Wednesdays: Club Franco-Américain

"Hi! My name is Gitzel, and I come from Arizona. I will be teaching you English. Now, for today's lesson..."

(Photo: handout of useful phrases given to my beginner class)

I am on my own. I am an instructor. I am teaching English to people three times my age.

Yes, of course I am nerveuse to teach.

My travail or job every Wednesday evening is to teach English at the Club Franco-Américain de Lambersart near Lille. I get picked up by the secretary of the club, Marie-Thérèse, in front of the gates of La Catho to start the one and a half hour sessions. Mes élèves are French who want to improve their English language skills, and the majority of them are retired.

How did I end up teaching English in France? Well, I received an email from Madame Bray, my international coordinator at La Catho, and scheduled an interview with the president of the club. There were three interviewees: a Canadian, another American and I.

I got selected for the job as an animatrice or instructor based on my interview and journalism CV. Before I knew it (the first week of classes actually), I was engaging in conversations with the club members to test their English compétences.

By the following Wednesday, I was introducing myself in front of the beginners and intermediate classes and giving them vacation-themed worksheets I put together to start le travail. Everyone talked about their favorite vacances around the world using the vocabulary in the worksheets. I encouraged them to ask their classmates questions about their trips to engage in more conversation exercises.

Today, I dictated a text to my students while they filled in the blanks in the worksheet. I prepared this lesson specifically for oral comprehension (to see how well they understand English orally). At the end, I had two students volunteer in a greeting using a skit I created.

While this job requires a lot of researching to prepare lesson plans and material, I am enjoying it to the fullest. Not only are mes élèves motivated and animated to learn and talk in class, I am learning from them as well. There are times that I do not know the English/French translation of a word (like today épeler=to spell), and they help me with my French.

I am very contente for having this great opportunity in which both the students and teacher are learning from each other--the language, the background, the culture, the countries. I could not have asked for a better start to my foreign exchange experience in Lille than this petit travail.

Now, I can not wait to prepare for next week's classes! A lot of creative ideas are crossing my mind even as I am typing this... perhaps, singing in class, showing them movie clips, the teaching world is vast!

(Photos taken by: Diana Platek)