Allons-y!!

Tomorrow is the big day and I leave for France! I feel like since I decided to put my house on the market last March, I have been in a constant state of packing or unpacking and this experience will be no different! I am only taking one bag with me this time and leaving my other 5 bags in England! Funny that I spent all summer shopping for dress clothes and now I am pretty much only taking non-dress clothes to France. As I will be teaching English 15 hours per week, I have put together a VERY small collection of resources to bring with me as I plan to use my head, stuff in their house, and the good 'ole internet.

Four Cans of Baked Beans- a little heavy...

The family I am to live with is opening a bed and breakfast. I figure that since it is just across the English Channel from England, it might attract some English tourists...what do English tourists want when they go abroad (I just spent a week with them in Val d'Isère and saw that this was a choice for every breakfast)?? Baked beans for breakfast. So, this will be my first welcome gift- four cans of baked beans!

My one purchased resource....

In terms of planning for the family's lessons, I haven't really been able to do much quite yet. I feel like I must assess their current levels before I dive right in. And, my mom reminded me today that I used to work at a hotel (obviously, it had a huge impact on me since I didn't even remember until she said it!) and so I am hoping to have some good ideas about important English phrases and information to know for their bed and breakfast.

My French reading level is just lower than that of about a 12-year-old!

This book "Panther" by Carl Hiaasen was purchased at a bookstore in Val. He does write for adults, but this is not one of them. It has relatively simple vocabulary and as Mike said, pretty much lacks long passages of description and just focuses on action. Perfect for someone with a limited vocabulary! Maybe one of the kids will want to read it too? The mom of the family did say that the 12-year-old is a big reader! Maybe we can be in a book club of two!

Like I would go into any teaching situation without a set of Mr. Sketch markers!

The one idea I do have already is to label everything in the house with French/English labels, if the family will let me, that is. I think that while I am there, it would be really helpful for everyone if we got to see those labels every day!

Ah, Harry Potter. Fun to read in any language.

Maybe this could be another choice for our two person book club! I have learned (through inferring, I must say) that the word for owls in French is "les hiboux" which I did not know before reading this...it had never really come up in any of my French studies before. Weird.

French Screwball Ski Comedy from the 1970s

My English French teacher, Mike, got this for me for Christmas. It was filmed in Val d'Isère in the late 1970s (maybe my parents will be in the background from their trip) and it is just silly. Who doesn't love silly 70s ski movies? I'm taking it with me, because, why not?!?

So, I will post again when I get to France and get settled. I have a long journey tomorrow which I will repeat in two weeks time when I come back to Chesham/London for the international school job fair. Mama needs a job....I've spent the last week revising my resume and rewriting an old CBMS unit plan to reflect the principles of IB (that's International Baccalaureate for those out of the educational world) in hopes of selling myself to the prospective schools! Pretty much every single school coming to the fair uses an IB curriculum and so I have to prove that even though I've not taught an IB school before, I know what's up.

Au revoir, mes amis! À bientôt!