There are very few things I miss from living in England.
Of course family and friends are greatly missed, but I miss my job more than I thought I would. Having trained as a Nursery Nurse after leaving school, I spent the last four years in England working at our local Primary school as a Teaching Assistant. The last three of which were spent in the Foundation stage (ages 3-5).
This is a job I loved.
While there I toyed with the idea of fulfilling my ambition to become a teacher. The forms were sent for and terms agreed with the Head teacher. Just at the point of sending them back, Richard was offered his present job and with it our chance to move to France. My teaching plans were put on the back burner again. Instead I took my HLTA ( Higher Level Teaching Assistant) qualification which only took three months as opposed to three years of teacher training.
A year ago, having lived in France for about six months, I had been chatting with Nathalie, Joe’s teacher at that time, when she asked me to go in and read a story to her class in English. This has since developed into weekly visits and the planning of lessons and sourcing resources. Another chat with a parent of one of Molly’s friends has lead to another regular visit into a school to help with English.
After a year of this, I felt it was time to take it further, perhaps make it more official. The school in Foussais-Payré approached me about three months ago to see if I would like to sit for “l’Habilitation en Langue Vivante”, an official qualification that recognises the candidate’s ability to teach a foreign language in primary schools. This comprises of an interview and a class observation. It is hoped that anyone who wishes to teach English in any primary school in France will have passed this.
In March I went along with Nathalie to the meeting where we would find out what exactly would be involved. Nathalie isn’t ready to take the habilitation yet, but came along anyway. Moral support was definitely needed by me!
Expecting to find a room full of English and a few French I was shocked to find just one other person – a French teacher who, like Nathalie, wasn’t ready to take it, but just wanted to see what standard of English she would need to reach. So that left me!
On 20th May I went for my interview with much trepidation. The English side of the interview, of course, held few concerns. I had to be able to understand a short conversation after listening to it twice, and to be able to give a précis of the information given. The second part was to read a short story, with understanding and good accent! No problems. The third part was to know about the country and some of its history and cultures. All good so far.
Then came the fourth, and for me, the most worrying part. I had to be able to talk about the teaching of English and the curriculum, in French! I know my French has improved but I am still at the point where, if someone talks to me too fast or with a different accent, I tend to freeze and my eyes glaze over. I had a real fear that I would fail this part. I had been told it was important to have a good understanding of French or I could not pass.
Half an hour later it was all over, nerves still intact. Luckily Franck Graveleau and Françoise Aujard had been kind and allowed some chat in English amongst the French. I could not believe I had actually been to an interview in French!
A week later I received the excellent news I had passed this part and gained my Habilitation Provisoire. The next part will be my class observation which will take place during the next school year.
I’ll keep you posted!!
Lisa
We were recently invited for dinner with the family of one of Molly’s school friends. They are a lovely family and we are really thrilled that Molly and Jeanne are friends. Jeanne’s mother had suggested that the two girls go to their house and spend the afternoon preparing a meal for the two families, which was a very sweet idea.
So Molly and Jeanne spent the day slaving in the kitchen (with a bit of playing thrown in as well I imagine 
) and the rest of us turned up in the evening. It was a wonderful evening – the girls had prepared a starter of goats cheese on toasted baguette, followed by baked fish with rice, all topped off with some delicious apple tarts.
Jeanne’s dad makes his own wine from the grapes at one of the Vendee vinyards, so the vins de la maison were flowing freely all night. Lisa kindly offered to drive home as it would have been way too rude for me to refuse the top-ups to my glass 
All-in-all the meal was beautiful and the company thoroughly enjoyable. Jeanne’s family speak no english at all, so this was a night of us speaking 100% french all night. Quite a big challenge for us, but we rose to the occasion and the conversation never dried up.
I think we are all starting to realise just how far we have come over the last year in terms of the language. This time last year we could never have even considered having a dinner party with only french being spoken but now we are quite happy in that situation, and the kids even more so. They are all doing so well now that I think they have well and truly overtaken Lisa and I in their ability to communicate.
This is great news to us, as giving the kids a second language was one of the big reasons for coming here and we can already see how glad they are to have it. Now, if only they could start giving us lessons so we can keep up with them, that would be even better!
A few snippets of news for you today…
Lost languages
Today the BBC are featuring a story [here] which reveals that half of all UK adults have forgotten the languages they learned at school. Luckily for me this wasn’t the case as my schoolboy French had to get me through many tricky situations when we first arrived!
What is hopeful for our kids is the following:
more than two thirds (69%) said they were jealous of people who were able to speak another language fluently.
Of those who can speak another language, 61% said it had been of benefit to their career, with a third (34%) saying their language skills have given them opportunities to travel and work abroad.
This bodes well for the future of our 3, who will leave school being fluent in at least 2 languages, possibly even 3.
Happy Birthday Craig
Craig McGinty runs the superb ThisFrenchLife web site [here], which is on my daily read list. It’s a great read, always full of interesting articles and news about all things French.
Well today is Craig’s birthday (age not revealed!) so what better time to head on over to www.thisfrenchlife.com and wish Craig a joyeaux anniversaire!
Front-page news toady includes Nicolas Sarkozy and his extra leg (!), news about banned Chinese milk products in France and a pointer to some free travel guides.
A busy weekend coming up
I will fill you in on the details next week, but this wil be another busy weekend!
On Saturday we are heading next-door to the apple-pressing barn where we will hopefully see the whole process from picking to pressing to bottling. With a bit of luck we will walk away with a nice collection of freshly-squeezed apple juice, which should keep us going for a while.
Then on Sunday we will be testing our French again as we meet up with some families who have links with Lisa’s nephew through school exchanges. So a trip to Montaigu near Nantes, then over to the beach to La Tranche-sur-Mer.
On the road again
(Photo under CC Attribution 2.0 Generic by krejcirkmira)
Due to some changes at work, I’ll be hitting the road to England quite a bit this month. This is a real pain and not something I really wanted to happen, but the situation is rather unavoidable at the moment.
Hopefully it will only be a very temporary measure and I can return to my rural hideaway very soon
In the meantime, if you’re anywhere near La Rochelle, Stansted or Maidenhead, feel free to get in touch and we can have a coffee.
And finally…
Next Friday I will be the ripe old age of 37. I’m looking forward to a majorly-fun-time-friday, and an especially fun weekend with great friends.
Anyway, that’s what’s going on with us. Keep a look out for updates. Or why not subscribe to my email newsletter [by clicking here]? Every time I add something new to La Vie en Foussais you will receive it in your inbox - what could be easier?
