Hello all!
So things have begun in full force here on campus. We
are in full immersion mode now, so it's kind of nice to think and write in
English for a little bit. My brain is tired. Heh!
My roommates are Deborah from Comox, Kirsten from Vancouver
(I knew her already from teaching ESL at Tamwood years ago), and Paula from
Fort St. John. We are all in our later thirties or forties (in fact, I'm
the youngest), which is good because we are all pretty fun and relaxed.
Kirsten is pretty bilingual, so she helps us out all the time - and
doesn't even seem to mind.
Yesterday we had our placement interviews and it turns out
that I am way worse at French than I thought. Turns out my enthusiasm
doesn't mean that I'm good (you have all been lying to me!). I think the
instructors knew right away though, especially when they asked me if I knew any
other languages and I thought that they were asking if I could drive a car.
I said yes, they asked which languages, and... yeah. I'm in the
"debutante" class. :)
Every day they provide us with lunch at the cafeteria, but
we do our own breakfast and dinners. After our tests yesterday, we headed
out to the local grocery store and did a big shop. They drove our
groceries home for us while we walked in the humid sun. We always talk
about having several showers a day. Having a cold shower at night helps
me get to sleep since it cools my core temperature down to a comfortable state
so I can relax.
Our cultural activity yesterday was learning some Quebecois
dances and we all learned how to play the spoons. We also listen to and
sing songs every day (some traditional, some modern). After that we
watched a French movie called The Intouchables. And much to my chagrin,
no English subtitles (of course). But that's okay, I was able to get the
synopsis off the web and follow along. :) Good movie!
Today our classes began and our beginner class practiced a
lot of basics like introducing ourselves and saying where we are from.
We're also learning teaching strategies at the same time, and we
recognize lots of what's going on. It's interesting to be on the other
side of the coin. Our group activity today was to do a scavenger hunt, and they
placed us in groups with one person from each level. So yah, I was the
dummy running behind everyone listening to them chatter in French and not
having a clue what was going on. I have way more sympathy for my ESL kids
now.
My (our) reward for going through that redonkulous exercise
was to relax at a local establishment for 5a7, which is the saying for
"happy hour" here in Quebec. And it was definitely happy: our
leaders had arranged for all of us to have a free drink and appetizers.
Plus we played a few games and more free drinks were up for the taking,
if you were up for the talking.
And homework! We get homework every day. HA HA.
Today's homework was to pronounce some vowel sounds (blah), and write a
poem with a particular framework. I'll share mine with you:
A L'interieur de Moi
C'est une chambre,
dans mon coeur.
Il y a un poid
sur mes memoires.
Il y a un desir
sous mes pensees.
Il y a une intention
entre mes questions.
Tu me manques,
mais tu habites ici.
Dans mon coeur.
Can you guess what our framework was? That's right,
prepositions! Good to see that my ability to write sappy predictable crap
hasn't waned since highschool. It's finally coming in handy. Ha ha.
Hope you're all doing well! I miss (speaking English
with) every single one of you.
Cheers,
E!
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