I am actually really enjoying teaching and I find myself enjoying it more and more. If there's one thing France has taught me, it's that I like being busy, and having an important role in each class is brilliant and very rewarding. Even taking a class through something as simple as a work sheet is actually loads of fun-- although I'm not sure I found it quite so fun when I was at school.
The best thing about grammar exercises in English is that every time a student says English grammar is difficult, I can candidly point out that for regular (i.e the overwhelming majority of) English verbs, conjugation of the simple present requires only the addition of an 's' (or 'es' where the verb ends with a vowel) to the third person singular form (I/you/we/they play; he/she/it plays); that in the simple past, for example, the conjugation doesn't change at all; whereas in French you have three types of verb: verbs ending in '-er', '-ir' and '-re' and that these three types are each conjugated differently, with a different ending for five of the six pronouns. Yes, six. There are two 'you's in French: singular/informal and plural/formal. Phew. Oh and, did I mention irregular verbs? There are many. It would appear that rules are there to be broken in French. Lets compare 'to go' and 'aller'...
To go Aller
I go Je vais
You go Tu vas (singular/informal)
She/he/it goes Elle/il va
We go Nous allons
You go Vous allez (plural/formal)
They go Elles/ils vont
Point made, I feel.
Failing this argument, there's also the gendered nouns approach. (This is possibly my favourite). Take, for example, a chair. In English it is just a chair. In French, however it is 'une chaise', as opposed to 'un chaise', making it a feminine rather than a masculine noun. Since these categories exist, 'it' does not exist in French; so if you want to refer back to the chair, you would refer to it as 'elle' ('she'). All masculine nouns are referred to as 'il' ('he'). Of course, to the anglophone brain, chairs are not women, so this is a most bizarre concept. Unfortunately, it doesn't end there though. The gender-- and quantity-- of whatever it is you're talking about affects any adjectives you put with it. Generally speaking (very generally, in fact), for feminine nouns, you add an 'e' to the end of the adjective; for masculine nouns, nothing; for feminine plural, add 'es' and for masculine plural, add 's'. For example:
La chaise est jolie. The chair is pretty. (She is female after all).
I avoid using beautiful here, because unfortunately this would require an irregular adjective... 'belle' (for feminine nouns) and 'beau' for masculine nouns-- except for when the masculine noun starts with a vowel or a silent 'h', in which case it's 'bel'. A more normal adjective to find with a chair, such as 'expensive', would involve using 'chère', as opposed to 'cher'-- notice the sneaky accent on the feminine form as well as the '-e'. GAH!
English adjectives, of course, are not gender discriminate and really are quite simple-- their placement in the sentence doesn't change either (hurrah!). I haven't even gone into participle agreement in compound tenses by the way. (Don't worry, I'm sparing you).
Whichever approach I choose, we always arrive at the goal:
Me: So which language is easier?
Class: English!
Me: Exactement!
...Well, when it comes to conjugation, anyway. With pronunciation, on the other hand, I really have to apologise on behalf of the anglophone world and say that I really cannot explain why the 'o' in 'woman' is pronounced 'ʊ' ('uh'), whereas in 'women' it is pronounced 'ɪ' ('ih')... ad infintum.
On a more sincere note, it really does make my day when I achieve something with a class. Last week in a few classes I was going over pronunciation-- namely 'th', which has two possible sounds: 'ð' as in 'with' and 'θ' as in 'thing'. This is famously difficult for people of many nations, but the French difficulties with it are the most endearing. (Imagine a year 7 class with their French accents-- nothing short of heart-melting). In one of my 4ème classes (14-15 year olds) we were going over an adaptation of a scene in West Side Story that they had written and I took half the class for about 20 minutes each to go over pronunciation. There were many laughs and many elaborate explanations and demonstrations as to how the two 'th' sounds are created as well as many other sounds. One of the best things to do is to isolate the sound that they have trouble with, like the 'əː' ('uhr') in 'earth' and just repeat the sound over and over-- being sure to make a muppet of yourself doing it first-- and then tell everyone to join in with this strange, monotonous chant. For comic effect later, you could perhaps add an inquisitive tone to the sound, followed by a mildly offended twist and so on, until everyone thinks you're thoroughly insane-- not that I know this first hand of course.
Naturally, some picked it up faster than others, and I wasn't sure how much they'd actually taken in, but at the end we went through the script as a whole class. I listened with slightly bated breath as the verdict on my teaching was quite literally spoken... Whilst some of the words were still a little French sounding, I noticed that lots of the words we had worked on-- especially the 'th' sounds!!-- had really come along. Even some of the students whose progression I wasn't so sure about had made considerable improvement. Although it only seems a small thing, it was incredible how much more English they sounded as they read. I texted a couple of assistant friends after the class because I was so happy about it all, saying I felt like a proud mother-- perhaps a little over the top, but I was very proud of them and so happy that a few minutes' work had made such a difference. That's what teaching is all about, I think.
I know I usually leave you with a little bêtise (bit of stupidity) of mine, but in fact I can't think of one right now, so perhaps next time there'll be a double bill! Until then: bonne journée!
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