Author Archives: Jenny Léger

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About Jenny Léger

An English teacher working at a French university. Funology is my thing !!

The big switch off

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One of the aspects of the job of being a teacher that I am finding harder and harder to manage is the “switch off”. I seem to have one of these notices attached to me :

do not switch offI am finding it more difficult to deal with the never-ending nature of the job. You have never finished because there is always more forward-thinking that you can do. My lessons for the coming week are ready, noted down, on my USB drive (which is safely stored in my bag – as I have a terrible habit of forgetting it), papers are marked and Bob’s your uncle. But there are then the dratted reports to write – no, done those for this week). And of course, I also run training courses – but Friday’s is more or less ready and can be tweaked during the week – so, have I finished ? Well, I guess technically, I could say yes, but there is another lesson that I want to give some thought to, and my blog pages could do with tidying up a bit, and my office and my desk, well, how many piles of stuff can I accumulate in such a small space ? It all needs sorting and filing. And I have this new training course that will be in May … and for next year, I ought to add some new stuff to the training I will be doing on October …

NO ! STOP !

I entitled this blogpost “The Big Switch-off” because that is what I am about to do. My desk light actually conked out on me last night, flickered a bit, fizzed and then died. So I took it as a sign. It is Friday and I have a whole weekend ahead of me. In approximately five minutes, I am going to switch off my computer, not just standby, but actual switch off, and close the door on this corner of my life.

switch off pc I will not return until Sunday evening, not even to spy on my statistics to see who has read this blogpost in which countries. I will not fiddle, twiddle, tweak or even peak at any of it. I have the in-laws coming for the weekend and I will relax !! I have selected three novels to read – proper paper books and not e-books – and I am going to get halfway through at least one of them. I think it will be the juicy scandal about Henry VIII – the sort of novel I love but don’t take time to read. I will light a roaring fire in the fireplace, make an apple cake and enjoy a nice cup of tea, watching the blue tits on the feeder in the garden, hoping they will find the nesting box that my dad made me for Christmas.

Do you believe me ?

keep calm and switch off

I am determined to do it. How difficult should it be to decide not to work over the weekend ? It is, in my view, one of the big issues that faces teachers (and I am sure, other professions, but I don’t know about them). Surely anyone who works from home will empathize. I am not going to feel guilty about it. I am going to enjoy the downtime. If you are a teacher reading this, and you fancy joining me on the “Downtime Cruisade”, well, welcome aboard but don’t message me here about it, as I won’t be looking. This computer is now officially out of bounds. Do not enter. Go away and relax – yes, Frankie says Relax, so now go and do it. The Big Switch Off offically starts HERE …

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A photo that made me smile

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I just came across this photo that really made me smile. Anyone who knows me will know I have a bit of a Royal Family thing going on, but I also love spoofs of any kind. I particularly liked the mock-up film of the wedding a few years ago :

I actually managed to convice a class of 1ère (well, some gullible students at  least) that I had received an invite to the Royal Wedding. A mother crossed me in the supermarket and asked me about it, so I knew some had believed my story.

And now, several years on, this photo which I dedicate to my students who love tatoos and to one student in particular, with her red/purple hair and tatoos – who knows where she will go in life ???

tatoos

Why don’t I like Maths ?

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This is a question that has long troubled me. I disliked Maths intensely at school. I just didn’t get the point of it. Why did I have to imagine what x or y values were ? Problem-solving always just gave me a head-ache – and to be totally honest, it still does today. Thank heavens for computers to take the hassle out of calculating average marks !

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So, I don’t like Maths, and I could probably live with this quite happily, except for the fact that I live in a society that seems to revere Maths and one who is useless at the M game, (i.e. me) is considered a bit useless overall !

I read this on a Facebook post this evening :

“Mathematicians are discovering that to help children fully understand and truly enjoy math, drastic changes to the way standard schooling approaches the subject must be made. This is not because math is the most important part of the curriculum, but because it is one that can cause large amounts of anxiety and stress, even into adulthood.”

– and I felt I could really relate to that. I can’t say that maths causes me much stress or anxiety on a day to day basis – far from it. Do not worry – I am generally speaking a happy and well-grounded person, I think. My stress comes from the pressure put on our youngsters to be good at maths, as if your life will be a complete failure if you don’t get to grips with the M game.

When I was a young teacher in France, over fifteen years ago, this was made crystal-clear to me by a Physics teacher during a “Conseil de Classe” for a Scientific class. One of the students in particular, Guilluame, was really good at English, motivated and talented. He really came to life in class and produced some great work. Sadly, he was far from the same in Maths and Physics. During the Conseil, we had to give each student a grade (A-E) based on, well, I’m not too what it was based on, actually. Judging on my views of Guillaume, I wanted to opt for a B at least, if not an A. I was shot down in verbal flames by the snotty Maths teacher who said to me and I quote “Nous n’allons pas tenir compte de l’avis d’un professeur d’anglais en section scientifique” … translation “We’re not going to listen to the English teacher’s opinion in a Science-based class.”

At the time, I was too shy, inexperienced, naive and maybe too polite to hit back. Never fear, I have regretted it ever since and I would certainly react now, if it were to arise again. I am glad to say, however, that I think things have evolved and people are now starting to appreciate the impact of English in all areas of study, and especially perhaps, science. Maybe today, I would have been able to get that A for Guillaume ? In any case, the grading system has gone too, thank goodness.

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But none of this helped to reconcile me with Maths. I am certain that if things had been presented to me in a more playful way, I might have “got it” more. One of my dear maths colleagues and friends (this is sincere and not sarcastic) has a really fun way to approach things and I followed completely his lesson based on the price of a baguette last year. If I had had the chance of lessons like that , I would perhaps not be the maths dummy that I feel I am today, but I strongly believe this, also found on facebook tonight :

“We want to have hands-on, grounded, metaphoric play. At the free play level, you are learning in a very fundamental way—you really own your concept, mentally, physically, emotionally, culturally.” This approach “gives you deep roots, so the canopy of the high abstraction does not wither. What is learned without play is qualitatively different. It helps with test taking and mundane exercises, but it does nothing for logical thinking and problem solving. These things are separate, and you can’t get here from there.”

The source is actually a page for the Montessori method – maybe I would have liked that method of learning for myself ? I certainly try to apply it in my own classroom. Seeing my 16 and 17 year olds getting out the dice and counters to play a board game to practice the past tense is pure pleasure. I will be trying that game out with adults next week and I am certain they will get as much fun out of it.

I think the real reason I didn’t like Maths was because I found lessons boring and irrelevant to me. I always preferred languages because, as a terrible chatterbox, I always had lots to say and wanted to learn how to say it all. I don’t think I have done too badly, as one who has not done Maths since the age of 15. I can still manage to survive in the world. Calculators and computers are wonderful things – as are sons, husbands and Maths friends. But I am convinced that the power of play might have worked for me – and who knows, maybe one day I will set myself the challenge of trying to sit through some maths lessons ? It would be a challenge and a half, that would !!

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What a lot of a clicks !!

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I checked out my stats this morning, as I regularly do, just to see who is reading me and I was at 17,000 hits exactly. Back in October 2013, I was getting all excited because I was fast approaching 11,00, so 6,000 hits in 6 months is a pretty good rate, I’d say. So thanks to my wonderful students, as always and to the people around the world who click here regularly.

To celebrate, here is a Happy Bunny …

HappyBunny-

A quiet little corner in England

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When you are feeling tired and in need of recharging your batteries, I can thoroughly recommend a quiet corner in the New Forest. This lovely little thatched cottage is where we have just holidayed for a week. My eldest son, studying in the UK, was able to spend the week with us and my aim was to relax and to recreate a little home from home. Job done !! I made cakes, read books, fiddled with my computer and shopped !! Oh boy ! Did I shop !!!

Now the batteries are indeed recharged and it is time to look forwards to the coming term. There are mock papers to mark, lessons to prepare and training courses to plan – but the warmth of our little Horseshoe Lodge will remain for a long time. The weather here in Normandy is getting better – the daffs are out in the garden. The sky was a beautiful clear blue as we drove home from the ferry at 8 o’clock this morning. Optimism for the coming week.

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Happy Holidays

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Happy Holidays

I think one of the best moments of the holidays is the night before the holidays actually start. The anticipation of two whole weeks with not a lot to do is just delicious.

And this time, with a trip back to the UK and a week in a thatched cottage in the New Forest to look forward to, it is almost too much to bear !!!

Happy holidays to all my students.

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Pronouns and Colouring-in

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My students seem to find real difficulty with pronouns and this has become really evident in a piece of work they have handed in this week, in which they have to tell the tale of a relationship. Choosing a couple they know, they have had to tell me the love story. It has been absolutely fascinating to read and they have really gone to town. The work has revealed, however, some really basic confusions about the choice of pronouns.

He kissed her passionately.

He kissed him passionately.

It is definitely not the same storyline.

pronoun turtle

To provide some remedial help, I have put together a page of Pronoun Revision exercises, collated from the web. Students, if you are reading this, please have a go at them. It will improve the quality of your writing no end, if you can nail this one. 

For those of you who may remember my post on Googledocs recently, well, the deadline came and went and no one sent me a googledoc, so I thought we would give it a go, doing it the old way. The kids handed their essays in to me on the given date. All of them ? One student only didn’t hand his work in on time. One out of thirty-one is not a bad score.

So I am now marking it. But this is how I feel …

I CANNOT, I just cannot mark their work without getting them to correct it. Maybe others can, but I can’t. The hours that they have obviously put into this work merits more than a series of red scribblings, a few vb / md / gr / expr annotations and a mark / 20.

Two of my students came to Homework Club on Thursday lunchtime and they needed help understanding where they had gone wrong in an English test, done for another teacher in another class. These two motivated girls, who are doing well in my class, had obtained 6/20 and 8/20 respectively for a writing test. The subject ? They had watched a film in class and then had to write a follow-on of the film. Not surprisingly, they found it really hard and bang – the marks reflected that.

I was incensed, though I hid it from them out of professional loyalty. There’s a blogpost waiting to happen, I’d say !! To start with, it was a blatant case of mixed skills and seemed quite unfair to me, but there’s another blogpost too, for another day. Anyway …

These two girls, let’s call them Emma and Mary (not their real names !!), came to Homework Club to get feedback on where they went wrong and how they can improve. As it happens, they have also handed in a piece of work to me this week about love stories, so I was able to look at what they had done and compare.

Emma works incredibly hard, overdoses on the dictionary, it has to be said, and needs lots of practice. The pronouns pages are for her, amongst others. She has a tendency to translate her ideas directly from French which gives a pompous stilted style at times. Her 6/20 has half destoyed her and certainly has knocked her confidence. I am looking now at her love story essay.

By annotating it with colours – blue for verb problems, orange for vocab problems, green for a grammatical structure and purple for dictionary overload, I feel I have been able to show her precisely how she can improve on her work. When I return it to her on Monday morning, I know that she will go away and work on it, in an attempt to improve. She knows that for the moment it is worth about 13/20. Reassured by that, she will know that things can only get better. I know her work is going to improve enormously – and she will eventually upload onto her wikispace in her digital portfolio, a piece of work that is of good quality.

Mary is a similar case. Her work is shorter than Emma’s and more stilted. OK, I can handle that, and she will have her purple annotations to make her think about how to improve. Pronouns are not a problem for Mary. She needs to work on her tense structures. She basically uses the present tense throughout, This creates confusions in terms of communication and she will be able to work on this once the blue “verb” pen has highlighted the use of tenses to her.

When these kids come to Homework Club with their test papers and want help, it is exactly that – a cry for help. As their teachers, we are not there to tell them constantly what they are doing wrong. I firmly believe that we are there to show them how they can improve to enable them to do things right.

So, I agreed to remove my googledoc obligations for this one time, but I have proved to myself that it needs to come back. This experiment with my L class has proved that I want to keep on working in this, giving the kids a chance to improve on their work and not just spend my weekends covering their work with red pen. Not only do they not understand any better at the end of the exercise, they take a bit of a moral beating and then repeat the same mistakes again the next time. And I find it totally depressing for me too.

So, conclusion to this blogpost, I am going to continue colouring in my students’ work and hoping that this method will gradually convince the ones who are still not convinced.

feutres