random things I want to do.