mr. panda

my 6-y-o's are equally excited about meeting mr panda.

though they came up with the most random questions.

- est-ce que mr panda est ne a paris? (is mr panda born in paris?)

- non, ils habitent qu'en chine. (they only live in china.)

they knew that mr panda is only a sock.

but they still gasped when i told them that mr panda is from china and he's only 3 years old.

- il est tout p'tit, mr panda. (he's so little!)

- il est venu en france avec toi? (did he come here with you?)

- puis-je le toucher? (can i pat him?)

- oui, vas-y. (sure, go ahead.)

then after the class was dismissed, all the kids came to pat mr panda.

even though they knew that it was only a sock.

laïcité

if you've ever done any french, you would have come across this word called "laïcité".

being laïque in france means that there's no such thing as religious studies at school.

well, some private schools do have such classes and that's why they're private.

so during the break time, a girl in my cp class came to complain about a boy telling them that there are vampires and she got so scared.

the teacher got so annoyed, she told her, "well, have you seen a vampire before? with your own eyes?"

"no."

"there you go, there's no such thing if you haven't seen it."

the poor little girl seemed unconvinced.

"i assure you there's no such thing, just like father christmas and god, it's just a made-up word."

here you're a perfect example of the classic french laïcité.

highlights of the day

1. CP class with my 6-y-o's. they just started learning vows and consonants.

there's "so", "sa", "su", "se", "si", "sui"...

an example of the sound "si" in these phrases: sirop, la piscine, six.

the teacher was going over these with the kids.

when they were at "la piscine", the teacher was telling them that on their way home, they'll see a direction sign, that says "la piscine".

one kid yelled out "j'aime la piscine!"

the teacher didn't even look at him, kept a straight face, "moi aussi" and continued on telling other kids how "c" is mute in "piscine".

i just cracked up at that point.

2. during break time.

kids will come to teachers to tell on other kids how they're behaving badly.

2 kids got into a fight, the boy was trying to strangle the girl, not pretty.

then their class teacher came, in the middle of the story.

heard the word "strangle" and looked at the boy, "charming personality, elliot."

she then shut him up and sent him away not wanting to hear any further explanations.

3. my kids got so excited by mr panda, whom i introduced them to today.

thanks to lu, this mr panda is generously given by her.

mr panda got so much attention, when i put it away after class, the kids all said, "goodbye mr panda" without me asking!

4. my naughty 7-y-o's all came to the blackboard after we finished our alphabets today.

"je veux te faire un bisous!" zoe asked.

yes, sure, go ahead.

"moi aussi, moi aussi." the-girl-who-never-shuts-up-or-sits-down-in-class jumped up and down.

then before i could pack my things up and leave, 6 kids were in line to hug and kiss me.

awww, how much i hate them when they're doing random things during class.

and how much i love them when they're just being themselves.

american pop culture

no, i'm not teaching them about the american culture.

i know nothing about it.

so i didn't tell my kids about halloween, not going to tell them about thanksgiving, either.

we don't do those things.

halloween, maybe on the commercial side and a good excuse to get chocolates for ourselves.

though we always tend to just eat out that night to avoid annoying little brats knocking on our door asking for sweets.

anyways, as i was going through the list of animals with my ce2's today.

we came across 'ladybug'.

- comment on dit 'coccinelle' en anglais?

- silence.

- okay, it's a ladybug.

- lehdii bar.

- no, lay-di-bu-g.

- oh, je sais, comme lady gaga! a girl was so excited when the word 'lady gaga' came up.

- presque, there's 'lady', but this is a bug, not gaga, okay, repeat after me. BUG.

i remember one time i was playing with the kids during break time.

someone asked me if i know who katy perry is and if we could do her songs in class.

then with my hateful cm2, they REQUESTED to do lady gaga and eminem songs in class.

i dunno if we're really going to do any songs not scripted in the textbook.

or maybe we shall do lily allen instead?

i can speak whale II.

- "how are you?"

- "i'm happy."

what?

- "do you say 'i'm happy' when you're asked this question in french?"

- "non."

- "voila, we don't use that particular expression in english either, well, most of the time, no."

i have got a couple of kids who are happy.

and 2 kids who are so-so.

3 kids who are "how are you".

to sum the greetings lesson up, i told my kids:

the ONLY answer to "how are you" is "i'm fine, thank you." nothing else.

well, maybe "and you" at the end to keep the conversation going.

if not we could easily be talking about the weather for at least 5 more minutes.

i'm thinking whether i shall introduce "how do you do" to them.

it might get really confusing for them and they'll answer me "i'm fine, thanks".

utter n'importe-quoi-ness.

i speak whale.

we're slowly moving onto doing alphabets.

the little ones barely know their alphabets in french by heart, now i'm throwing the english version on them.

rather ruthless.

whenever i asked them to recite their alphabets, they'll start by giving me "AH".

- non! AH, c'est en francais!

- HEY?

- non, EY. repetez apres moi. (repeat after me)

- EY.

- B, C, D, EUH.

- non, eee, comme "i" en francais. (like "i" in french)

- iiiiiii.

- f, GAR.

- non, comme "dji".

- d'accord, dji.

- HASH?

- non.

- HAAR?

- non.

- EYSH?

- non, ey-tch.

- oh~ ey-tch.

- eeee?

- non, c'est pas "e", c'est comme quelque chose qui nous fait mal. (it's like how we hurt ourselves by hitting something)

- oh! aaiii.

- voila. i.

- jiii?

- non, jey.

- KAR?

- kay.

- LAY?

- non, c'est pas lay, qui le connait? (who knows what's that?)

- LAR?

- non, c'est pareil comme en francais, ELLE. (it's the same as in french)

- argh~ elle.

- M N O P.

- tres bien.

- KOO?

- non, kyu.

- HEY.

- god, where did that come from? HEY? non, c'est ARRRRRR.

- S, T, U.

- tres bien.

- LAY.

- my friggin god, seriously, LAY again? non, VIIIII.

- WAH.

- double V. oh, no, c'est double U. ( i got myself confused, thanks.)

- KSAI.

- great greek knowledge, but no, eks, hun, eks.

- euh, chepas maitresse. (um, i don't know miss.)

- Y.

- Z.

- very good. now let's do it all over again, A~B~C.

we did the above 5 times.

then we sang the song.

i asked one girl to do it on her own.

she started by HAH.

and 5 other kids fell asleep during the alphabet song.

very rewarding class indeed.

tout ce qui me fait sourire

1. kids think that i'm super cool. they would run to greet me during break, and say hello to me. no matter what they were doing with other kids, whenever they spotted me, they just ran to me and 'hello' me.

2. when they say 'yes!' and get so excited, at the moment when the teacher announces that 'on va faire anglais un peu plus tard aujourd'hui'. it makes me feel that i actually am important.

3. during lunch break, i walked out the teachers' room heading to another building, a kid saw me and ran to me to say hello. i thought that was it, but no. she gave me a hug and then was on her toes, just to give me a bisous on the cheek...

awwww, i love my 7-y-o's.

4. while i was walking back home, the traffic got really busy in town. at the traffic light, there was someone waving to me in the car. it was one of my kids, i don't remember her name. but she gave me a big smile.

jardin du luxembourg II

animal instincts

in my morning class with "les grands" (they call them the big ones, but actually they're only 10 or 11 years old...), we did animals.

we quickly went through the list of 10 animals.

and we played a game.

i asked one kid to come up, told him the name of an animal, he had to imitate for the class and then they would guess what this animal was.

first up, the girl just moved her arms a tiny bit.

then everyone was yelling out their own versions of the answer.

- butterfly.

- no.

- fish?

- no, fish don't have wings.

- penguin?

- no, penguins don't fly.

- euh, on sais pas, maîtresse (we don't know, miss).

- c'est quelque chose qui vole. (it's something that flies - and i finally failed half of my mission of being an english teacher cos i just speak french with them most of the time.)

- je sais, je sais, un oiseau!

- yes, but in english, that is?

- the bird!

- yes, and you say a bird, not the bird.

we then guessed tiger, lion, elephant, fox, monkey.

they all went well.

the story gets better when we got to snake.

when i pointed at the picture of a snake, he just lay down on his chest immediately and started moving like a snake...

well done! the cleaner lady loves you, kid!

and this is not all, it gets even better when we did dog.

a girl volunteered to come up.

as i was wondering how she would do it, she was already on her knees, hands on the floor too.

and all of the sudden, she raised her right leg, and did what you'll only see dogs do to a lamp post.

it was such a hilarious moment, the class just went out of control.

then 2 kids volunteered to do a cat and a dog, before i knew it, they started chasing each other on knees and hands, under the desks across classroom.

the class went officially crazy after that, they started doing all sorts of weird things that you'll probably only see on national geographic channel or at the zoo...

i think that they're still going through the period of not realising themselves as humans but as little animals.

i like that.

gender confusion

this is the first time i had this class.

i only sat in and observed before, their teacher is away today, so i was there to fill in for her.

we did revision on what they've done previously.

while we were covering the boy/girl topic, it created much gender confusion.

you'd wonder how and why...

- i am a girl, are you a boy or a girl?

silence.

- okay, let's try again. this is tim, he is a boy. (pointing at a muppet... and asked the same question again, directing at alex)

- my name is alex, i am a boy.

- very good, now this is kate, is she a boy or a girl?

- (alex pointed at kate) she is a girl.

- very very good.

- (kate pointing at peter) she is a boy.

- no, she's not a boy. (all the kids laughed)

- (oups) she his a boy?

- no, she is not a boy. he eez a boy.

- he eez a boy.

- very good.

- (peter pointing at lily) she is a girl.

- (lily poiting at tom) she is a boy.

- no, she's not a boy.

- she his a girl?

- no, she eez not a girl, tom eez not a girl.

she stared at me really confused.

- okay, try again, slowly, repeat after me, HE EEZ a boy.

- E HIS a boy.

- no, HE EEZ a boy.

- HE HEEZ a boy.

- no, he is a boy.

- ee his a boy.

oh boy.

the story about noodles

the story begins like this:

- okay, kids, how do we greet each other in the afternoon, in english? (in french)

- bonjour?

- yes, you're right, but that's in french?

- hello?

- correct, but in another way? (in french)

- salut?

- that's french? (in french)

- i know i know i know! (in french) a kid was so enthusiastic.

- okay, you!

- euh, what's your name?!

- (faint) c'est a dire comment tu t'appelles, donc, non.

silence...

okay, it's good afternoon, repeat after me.

sounds good when they did it together.

then i checked on each one of them for their pronunciations.

- goood ar-tar-nouille.

- non, c'est good, arf-tar-noooon. c'est pas nouille, nouille, c'est pour manger, mais noon, c'est midi, d'accord?

other kids laughed and mocked him, nouille.

- good afternoon, tom.

- gooo-a-far-nouille, tom.

- no, i just said nouille means noodles, now, slowly, again, good af-tar-noooonnnnn. and you don't say tom to me, i'm not tom. (in french)

- gooo-a-noooouille. (slightly shocked and more confused)

- no, noooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnnn. i did a really long nasalised N and pointed at my nose.

- nooon.

- okay, tres bien, again, good afternoon.

- good afternoon.

phew~

after having checked on all the kids, we did it once again altogether, good afternoon.

seemed they finally got it.

then i taught them something else and went back to ask how to say bonjour during the afternoon.

nobody could answer me, and it was like, what, 2 minutes ago!

- okay, it's good afternoon, repeat after me.

- gut afternouille.

good lord!

le genou, c'est pas un animal.

during my french class with my ce1's, they were doing story book reading.

it was about pat, the elephant and there was some other beast named max, if i remember correctly.

then there was this word, gnou, which, luckily during lunch break yesterday, i encountered in an encyclopedia of animals at my school library.

don't get me started about why i was reading an encyclopedia of animals (with illustrates, bien sur).

anyways, kids took turns to read for everyone in the class, it was the naughty boy who always gets himself in trouble who stopped reading at this very word.

gn... gn... genou.

"c'est gnou, sylver, le genou, c'est pas un animal¹."

catherine, the teacher kept a poker face while telling him off.

i know it's mean to laugh out loud, but it was such a hilarious comment she gave without even being funny.

i just couldn't help myself.

gosh, that totally made my day.

1. it's gnou, sylver, le genou (meaning: knee), that's not an animal. (click on words to hear the pronunciation)

ca va venir...(j'espere)

i've been in france for more than a month now.

but my french hasn't improved very much, big sigh.

while i have this feeling that my english is deteriorating at the same rate too.

nothing is going anywhere... alas.

i still talk quite slow like a retardo, simply cos i need to conjugate verbs in my head and i think too much about being grammatically correct.

though i now could understand people better.

one thing that's shocking to me is that, i've picked up their "oh-la-la"s and am constantly using it to express my surprises/astonishment etc.

and instead of yes, i'm constantly saying ouais to the english speaking people too.

plz, let the day of me speaking fluent french come sooner!

plzzzzzzzzzz.

the little things that put a smile on my face

1. when i walk along with my class up to the classroom through the crowd of other kids, they all smiled at me and said bonjour and waved, and eagerly asked if they'll do anglais today.

2. kids telling on other kids for not behaving well so that i will put a cross next to their names on the board.

the rule is: 3 crosses, they're punished, no more classes. stand in the hallway till the class finishes. they make such a big fuss about this, i usually do this to threaten them to shut up. but i always find it amusing when someone tells me, "maîtresse, il y a __, il a fait __. comme ca." (literally, teacher, xxx has done abc. and this abc can be anything, e.g. eating gluestick or just hitting his own forehead using his own pencil case, minutiae like that. then they acted it out. really funny to watch.)

3. kids asking, whether they should use a pencil or a pen to write their names down on the piece of paper that were given. i was distributing them blank paper to make name tags - leading to a class of self-introduction, naturally. only that it failed. they answer "what's your name?" with "what's your name?" but yeah, thanks for asking, i don't give a toss, use whatever you have to write your name, may it be a crayon or a highlighter. the result was fantastic, they made really pretty little pictures with flowers and the sun and all sorts of stuff around their names. then you really can't read their names anymore. it was just too busy.

4. on the way to their music class, a 6-y-o came up to me and told me that he's in love. "oh, that's nice." i told him. he told me the girl's in ce1 (one year above him, but in the class right next door). then during the music class, he sat next to her and talked so much with her. after class, i went to ask if that's the girl he was talking about, he went all shy about it. so cute.

5. a 5-yea- old fell asleep right in front of me during class.

spiral

taken while climbing up to reach the top of arc de triomphe.

oh how i love these narrow and cold staircases.

the readers

on an autumn afternoon @ jardin du luxembourg

it was the most romantic scene i've seen, ever.