"How I Spent My Summer Vacation" by Erin Gibbons, Part 1: Mlle G. Goes to France!!!

After my first full year of flipped classroom and a wonderful summer of professional development, I feel it's time to transition this blog to dealing with a greater variety of topics. So, to start, I'd like to share a bit about what's changed between Year 1 and Year 2 of the flip.

Back in February of this year, I learned about the stages pédagogiques offered by the French Embassy and decided to go for it, and I was one of 5 U.S. K-12 teachers awarded a scholarship through the AATF! This was an all-expenses-paid-except-for-airfare program to one of 3 language teaching centers, and I chose the CAVILAM in Vichy, mainly because it had the reputation of being the most "techy".

What the other American teachers and I were in for was a 2-week intensive program in the teaching of French as a foreign language, taught by some of the best FLE teachers I have ever met, at a school that specializes in doing just that (It's almost the only thing they do!).  "CAVILAM" is a name that appears in the credits on some of the best pedagogical materials in print or online. Just look at TV5 Monde or Le plaisir d'apprendre.

I could go on and on about this trip, but I'll limit myself to a few highlights:

1. Colleagues, now friends  The people I met on this trip were amazing; the American group, in particular, were all scholarship winners as well, so it was a pretty accomplished, enthusiastic group of teachers. In addition to the 10 Americans, I met French teachers from all over the world: South Sudan, Turkey, Ireland , Czech Republic, Russia, Spain, Norway, Brazil, Mexico, Lithuania, and Italy.  One of the beautiful things about this particular experience is that because we were all there for the right reasons, but also because we're all from different countries, French was our lingua franca (LITERALLY!), so I really didn't speak English at all, even though more than half my class was made up of English-speakers.  That much immersion and the combination of hearing all the teacher jargon from native speakers helped me come out of the summer with a timely tune-up on my own French proficiency.

Mes amis profs!

2. Classes Our instructors were wonderful, too. I absolutely felt refreshed by the approaches they presented.  A lot of what we did was to re-ground ourselves in solid teaching philosophy.  I know for some teachers that doesn't always seem practical, but for me, at this point in my teaching, it was absolutely key.  Simple concepts like, "Learners can't produce a sound that they aren't able to hear" and "As foreign language teachers, we are all guilty of taking a wonderful song and chopping it up into pieces or filling it with holes! Sometimes we just have to let a song be a song!" have made a huge difference already in the way I've started the year.

"Monsieur Lexique"

In our first week, all the Americans followed the same program, with one major focus throughout: creating lessons based on authentic documents.  "Didactiser" is my new favorite verb.

In the second week, we could choose from several programs. I wound up being the only American in "Teaching vocabulary and grammar in a communicative context", but it was a great class with some very strong instructors.  It was all about getting at grammar and vocab through--of course--authentic documents, but in particular, creative writing, song, games, etc. Lo-o-o-o-o-oved it!

The only problem now is how I fit everything I've learned into my classes! I can't use my oldy, moldy stuff anymore!!


3. MY HOST FAMILY! That's right: FIFTEEN years since I started studying French, and this summer was my first real host family experience! I absolutely loved them.  Valéry and Magali were pretty close to my age, and we had wonderful conversations. Their 3 small children were not only adorable, but it was a fantastic opportunity for me to play anthropologist and see if Raymonde Carroll and Pamela Druckerman were telling me the truth about French parenting.  (They were.)  Most Francophiles will probably remember the viral video of "Miss Capucine" who told the crazy fairy tale about the hippopotames a few years back. Well, it's not a video, and it's not an original fairy tale, but I did get a little language sample from the 4-year-old (I can't wait to use this during our "contes et légendes" unit in French 3!):



One of my favorite adventures with my host family was opening my big mouth about how great and how different Chicago-style pizza is, and then being met with, "Alors, tu peux nous en faire une???"  It took me quite a bit of Internet research to pull that off, especially since, as I explained after we had eaten, that even Chicagoans normally just go to a restaurant for those. So...yes, I made my first deep dish pizza ever in a French oven!

4. The FRANCE of it all I love to explore parts of France I've never seen, and I had so many chances to do just that! The Service Culturel at CAVILAM does a great job of organizing excursions and evening activities, since pretty much the entire student body is from out-of-country.  I got to climb a volcano (le Puy de Dôme); it was not easy.  We also went to the village of Moulins, near Vichy, which has retained its medieval look, including the jacquemart on the belltower. (Quick sassy tour guide story: I asked how to spell "jacquemart".  He was all " 'Jacques' comme...'Jacques' et 'mart' comme...ben...'mart'." Thanks, Guillaume.  Thanks a lot.)

Puy de Dôme

Le jacquemart de Moulins

The Service Culturel also decided that the first week we were there would be a great time to show BOTH OSS 117 movies.  That was a mistake.  This did not stop for two weeks as an inside joke:

Overall, I probably had way more fun than should be allowed.  I continue to love France: the pace of life, the way of being, the sights, the sounds, and that only spurs me on to encourage my students to travel, to find themselves in another country in a way they never would if they stayed put their whole lives. As G. K. Chesterton said, “The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one’s own country as a foreign land.” Ain't it the truth.

P. S. Guess who has two thumbs and spent her 30th birthday in France...