Week 8 - Getting to Grips with Teaching

A week of flashcard games and scary bus drivers.

I arrived back in Avignon on Sunday afternoon after a harrowing weekend in Paris.

School was on as normal on Monday so I got up bright and early to catch my 7am bus to Malaucène where the morning's lessons went by quickly. At midday the whole school gathered in the playground and held hands in a circle before a minute's silence in commemoration of everyone affected by the terrorist attacks over the weekend.

At school this week I've been teaching the weather, which has gone down really well. I've found using flashcards and playing games has been great, especially when you add a bit of healthy competition!

Met up with the other assistants on our mutual day off on Wednesday for coffees and lesson planning, although can't say how productive we were at getting work done - we were slightly distracted by the speculoos doughnuts! I've also been going out with my flatmate in the evenings which has been fun and a great opportunity to speak some more French - am beginning to discover lots of French slang.

Our favourite evening hangout in Place Pie

Now I'm in a routine I've started to get to know my bus drivers - it's such a friendly community here! There is one bus driver, however, who is absolutely terrifying. She drives the afternoon bus from Orange to Avignon which is always full of teenagers from the lycée and she has no problem keeping them in check and will shout at them for putting their feet on the seats, playing music, or not saying hello when they come on board. Although she eyed me and my bus pass suspiciously at first, now I've done the journey a few times I think she's warming to me...

Can't complain about the commute with this view

The best news this week is that I've managed to change my hours around so from now on I'm only going to be working on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Not only does that mean less time commuting, I've also got a four day weekend!

On Friday, Annie and I had an amusing gym session in the morning - our French gym vocab isn't quite up to scratch yet! In the evening I took the train to Orange to meet up with a couple of assistants I hadn't seen in ages and we had a very merry evening at Le Palace with wine and nachos. We all stayed the night at Georgie's pad (she's living the dream in a 4-bed house with 3 cats) and I left early the next morning to make it in time for spinning.

Teachers on tour

A la semaine prochaine,

Katie x