The day of seconds

Today was my second day of teaching and coincidentally, my second football (soccer) game.

I taught the weather (it's raining, it's sunny, it's cloudy, it's windy, it's snowing) and all of the days of the week. I really am enjoying teaching small children. I had a long day of teaching 5 classes today but didn't feel as exhausted today as I did on Tuesday. I felt much more comfortable and much less nervous. One of the teachers was really complimentary and said that I seem to have a really good report with the kids and can really keep them engaged and learning throughout the whole lesson. That put me on cloud 9 for the rest of the day. They all have thanked me for the work I have done and the principal wanted to make sure that I was having a good time too. I am having such a good time and even though it is challenging to teach in only English, I have given myself permission to use a few French words from time to time just to help the kids a little. Once again, I made a boy cry because he didn't understand me but this time I wouldn't let him put his head on his desk and sulk. I really kept him engaged. It's always a little scary to see that deer-in-a-headlights look on the kid's faces when they have NO idea what I just asked them to do but eventually, most of them understand what I am saying.

One of the funniest things about today, when teaching the days of the week, was when I had the kids fill in the letters for each day on a week grid (like I took a week from the calendar and drew it on the board). I started with Monday -Sunday since that is how they do it in Europe and I didn't want to try and really confuse the 2nd-4th graders. Anyway, while doing that exercise, one of the teachers said "I actually wonder if these kids can do this in French" since they had a hard time knowing what day it was today in French and finding it on the week grid. That really made me laugh. Those poor kids are getting tested all over the place. Not only do they not know it in English, they may not even know it in French.

Other than doing the same lesson 5 times, I really enjoy what I am doing and seeing the kids start to understand what I am desperately and with more hand gestures than you can imagine trying to teach them.

Tonight was another home game for the Montpellier football team so Dawn and I went to check it out. This time we actually had to pay but if you get general admission, it's only around $8. We played against Vannes (which is the SUPER west coast of France) and we WON again. 3-1!!! Yes, there were fans there cheering the whole time. I think that there is really one section you can buy seats for where you can cheer/chant with the group for the entire game. Otherwise, we are pretty quiet in the general admission section except for the occasional swearing and cheering as we either miss or score a goal.

Oh, it should be known that they do sell Coke and Beer somewhere in the stadium because we saw quite a few people with those drinks but we were, once again, unsuccessful in finding said vendors. Soon we shall locate these mysterious vendors and their hidden drinks!

British word lesson of the day: Scottish tablet = butter tablet. It's like fudge only instead of chocolate, it's made with butter. I call it "sugar coma" for short. :) In a sentence: Dawn gave me a Scottish tablet before the football game and I was hyper for hours.