French is a Child's highlight of the year

Today I was the princess of the assembly at the local Intermediate School.


This year I have been teaching French to two Year 8 classes and mentoring their 2 teachers at the local Intermediate School and today was our last lesson.

I have to admit the year has gone very fast and I cannot believe how much the students have achieved! I taught each class alternatively (one class one week, the other class the other week) and the teacher was reinforcing what we did during the week I was not here. Each lesson lasted around 30 minutes. I taught during my free periods. In other words, I get 5 free periods during which I am supposed to plan my lessons, do the massive amount of admin that a teacher has to do etc...during one of those free period I went during the whole year teaching across the field at an Intermediate School. (for free of course!)

During the year we went through what my Year 9 do but faster (much faster!).

Last week, the Year 8 had to write their graduation papers where they write down what was the highlight of their year. In one of the class (Room 1), out of 28 kids, 20 students said the highlight for them was to learn French !!!!

It is at that moment that I felt the happiest !!!! All the hard work that the 2 teachers and myself have put in has paid off !!! It was all worth it.

So to celebrate the end of the year, the students have invited me for a special assembly. I watched them singing a song in French and playing games (about numbers). We then had a special morning tea. A little girl baked some muffins and wrote in dark blue icing “MERCI” on them (it means thank you). They gave me a giant bouquet of flowers, which I can smell right now while I am writing this post and offered me some chocolates. It was fantastic to have kids hugging me, thanking me and asking to have a picture taken with me. I felt like a princess, I think it was the moment a teacher dreams about during her whole teaching life.

Merci beaucoup Room 1 and Room 7

Edtalks saved my Flight

I hate flying so much !!!! In the morning of the day of my flight I start to have butterflies in my stomach until the plane arrives at destination and that I know I have not burned alive i the air or crushed in the middle of the ocean. Of course I know the risk of me dying while driving to my way to work is way higher than dying in a plane, but fear has no reason.

So to calm me down I download videos and watch them during the flight with full volume on.

Yesterday I came back from Christchurch and I had downloaded a video on my Itouch in order to forget I was sitting on a chair in the middle of the sky. I took the video from the Edtalks website.

For the teachers in New Zealand, Edtalks is a very famous website where videos of educators are hosted. It is a site created and looked after by Core Education.

There are heaps of videos to choose, from Toni Twiss’s video “Living and learning in the cloud” to “Effectiveness of e-learning PD” from Vince Ham.

Yesterday, I picked the video from Lee Crockett, “Understanding the digital generation”. I was lucky enough this year to go to Ulearn where I have seen Lee Crockett presenting “live”. I was blown away during his keynote as he made me think about what I was doing in my class.

The second time it is even better !!!! As I am planning courses for next year, watching the video again was the best move for me as it has reminded me what to include or not in my teaching.

What ever the subject you are teaching, this video plays a pivotal role in a healthy vision of teaching nowadays.