Cold cold cold cold

We have had a bit of a cold snap (today it didn't get above 32 degrees) here in Mayenne. This has had the effect of shutting my brain off and making me want to sleep all the time. Apparently, I'm not used to functioning in these kinds of conditions: who'd have thought?

Nevertheless, I will try and persevere and write something that you all find mildly interesting, but in case this post isn't particularly good, I am blaming it on the cold, just so everyone knows.

Teaching
Someone told me that I hadn't been talking enough about teaching. I'm not sure why I avoid talking about this. I think it is because it is an experience that is hard to explain. I find it at the same time mundane and fascinating and sometimes it is hard to tell the difference between the two. In any case, I will try to give a brief description, and a synthesis of my experiences up until this point.
I think the thing that I find the oddest is that for the most part students actually listen to me. I will explain whatever I have planned today and then say "Let's go..." and they'll actually do what I ask, usually without complaint or comment. It's bizarre having such power and authority. Although I never taught in the US, I sometimes get the impression that students here are even more brainwashed than students back home. I remember when I first started with the classes here I had each person say something that they found interesting and I asked them to say something that they would maybe like to learn about. They were clearly uncomfortable with the thought of having to say what they were interested in and even more so at the thought of mentioning something that they might like to learn about. They are very much used to sitting and receiving information, which can make my position as someone who is mostly supposed to do spoken English challenging.
It's interesting and surprising to see what works and what doesn't work. There were a lot of factors at the beginning that I didn't think about--even now, things will work better or worse than I thought because of something I didn't think of. The two biggest factors  I have encountered have to do with the level of the class and the attitude of the class in general. At the high school, I only take juniors and seniors, and I started off with the assumption that the seniors would naturally be more advanced than the juniors. This has not been the case at all. The level of any particular class seems to be fairly random.
On top of that, the willingness of students to make an effort play a huge role. I have some classes where I feel like I have to force them to say anything, and there are other where I feel like I am only just barely in control. All of this pretty much means that a lesson plan that goes really well in one class can go over a lot worse in another class.
The lesson plans that work the best have been those that are somewhat interactive: for example, the ones I have done that involves games and songs. Even then though, my most rambunctious class can be hard to control and I still feel like I have to drag my most apathetic class into participation.
All in all, the beginning few months have definitely been a learning experience. The first thing I learned was how to perform. The first thing I lost was my sense of dignity (no regrets, it had to go anyways).

Which brings me to...

The number of times I have accidentally written, said, or handed something out with some form of the word "penis" on it...
This has happened more often than I certainly though it would. The problem lies in the fact that seemingly innocuous words in English that translate to not so innocuous words in French.

The first time this happened, I walked right into it. I sometimes start lessons by asking the students an icebreaker question that everyone has to respond to. On this particular day the question was "What is the hardest habit you've ever had to (or that you have to) break?". One very common answer to this question was "biting my nails". Here is where it gets tricky. In French, one say "manger les ongles" or "to eat one's nails". I was explaining to the students that instead of saying "to eat" in English we say "to bite'. Most of the students did not know the verb "to bite".  I usually write new vocabulary on the board, so I went up to the board and wrote "to bite". As I was finishing the e, a little alarm bell went off in my head, but it was too late. "Bite" in French (pronounced "beet") is like saying "cock". I had written "cock" on the board. I heard a couple students giggle, and then before I knew the whole class had started laughing, including myself. After I got control of myself, I crossed out the word and kept going with the lesson feeling a little foolish.

The other time this has happened to me, I had no idea I was doing it. I was handing out a handout with Christmas words on it. One of the words was "pine" because I had put a couple of the species of Christmas tree on the handout. In the first couple classes I heard some giggling, and went I over the words, everyone seemed really interested to know what "pine" meant (I hadn't put the French translations on the worksheet). Finally after having done 4 classes, someone finally said emphatically "ah ça veut pas dire ça en français..." and I finally caught on. Needless to say, I once again felt pretty foolish, and I just started laughing.

I'm pretty sure this will happen to me again, so I guess it's good that I've gotten rid on any dignity that I had, but it's still pretty alarming how easy it was to make these mistakes.

Anyhow, those are my anecdotes about teaching. I am very much looking forward to having some time off. Hopefully I will have time to recharge and to think about lesson plans that don't have to do with accidentally saying synonyms for penis. We'll see though...