Initial thoughts teaching in Paris

My practicum placement is at the Jeannine Manuel Ecole in Paris, France. It has been great so far and although I was nervous the first day, all the teachers and students were incredibly friendly and welcoming that all my worries went away. The school itself is amazing in that there are different locations of the school for different grades. I go to my placement Tuesday, Thursday, and all day Friday so I see them frequently for five weeks. For the first two weeks, I am with the youngest grades (kindergarten, first grade, and second grade). I was pleasantly surprised when they remembered my name after the first day. 

The school is interesting in that they placed me in not only different schools throughout my practicum, but also in many different classes. Therefore, I am with different students and teachers throughout my placement. There are some pros and cons for each in my opinion. A pro is that I get to observe different teachers and see how they manage classroom behavior and see different ways of teaching the same subject. A con may be that I do not really get to form relationships with the students because I don't see them as often as I would if I was consistently with them throughout my time there. Furthermore, I am not only in their English speaking classes but in their French and Chinese classes. The students are grouped by age and also split into classrooms throughout the day where they learn a subject in their their first language (either english or french) or English as a Foreign Language. All the teachers there speak french as well as english and teach classes where they are from. For example, teachers who teach Chinese classes have live in China and chinese is their first language. 

There are about 20 students in each class. Surprisingly, there are some students who can speak to me in english. Since the students are all young and just beginning to learn all these different languages, during their classes, they will speak in their first language to one another and sometimes me or the teacher. It was difficult when I was with the first graders during French class because they would speak to me in French. I have only started studying French while I started school back in September so I was also nervous about that before coming to the school. However, I was able to help them and talk to them briefly about what they needed to do and if they needed help. It definitely gave me more confidence in speaking French with them and to continue to study hard to learn more French.

Everyone at the school has been very accommodating and you can tell how passionate and hard working the teachers are for their students. Some teachers don't have desks so they are always actively going around the classroom helping their students. Because they know students cannot sit still for a long period of time, they have different groups around the classroom that the students can go to after their finish their activity. This reminded me of my first practicum placement at Countryside Elementary School.