Teaching in France: Settling in as an intern at Lycee des Feuillants

Noted on March 10, 2009 by Natanya in Teaching/Education,Europe,

Introduction This is the first of my blogs about my internship, so I figured I should introduce myself. My name is Shane Sanders, I am a senior at Oregon State University-Cascades campus in Bend and I’m doing my senior year abroad in France. I was in Lyon for the first semester doing study abroad and now I am in Poitiers doing a teaching internship through the IE3 internship program. I arrived in Poitiers four weeks ago and I was able to do two weeks of my internship before there was a two week school vacation. I cannot wait to start back to work next week, since my first two weeks went extremely well.

The Place Poitiers, France is about two hours south west of Paris in the region of Poitou-Charentes. The town is over two thousand years old and has one of the oldest universities in France. It’s nickname is the “town of one hundred bells” which can all be heard as they ring in every new hour. So far I have found it a charming little town with a nice atmosphere and very nice people. I am lucky enough to live in the middle of town, so I can walk downtown very easily

The Internship My internship is at a private high school, the Lycée des Feuillants, where I am the English language assistant. The school has about 900 students, from sophomores to seniors (high school is only 3 years in France) 300 of which live at the school during the week and are called “des Internes.” They also provide a program for college level students to do a two year degree in tourism. During the week I assist with 23 hours of English classes. Each hour is done with a different class of students and with one of the six English teachers. Usually I help the teacher lead discussions with the entire class or I take half the class and lead them in conversation time without the teacher. In my first two weeks I was able to get to know the students and the staff, who have all been extremely welcoming. The English teachers have all be very helpful and nice to me as I begin my adventures into the teaching field. This internship is my first professional experience in the classroom aside from some volunteering I did in the past. So far it is going very well, though at times I have found it a little difficult to get the students to talk during class… I know that sounds weird to say about a bunch of teenagers, but when they have to talk in English, it is surprising how quickly they become silent. My challenge has become thinking of ways to get them to say something in English!

Lodging My internship includes food (during the school week) and lodging in a really cute apartment next to the school. I live with a Spanish intern who does the same thing I do at the high school, but for the Spanish classes. We get along really well and it is really nice not to come home to an empty apartment! She arrived in December, so she was able to help me and give me pointers on living in Poitiers and about working at the school. Our apartment was completely empty when I moved in, but little by little we’re getting the things we need (like a dining room table) and getting it decorated a little bit. We have a T.V. that picks up two channels (if we’re lucky), a water heater that only heats enough water to have about 40 seconds of hot water in the shower at a time, but a really good heating system in general, a nice little kitchen to cook in, and a fairly big living space. There isn’t any internet up here, but we have access to the school computers, even in the evenings since we have the keys to the school, so it isn’t too bad. It’s been a great France adventure getting everything all set up, but a ton of fun.

Integration A really important part of doing an internship anywhere is integrating into the local community as much as possible. The more local friends you have the better. The idea is not to spend all your time with other Americans (you can do that back in the US), but with people from that culture. I was lucky enough to get introduced, through one of the English teachers at the school, to some French girls my age that are really nice. I also got invited to play basketball once a week with a group of French women who play for fun. The group has been great to be a part of. They all volunteer for the professional Poitiers basketball team, so I started doing that on the weekends as well and have met a huge group of people (including the professional basketball players) through volunteering. So, after a month of living here I have integrated myself fairly well into the Poitiers community.

This Blog I will be updating this blog about once a week, but if you’re interested in following a little more closely my adventures in Poitiers, feel free to follow the blog I write on Blogger.com, which I update on an almost daily basis: http://maneflame.blogspot.com/