Week 23 - Making Local Headlines

Dealing with life as a local celebrity (jk)

Kate and I decided to be cultural this week and try visiting a museum in Avignon! I've only recently discovered that Avignon residents get free entry to loads of places around the town (including the famous Palais de Papes) on Sundays so the next weekend I'm here I'll definitely make use of that. We went along to La Fondation Calvert, an art foundation inside the walls which has some lesser known but still impressive pieces on its walls. There were quite a few old paintings of Avignon so it was interesting to see how the city's changed and try and work out where our apartments were in the paintings!

On Monday night I got a Facebook message from someone in Avignon. Strange, I thought, no mutual friends and I definitely don't recognise you. Had we met before? Had I been drunk and given this person my name? Intrigued, I replied asking whether we knew each other. "Y avait un article sur toi sur le journal hier". Aha, mystery solved! Regular readers of my blog will know I had an interview a few weeks ago with a journalist for the regional paper La Provence about my life working out here as a language assistant and it had finally gone to print. Give it a read here.

Everyone was out at Red Sky on Monday night and we carried on afterwards at Julie's apartment and despite leaving 'early' I didn't get to bed until just before 3am (party animal, I am). Needless to say, the 6am wake-up for work the following day was not the easiest!

As I was boarding the bus at Carpentras and said morning to my favourite bus driver he greeted me with an even bigger smile than normal and told me he'd seen me in the paper. We're now on first name terms. Managed to survive my back-to-back school day on 3 hours sleep and crashed straight into bed when I eventually got home that evening.

It was Drew's birthday on Wednesday so a couple of us went across the river to hang out for the afternoon despite the hormonal weather which couldn't decide if it wanted to be sunny or rainy. It did mean there was a rainbow though.

Brian and I went to tandem at Camili Books and Tea then Chelsea, Megan and Amy joined us for 4,50€ pizza we'd been planning on trying for weeks. Turned out to be the best pizza we'd had in Avignon so far, we'll be keeping that place in mind for future.

Have just spontaneously booked to go to Toulouse with Niamh for the weekend (we're having withdrawal symptoms after Orcières) so we'll be heading off to explore la Ville Rose tomorrow morning!

A la semaine prochaine,

Katie x

Classroom Game Ideas for Primary School Teaching

1. Bingo

The absolute classic, this works a treat every time. There are quite a few online bingo card generators, otherwise you can make them yourself using images from your flashcards. This came is great to cement vocab learning.

Each child has a card with a different selection of pictures on it. The teacher reads out the word for each picture one at a time and if the student has it on their card they cross it out. The first to cross out all their pictures is the winner and shouts 'BINGO!'. The student then has to read out loud the names of each picture they crossed out.

Bring prizes for the winners (stickers are always a good shout). Game can also be altered to the first to get 3 in a row, for example, which makes it last a bit longer.

2. Hangman

A great way to revise the alphabet. Tell the students they are only allowed to say letters in English!

Think of a word (I often play hangman at the start of a lesson to introduce the topic), then draw spaces on the board for each letter of the word. Students have to guess which letters are in the word. If they say a word that is, fill in the space. If not, start drawing a hangman (you might need to include a face for some classes so they can get the whole word)!

3. Simon Says

An absolute favourite for all my classes, this is also a great time filler if you've run out of things to do and still have 5 minutes to spare at the end of the lesson. Also a great game to play when teaching parts of the body.

Tell all the students to stand up. Tell them to do an action, such as clap your hands, touch your head/nose/shoulders etc. If you say Simon Says before the action, everyone should do it. However, if you just say the action and they do it then they are eliminated and have to sit down.

Some students get really good at this game so some tips for the end would be to try harder actions e.g. put your left hand in the air. Tell the last 5 students to go to the front of the class so everyone who's been eliminated can easily call out their classmates!

4. Pictionary

Another great game to play at the end of the lesson to reflect on the vocabulary you've just taught. The students love the chance to come up to the front and draw on the blackboard!

Draw a picture on the board and the children have to guess what it is (in English of course). Whoever guesses first gets to come up and it's their turn to draw. You can print out cards with words for them to pick out a hat or they can just come up with them on their own.

5. Charades

Very similar to pictionary, only instead of drawing the words they have to act them out! This is fantastic for teaching animals and sports. It can be very funny as some of them get really into it. I've found it works best if you have the cards in a hat for them to pick.

6. Eleven / Twenty One

Great for learning numbers, everyone stands up and you go round the class. Each person is allowed to say up to three numbers. The first person starts, for example saying 1,2,3 therefore the second person can say either 4, 4,5, or 4,5,6. If someone makes a mistake they are eliminated and have to sit down and you restart from number one. This carries on until number 11 (or 21 for older classes). Whoever says 11 (or 21) is eliminated.

For really good classes you can add in extra rules: two numbers changes direction and three numbers skips a person.

Week 22 - Sunny February

Settling back to reality

This week's been quite a quiet one compared with everything that's gone on recently so this will be a shorter post than the usual! After a whirlwind half term city-break and ski trip, I returned to Avignon and had a quiet weekend chilling in Just Coffee Shop (where Pauline works) lesson planning in preparation for heading back to work.

Monday night I joined Pauline and the girls for drinks at Red Sky, the bar in Place Pie that has around 18 different beers on tap! Monday night's are karaoke nights, although not in the sense karaoke is at home - everyone was thankfully a decent singer and there was a live band as opposed to backing track so there was a great atmosphere. Marine was brave enough to get on stage with her rendition of La vie en rose.

Marine owning the room

Meanwhile, we've had some lovely sunny weather - 20 degrees in Feb - so Amy, Annie and I took the ferry across the Rhône to Ile de Barthelasse so soak up some rays and catch up on our respective holidays.

My favourite Leeds ladies

I had my school inspection this week but it all went fine and they seemed happy with me (phew). I'd decided to teach sports and we've been playing more charades which has been highly entertaining, as the students loved the opportunity to be allowed to run around the classroom for once! Loads of the kids had been off skiing over the break too and a couple of them showed me their badges they'd earned from ski school.

I'm having a chilled weekend in Avignon again this weekend hanging out with friends and getting ahead of my year abroad uni work so the deadline doesn't creep up too out of the blue - time is flying!

Ciao,

Katie x

Week 21 - Half Term Ski Trip

Being the novelty English girls in a French ski resort.

This week the school holidays continued (that's right, the French get two weeks off in February) and it was time for an eagerly anticipated trip to the mountains with Niamh. We'd booked to go to Orcières, a cute resort not too far from Avignon/Montpellier.

It didn't take us long to discover the resort was very French - we were pretty much the only English people in resort - a refreshing change for a ski trip. In fact, being English actually worked in our favour when hiring skis, as we charmed our way into a sweet deal with the super-friendly man at the ski hire shop.

Although we'd managed to book a cheap room in a chalet hotel, the fact that we wouldn't have a kitchen hadn't quite crossed our minds in the excitement of it all. However, being the thrifty, creative students that we are, we managed to get by self-catering in rather ingenious ways - toothbrushes doubled up as cereal spoons (just for the first morning at least) and the sloped roof from our skylight became a fridge/freezer (although coming back after skiing one day to find our ham and cheese had slid off wasn't the best discovery).

We really couldn't have asked for better skiing conditions - the best snow of the season apparently! We made the most of the bluebird days by shredding the pow until close every day, only stopping occasionally for a demi and some schoko bons, and finishing the day with a swim at the pool.

Day 1 of skiing and on one of the first chairlifts of the week Niamh and I ended up next to a group of French boys. Murray, who was sitting next to Niamh, explained they were there on a uni ski trip and had to complete the challenge of kissing a girl on a lift. Was there any way we'd be able to help them out? It was Valentine's Day after all. Such a charmer. We renamed this chair the Love Lift for the rest of the trip.

As the week went on we had another encounter with some French boys who we arranged to go for a ski/board with, followed by drinks over the Chelsea-Paris game. We met up with them a few times and enjoyed some good French bant #classiqueReblochon.

We also got up to date with gangster language such as wesh alors, which is a pretty popular expression right now thanks to hip-hop artist Jul's hit single:



Thursday night we went for a night out at Yeti, Orcière's finest discotheque, with Joan, Nico, Francois and the rest of the gang after apéro at their apartment. Despite the lack of sleep, Niamh and I were up and out to hit the slopes hard on our final day before reluctantly giving back our skis once the lifts had closed. As it was our last night, we treated ourselves to a meal out where we ate our bodyweight in raclette. On s'est fait péter le bide - literally ate until our stomachs burst! Goodbye drinks with the boys before packing our bags ready for our 5am BlaBlaCar back home the following morning.

Back to reality now as half term's slowly drawing to an end and I've got lessons to plan!

Bisous,

Katie x

Week 20 - Discovering Barcelona

Half term trip to Barcelona!

Avignon crew

The first half of term somehow managed to absolutely fly by and I'm already back on school holidays - 2 weeks off for half term! In order to make the most of the time off I booked two trips away: Barcelona this week and skiing the next (thank you Erasmus grant).

The weekend was a pretty chilled one, hanging out with friends in Avignon, watching the rugby and sorting out life admin/upcoming holidays.

On Monday morning I was off to Barcelona and went to the station to get a train to Nîmes where I'd booked a OuiBus from. Things didn't get off to the best start however, as I arrived at the station only to find that the train had been canceled and there wasn't another one coming in time for me to catch my bus. Oh the joys of French public transport. After a panicked discussion with the man at the ticket office who was actually very apologetic and refunded my train ticket I went down to the bus station to find there weren't any buses either. Fortunately, I had a look on good old Blablacar and found Michel travelling direct to Barcelona from Arles that afternoon so I jumped on a train to meet him there.

In the meantime, with a couple of extra hours to kill waiting for my ride I did what every normal person would do when they get a bit of free time and casually booked flights to Australia! That's right, I'm heading down under for just over a month in May at the end of my contract in France. #YOLO.

A quick explore of Arles then Michel picked me up and we headed for the Spanish border. On the bright side, the journey gave me another opportunity to speak some French and it turned out Michel was also a teacher, teaching PE at a collège in Arles. We picked up another passenger along the way, a lovely Czech woman who used to work in Camden and was heading to Barca to find work as a piercer (she had 16 piercings herself which wasn't very many apparently). We were dropped off together at a station just outside the city and I headed into the centre to meet up with my cousin's fiancé, Jon, who was having me to stay while I was there. Top marks for hosting, Jon - if it were an AirBnb I'd give you 5 stars!

Exploring Arles

On Tuesday I met up with fellow Avignon assistants Lily and Christine who had already been out there for a few days. We spent the morning at Parc Güell and as it was a lovely day we headed to the beach in the afternoon, stopping for churros on the way (when in Spain). Unfortunately the funiculars weren't running due to planned engineering works, but we took a replacement bus up to the Montjuïc Castle for amazing views of the city. We descended back via the Olympic park and the National Museum of Catalan's visual art, then walked all the way to Born where we visited the impressive basilica of Santa Maria del Mar before some well-earned sangria.

Wednesday I was on my own to explore the city, despite not speaking a word of Spanish, let alone Catalan. The whole new language thing threw me off a bit as I hated speaking English to everyone and kept wanting to reply in French! Visited the Sagrada Familia in the morning which was absolutely stunning, 100% worth a visit for anyone planning a trip to Barca. I spent the afternoon wandering around the city before going on a walking tour of the Gothic Quarter, where I picked up tips for the best places to go off the tourist trail. Had a walk around a pretty park my guide recommended then hit the shops, although had to be very disciplined about what I bought - I'm saving for Australia now, remember! Caught up with Jon in the evening and watched Inside Out for the first time. Think it might actually be one of my favourite Pixar films now!

Final day in Barca was spent hunting down more free views at the Caxia Forum art nouveau terrace and the top of the old bullfighting arena. Pinchos for lunch (small snack/canapé type sticks at only 1€ each) before a visit to another of Gaudí's architectural masterpieces, Casa Batlló.

Was up early Friday morning to take my bus to home. No cancelled trains this time! About 8 1/2 hours later, made it back to A-ville where I unpacked and packed for my ski trip. Currently en route to Orcières!

Could definitely get used to this back-to-back holiday thing.

A la semaine prochaine,

Katie x

Week 19 - Exploring the Region

Making the most of the Provence sunshine!

We've been hit by some b e a utiful sunny weather this week so I've been able to truly appreciate life in Provence. Ally came to Avignon on Saturday and we went for tartines at Ginette et Marcel, the cutest little French bistro just 2 mins from my apartment, and we made the most of the sunshine by eating al-fresco. We spent the afternoon walking over to l'Isle de la Barthelasse, which is just over the bridge from Avignon and has great views of the Pont d'Avignon. Later we stopped by my fave bakery on Rue de la Republique, Edgar's, for Speculoos and Double Choc cheesecakes. We realised pretty quickly that one slice between two would definitely have been sufficient and now I feel like I've eaten my share of cheesecake for the year!

Death by cheesecake

That evening Chelsea and Kate hosted a cocktail party, which was the perfect opportunity to dress up for once - the French like to keep things causal. Ally and I made a vodka jelly (not quite a real cocktail, I know, but still pretty cool) which we actually managed to set properly so was a success! We all then headed for a night out out on the town at our favourite Avignon haunt, Red Zone.

Ally headed back home to Nîmes on Sunday and I met up with Annie and Megan in the afternoon at the most adorable little tea room, La pendule parasseuse, where they make Angelina hot chocolates! Photos stolen from Anushka's Instagram, my Insta game is clearly not that strong.

Monday was another gorgeous sunny day so Kate, Annie and I met up to walk over to Villeneuve-les-Avignon, a really pretty town just across the bridge. We walked all the way up to the medieval fortress, Fort Saint-André (free entry for students, #winning), and enjoyed taking in the views and wandering round the fort. It was seriously windy at the top!

As it's been my last week of school before Feb half term - yes, we're already back on school holidays - I've mainly been doing revision sessions and games covering everything I've taught them so far. We've been playing Charades, or Le jeu de mime, which has been far too entertaining watching children crawling around the classroom pretending to be sheep/pigs/Father Christmas.

My evenings have been pretty busy too - tartines with the British gals on Tuesday and a soirée chez nous last night with the French girls which involved lots of crêpes and dancing to some absolute classics, as well as the odd French tune. Believe it or not there are actually some quite catchy tunes that aren't in the English language!




I've finally managed to get myself organised for half term - off to Barcelona on Monday then going skiing with Niamh the following week. Tough life.

Ciao,

Katie x