On Monday, all of the Anglophone (English-speaking) assistants had an orientation in Nancy. I live with four others (2 other Americans, 2 Brits) so we showed up in force to a meeting of 24 assistants. We did brief introductions and then a woman from the Social Security organization for educators (MGEN) came to visit us. She didn’t speak English, so our facilitators tried to provide translations after every three sentences. This became quite annoying after awhile and they finally let her speak with clarification only on really important things. The afternoon was more productive as we did sample lesson plans for lycée and collège using political cartoons, news articles, and songs. Basically, we are supposed to do many different things in the course of an hour to make learning fun (what a concept!). Moreover, the head English inspector for our département came to speak with us for a few minutes to officially explain our mission: get the kids to speak English!
After the official the orientation, most of went to a nice café near the Place Stanislas, the Most Beautiful Place in EuropeTM. Many were having similar adjustment issues and several either lived alone at more rural schools or shared apartments with other Americans. I came away from the orientation grateful for the presence S and A, the German and Nicaraguan assistants, who keep the floor from turning into All English All The Time.
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