Beetle Mania - Lundi, 13.11.06

Lundi 13.11.06 Beetle Mania

I’m looking forward to today’s lessons. It could have something to do with the fact that I reckon I’ll have it easy with the younger kids this week as I’m taking them for Irish dancing.

I’m continuing with numbers, and recapping on names, with the older students this week. Today will be mostly writing exercises…well, copying things from the board. It shouldn’t be too hard for them but they make it that way by a) not having the materials I asked them to bring and b) by dawdling, yapping and generally being slow. Even the bright ones seem stuck. Why is it that if I write a question in blue chalk and the response in green they have to ask me millions of times if they must copy it in the same colour? I know they’re only kids but they’ll be going into collège next year. Mr. Duval and Madame Caruge rightly remind them of this as they bark at their sluggishness.

As per usual it’s CM2 D and CM2 C up first. We continue counting in English. I explain how numbers 13-19 end with teen and that when they reach their 13th birthday they will be teenagers. They seem to grasp the new words easily with most of them later asking me obscure numbers for their sentences.

They fill four pages of their copies; two with dialogues using their cut-outs and vocab relating to their name and age, and the other two pages contain questions and answers specific to their age and useful phrases using the conjunction I’m with symbols to illustrate the emotions ☻, nationalities and so on.

Most of the children have images. Those that don’t have to sketch and some kids take liberty of the English-turned-Art class by drawing throughout the lesson. I don’t have time to go around drawing stick images for them all and they aren’t babies so I let them feel the brunt of their lethargy later on when I tell them we don’t have time for BINGO as they we too slow. Plus some of them clearly were not concentrating as I spotted novembre, âge and half-completed words such as wat instead of what in a few copybooks. Madame Caruge’s class ended with at least half the pupils being finished but Mr. Duval only has one student who can do the sentence sprint. His CM2 C class are just in from P.E; they should be rejuvenated not worn out.

I explain to the kids that it is necessary to do these exercises and I empathise that it seems tedious and boring but I reassure them that the next class with be more vibrant and lively.

During la pause I find out that Madame Thaly is not in. The kids are obviously concerned as it is they who tell me. I ask Odile, the secretary, to assemble the class as they are dispersed in different CE2 classrooms.

Madame la Directrice calls me over in her office-cum-staffroom and asks if I speak German. I ramble off a few phrases but otherwise I admit I don’t. With our foreign visitors coming next week she’s keen to get the children to learn off some phrases to greet our guests. I notice she leaves out Gaelic but Finnish, Polish and German are in there. Hello. Welcome. Have a nice day. These are the three key phrases she wants. Or, as she said to me: Bonjour. Bienvenue. Bonne Journée. I’ve already made a list for myself but I think she’s asking a lot of the children to learn these, otherwise useless, foreign phrases when most of them struggle with English. Anyway before I know it she’s asking me to impart my internet intelligence. “Peut-être,” I add in a non-committal manner after the bell rings for the end of break. She must be potty if she thinks the children can learn them off just like that.


Hello

Finnish Hyvää päivää
French Bonjour
Gaelic (Irish) Dia duit - Dia is Muire duit.
German Guten Tag
Polish Cześć/Dzién dobry.



Welcome

Finnish Tervetuloa
French Bienvenue
Gaelic (Irish) Fáilte/Tá fáilte romhat/Cead míle fáilte
German Willkommen
Polish Witamy



Have a nice day!

Finnish Hyvää päivänjatkoa
French Bonne journée!
Gaelic (Irish) Go n-eirí an t-ádh leat.
German Schönen Tag noch!
Polish Miłego dnia!





I’m no linguist. It would be alright for me to make an arse of myself but I couldn’t teach the kids the wrong pronunciation. I guess Jarno, Ferdi and Asta may be getting a call over the weekend!

Madame Dau may well have reason to go potty; one of the kids knocks over a flowerpot during our dance lesson. There was a lot of jostling and he got pushed. He’s a good guy and it was sad to see him cry when she scolded him telling him that he will have to explain all to his mother and buy a new pot. I know it’s not my fault either but I was going to buy a pot to grow shamrock in so if I see a suitable one I may get it. I probably could have saved the pot from smashing but something made me recoil when I went to outstretch my arm. The kids were seated and subdued for the rest of the class and I left them to cool off with Madame Acina and the trainee teacher Aaron.

I pushed back the desks in Madame Thaly’s classroom and set up my body parts on the blackboard for Head, shoulders, knees and toes but twenty minutes later Odile and the kids still weren’t to be seen so I packed up, popped into the office to drop back the CD player and I bid the bodies bon appetite. I’m soon sitting in the coolness of CyberDeliss with David watching a dude tussle with a civil guard on the road in front of the bus, in the middle of Fort-de-France. There are blows a-plenty and when we walk by ten minutes later the guy is detained by the orange mounties on their bikes. He draws quite a crowd.

The hunger has me hanging so we settle for La Crosière for lunch. David is only just up as he doesn’t work Monday’s – or Tuesday for that matter, and he just has a coke. I tuck into a crispy chicken spring roll and steak au poivre with chips; another mighty €10 meal overlooking the hustle and bustle of Fort-de-France.

Quelle chaleur! The heat is a killer. I wanted to browse a bit but it has me beat, plus my feed has me content and ready just to stretch out. David has his travels to plan and so we go our separate ways.

There’s post for me at MontJean. Two lovely letters, a belated birthday card, a disturbing passport picture, silky long-legged pyjama bottoms and knee-length white socks await me. And who’s the one trying on the socks and pants in this heat?!

There may be a heat wave but I have a brain wave and recall that it was Beverly Knight who supported TakeThat in the Point at the start of the summer… It was a bit of trivia that I had on my mind over the past fortnight! Never mind. Now I’ve got lesions to deal with…hee-hee!

Thankfully I don’t have any mosquitoes to put up with. I’ve given up the bananas but I nearly have myself convinced that Nicola’s smoking attracted them instead of annihilating them.

The kamikaze beetles have The Beetles to contend with tonight - A Hard Day’s Night is on the TV. The Beetles always remind me of my Aunt Laura. She was the only real Beetles fan I knew. Ringo was her favourite, and I remember she had a picture of him on the sill of the back bedroom window in Granny’s house. The French voice-overs really take away from the film but its entertainment nonetheless – better than my flute tooting any day.