Allemagne

This weekend I visited a friend in the Stuttgart area of Allemagne (Germany). I got to try the local Swabian cuisine, including spätzle (pasta dish with cheese sauce), schupfnudel (potato-based noodle served with mushroom sauce), and of course- pretzels! Yum!

Considering I was only in Germany for the weekend, I got to see many sites:

• Esslingen am Neckar- A town famous for its Christmas market that includes a medieval-themed market. Workers dress up in period costumes, and visitors can buy medieval-inspired crafts, make their own candles, and try archery. 

• Burg Hohenzollern- A beautiful château (castle) near the Schwäbische Alb mountain range. It is still privately owned and displays the only remaining Prussian crown that is fully intact.

• Tübingen- I got to see this beautiful town at night with its vibrant Christmas market.

 

 What a weekend! Looking forward to heading home for the holidays!

Joyeuses fêtes! Happy Holidays!

Strasbourg

Today I went to the Capitale de Noël (Capital of Christmas)- you guessed it - Strasbourg!

There are twelve Christmas markets around the city, which make it a great day trip for shopping. I went with two other friends, and I would say we successfully wondered the streets and markets of Strasbourg. The German influence on the architecture and food found throughout the city is obvious. The highlight of the day was definitely getting food from the vendors who sell traditional French and German delicacies and slowly walking though the chalets of goods. It is definitely worth trying vin chaud (hot wine).

Fun fact: Every year a different country is invited to participate in Strasbourg's Christmas market, and this year it was Georgia. There was a special Georgian market that sold goods ad food from that country.

I'll let the pictures speak for themselves:

Sapin de Noël (Christmas tree) at Place Kléber

Strasbourg Cathedral

Georgian market

Welcome sign to the markets

Decorations

Needless to say, Christmas is a big deal in Strasbourg!

Fête des Lumières

My second trip of December was this past weekend to the second/third (depends on who you ask) largest city in France, Lyon, for the annual Fête des Lumières (Festival of Lights).

Here is Lyon on a map:

The origins of the festival go back to about the mid-seventeenth century. Since a plague threatened their city, the people of Lyon made offerings and light candles to the Virgin Mary, praying that their town would be spared. Fast forward to 1852- the Lyonnais sculptor Fabisch finished his statue of the Virgin Mary, which was to be put next to the Basilica of Fourvière (a church that overlooks the city). Due to multiple weather problems, the inauguration of the statue was postponed from September 8 to December 8 (Festival of the Immaculate Conception) to finally December 12, 1852. From that time onward, the Lyonnais pay tribute to the Virgin Mary every December 8 by lighting candles in their windows. The celebration has grown enormously since that time.

I was one of the 4 million tourists who visited Lyon during this event, so needless to say, the crowds were ridiculous. In fact, after I was temporarily separated from my group in the massive crowd, one of my friends bought all of us light-up bunny ears so that we could easily see each other the rest of the night. Those ears worked! They worked so well that many people wanted to steal them from us. My roommate had to chase down a guy who had stolen my friend's lapin (rabbit) ears- luckily she got them back with no harm done.

Here are some highlights of the festival:

Parade of Animals

Can you see the dragon?

Light show at Cathédrale Saint-Jean-Baptiste

The Fête des Lumières was really a magnificent festival to attend. For future goers, be sure to reserve your tickets and lodging well in advance because all the accommodations go really fast! (My friends and I had to stay in a medieval castle about a 25 minute train ride away from Lyon because everything was booked- not that I'm complaining about staying in a castle!)

Colmar

Today I did some spontaneous traveling with a friend to the lovely city of Colmar in Alsace, which is about a two hour train ride from Nancy. Fun fact: Colmar is the city where Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, who created the Statue of Liberty, was born. For those who are into geography, here is a map of the Alsace region:

We walked around the five different Marchés de Noël (Christmas markets), and enjoyed seeing the beautiful holiday decorations  all around the old town.

Christmas Markets

Little Venice

Little Venice

As a lot of other assistants who are Disney fans have mentioned, Colmar reminds us of Belle's town in Beauty and the Beast, especially with the timber trimming on a lot of the buildings.

I hope to visit Colmar again when the weather is warmer!

Une sortie

To start off the school week, the CP classes had a sortie (field trip) to the Parc Sainte Marie today. The students had a guide who told them about how trees and animals prepare for winter. The children were pretty attentive considering that it was- snowing!

It snowed until the early afternoon, but the neige (snow) has now turned into slush.

Here is a picture of the park:

Winter weather has arrived!

Saint Nicolas: L'effet renaissance

As I mentioned in the previous post, Saint Nicolas is the patron saint of the Lorraine region. Nancy is perhaps the biggest French city that celebrates Saint Nicolas Day (December 6). In fact, each year Nancy has a whole city-wide festival during the first weekend of December in honor of Saint Nicolas.

Here are some highlights from this year's Saint Nicolas festival, whose theme/title was "Saint Nicolas: L'effet renaissance." As Nancy is undergoing major developments in 2013, the city is going through a rebirth of sorts.

• Spectacle pyrotechnique (Pyrotechnical Show) on December 1:

This is my shorten video of the half hour long pyrotechnical show. The show told the legend of Saint Nicolas and how he saved three children from an evil butcher. The show integrated video, fireworks, and music. It was very cold that night, but the show was totally worth seeing!

 Les feux d'artifice (Fireworks)

The three children from the Saint Nicolas legend 

 Lights!

Saint Nicolas!

• Le défilé (parade) on December 2:

My friends and I braved another cold evening to see the Saint Nicolas parade today. The parade included floats from the neighborhoods/villages surrounding Nancy.

The wicked boucher (butcher)

Saint Nicolas!

In sum, Nancy is the place to be the first weekend of December!

Les Courses de la Saint-Nicolas

I'm back with the CP (first grade) classes this week, and what a start to the week!

Today was the annual Courses de la Saint-Nicolas (Saint Nicolas Race) for all the elementary school students in the Nancy area. Elementary school students from all over Nancy come to the Parc de la Pépinière to run between a 600-800 meter race, depending on their age. Lots of parents came to see their children run. Despite the chaos of trying to find your students after the race, the students had a lot of fun and got a Saint Nicolas gingerbread cookie for finishing. I think we had only one student who fell during the race, which is pretty good considering the crowd of children at the start line.

Here is a picture of the winners of the CP boys coming to the finish line:

This annual race is named in honor of Saint Nicolas because he is the patron saint of the Lorraine region. After many years of hearing "Saint Nicolas" in Christmas songs, I have finally learned the real story behind the saint. Saint Nicolas is not exactly Santa Claus, but I would argue the legend behind the saint inspired Santa Claus. The legend is that Saint Nicolas resurrected three children from a wicked butcher who had murdered them. Quite the gruesome story. Nowadays Saint Nicolas brings goodies or gifts to French children of the northeast regions in early December, and the children want to avoid Père Fouettard (Whipping Father- who whips naughty children) who follows Saint Nicolas on his rounds. Then Père Noël (Santa Claus) brings gifts on Christmas later in the month as well.

Here is Saint Nicolas greeting students at the park:

Happy races!

Une Thanksgiving Nancéienne

Here are some pictures from the Thanksgiving dinner I had tonight with the other assistants. Enjoy!

The cafeteria at the youth residence.

The beautifully set table that my friends did.

La cuisine (kitchen) attached to the cafeteria.

The first sweet potato casserole I ever made!

The group- Joyeuse Thanksgiving! (Encore!)

Happy Thanksgiving!

Due to a change in schedule, I was with the CE1 (second grade) students again this week. Today I got to teach them the basics about Thanksgiving on the actual holiday! Since the French do not celebrate Thanksgiving, this was the first time my students had heard about the holiday.

I read The First Thanksgiving by Nancy Davis, a very easy flip book for young readers. The book gives a very simple history of the first Thanksgiving- of how the Pilgrims came over on a ship, how the Native Americans taught the Pilgrims how to farm, and how they gave thanks for the harvest.

In addition, thanks to another assistant, I was able to read Run, Turkey, Run! written by Diane Mayr, and illustrated by Laura Rader. The book follows the farmyard adventures of Turkey, who is running away and hiding from the farmer on Thanksgiving Day. The book is excellent for young English Language Learners because it is repetitive and reviews familiar farm animals. The story also reviews with readers traditional Thanksgiving foods.

In other news, my floor-mates and I were feeling crafty this week, so we made two paper-mache turkeys (une dinde). They will be centerpieces at our Thanksgiving meal tomorrow with the other assistants!

For those who want to plan a traditional Thanksgiving meal in France, be prepared for the following: You must order a turkey in advance, and it will be cher (expensive). You will most likely find sweet potatoes and cranberries (will be expensive) in a local market (These foods are usually not in a supermarket). You will have to know how to make pumpkin pie from real pumpkins because French grocery stores do not sell canned pumpkin.

Looking forward to the Thanksgiving meal tomorrow, even if it is a day late! Joyeuse Thanksgiving!

"My Favorite Pumpkin"

Back in Nancy! This past week I worked with the CE1 (second grade) class again. The teacher introduced the story of Jack and the Beanstalk (Jack et le Haricot magique) to the students this week. I found this version of the folktale (retold by an educational company) very strange because at the end of the story Jack buys back his cow after defeating the giant and the cow transforms into a princess when Jack kisses it. Perhaps the company who developed this version wanted to draw parallels with other common folktales, and so they decided to have the cow turn into a princess. I guess folktales are always open to interpretation.

The main event that the school was preparing for this week was today- the Halloween celebration! There was a costume parade around the school courtyard. I was very proud that some of the students were wearing the orange paper-plate masques (masks) that I helped paint during the week. The first and second graders got to sing "My Favorite Pumpkin" to their parents, a song that they had been rehearsing all week. For anyone teaching English Language Learners, I highly recommend this song because it is very repetitive and reviews numbers, names for parts of the face, and simple commands. The older students sang "What are you for Halloween?". I also recommend this song to review simple Halloween vocabulary with students.

Joyeux Halloween! (Encore)

Paris

What a whirlwind of a séjour (stay) in Paris thanks to my dad's cousin and his family!

• Monday: I got to visit the musée du Louvre. We visited the Egyptian wing and, of course, the Mona Lisa (La Joconde). The painting is definitely not as big as one would hope, but is nonetheless impressive. 

• Tuesday: What didn't we do today? Or better yet, where didn't we walk to today? We took the metro to the Eiffel Tower and got great pictures with the tower and fountains. (We didn't go up the tower because the lines were too long.) From the Eiffel Tower, we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. The walk up the Arc de Triomphe is totally worth it- I believe it has the best views of the entire city of Paris, even better than the Eiffel Tower. After lunch along the Champs Élysées, we walked through Place de la Concorde and the Jardin des Tuileries all the way to the Louvre. We turned at the Louvre and then walked to Notre Dame. I learned that in 2013 the cathedral will be celebrating its 850th Anniversary! Nonetheless, we were ready to call it a day after visiting Notre Dame. 

• Wednesday: A shopping day! After an afternoon of shopping, we had tea at Mariage Frères, a well-known tearoom in Paris. All tea enthusiasts would really like this tearoom! 

• Thursday: The first stop of the day was Sacre Coeur and Montmartre, which is another magnificent site for views of Paris. It was also really cool to see the Monmartre artists' paintings of Paris. From Montmartre, we took the metro to the musée d'Orsay. Anyone who enjoys late nineteenth century or early twentieth century art should visit this museum! I didn't know that the musée d'Orsay was originally a train station that was later transformed into an art museum. I was very impressed with the work of the Impressionists that I saw. Although I had studied Impressionist paintings in French class, pictures of the paintings do not accurately convey the depth and intensity of the real paintings.

• Friday: Back to the Lorraine region!

Joyeux Halloween!

The Toussaint (All Saints' Day) holidays have began and I am very lucky to have French family that has invited me to spend the vacation with them.

When one of my younger cousins invited me to come along with him and his friends trick-or-treating on Halloween, how could I refuse free candy? I dressed up as a witch (broom and all) and went with them around their neighborhood.

Halloween is not very big or very commercialized in France. I had a hard enough time finding a witch's hat in Nancy, I was lucky that one of my friends is very observant and found what must be the only Halloween costume shop in the city. Trick-or-treaters never know exactly which houses will hand out candy, and those who give out candy never know how many trick-or-treaters will come. Since those houses who celebrate Halloween do not always light an outside light, trick-or-treaters ring the bell at each house with a light inside. The consequence is that sometimes all the candy has already been given out to the early trick-or-treaters. Even if that is the case, some very generous people look around their house and give a group of trick-or-treaters a whole chocolate bar to split or a small bag of candy.

One kind lady gave each trick-or-treater a small bag of cookies that are usually eaten for Christmas:

I'm going to have a stomach ache for a couple days from all the candy and sweets! Happy Halloween!

Ateliers de l'handicap

This week I got to work with CP (1st grade) again. For math, the teacher focused the lessons on a review of  patterns and basic addition. For language arts, I was able to assist the class with reviewing the "T" sound, Halloween vocabulary the students learned last week, as well as other simple sight words. The teacher taught the class a new song "My Favourite Pumpkin," which the children loved and began to hum throughout class. The cooperating teacher has been easy to work with: in the morning she allows me to observe her teach the activities with one class, and then in the afternoon she allows me to lead the activities with the other class.

The highlight of this week was the ateliers de l'handicap (disability workshops) this morning at the elementary school. In small groups, students were able to rotate to different rooms/areas to learn about what it is like to live with a disability:

• The first rotation was to learn about assistance dogs. Even though we were not allowed to pet the dogs, we got to see an assistance dog that opened a cabinet.
• During the second rotation, students learned about living with visual impairments. There was a blind lady who impeccably read a Braille book to the students and who showed them her device that will read aloud the color(s) of clothes. Another visually impaired lady demonstrated how to use her magnifying device, magnifying glass, and her special sort of sunglasses.
• Students learned about hearing impairments during the third rotation. A deaf lady and an interpreter taught us how to sign banana, mushroom, cherries, grapes, lemon, fish, and the expressions "I really like" and "I don't like." I was impressed that the lady knew how to sign "yellow," obviously an English word.
• During the fourth rotation, students got to experience what it was like to use a wheelchair. The program set up a course with a carpet, a ramp, rocks, and a wood platform that the students had to go through using a wheelchair. The teacher and I also got to go through the course on wheelchairs as well with the students cheering us on. I will admit going down the ramp and through the rocks was very difficult.
• The fifth and final rotation was to see a puppet show about autism. The story was about a girl's experience in class when an autistic boy joins her preschool class. The show presented multiple ways that the teacher and other children could accommodate the autistic student in class.

Overall, I thought the disability workshops went very well. They were very interactive, age appropriate for the young students, and they really encouraged the children to think about what it is like to live with a disability.

Here is a picture of a sign along the wheelchair course in the school courtyard:

Let Toussaint vacation begin! 

"Samantha the Potato"

This week I worked with CE1 (second grade). These students began the English immersion program last year, which was the first year of the program. Many of the CE1 students are able to express themselves in English using complete sentences, which makes communicating with them much easier.

During math this past week, the CE1 students practiced how to count using ones and tens blocks, and they were introduced to the hundred chart. For language arts, I began to read the book Winnie the Witch to the class, a book that the teacher had selected to get students excited for Halloween.

Perhaps the biggest highlight of the week happened Thursday during language arts time. To have students practice adjectives, the teacher created an assignment in which students had to make a wanted poster for an object. As part of the poster, students had to select an object (like a piece of food, a school supply, etc.) and describe it with the adjectives they had learned. Students also had to give a name to the object, so the teacher asked me to call out some common American names. The class insisted on adding "Samantha" to the name list, and soon there were many posters that read, "Samantha the Potato." The name is very appropriate since I love anything with potatoes. Needless to say, I was very touched that at least some students were inspired by my name!

Cirque

This evening I got to meet up with some family and go to the cirque (circus) in Verdun! Before heading to the circus, some relatives took me to Cora (a supermarket) and I was able to finally find a small jar of beurre de cacahuètes (peanut butter)! Peanut butter is expensive in France, but it was so worth it!

The circus was actually held in a heated tent. Although many of my relatives mentioned that the performance was more spectacular last year, I found that it was an engaging circus. There were horses, ponies, camels, seals, ducks, llamas, ducks, and goats who did some cool tricks. One performer even juggled a chair with his feet! The ventriloquist act was definitely one of the funniest moments of the night: He not only used a puppet, but he also used three spectators like puppets during his act.

Not a bad ending to the first week of work!

Here is a picture of the circus tent:

La première semaine avec CP

This week was my first work week. Although the other language assistants are assigned to multiple schools and have to do video conferences, one other assistant and I were extremely lucky to have a special school assignment. We get to work in just one elementary school that has an English immersion program.

The way the immersion program works is that half of the school day is in English and the other half of the day is in French. Each grade is divided into two classes: one class starts with the English teacher and the other class starts with the French teacher, and after lunch the classes switch. The other assistant and I get to switch too: this week I worked with CP (cours préparatoire- first grade) and the other assistant worked with CE1 (cours élémentaire 1er année- second grade), then the following week I work with CE1 and the other assistant works with CP.

Since it is an immersion school, I am not allowed to speak any French to the students, not even to explain or clarify a concept. Even when the French teacher comes into the English room during class to ask a question of the English teacher, both teachers ask/respond in English. The teachers are under a lot of pressure with the  curriculum, especially for language and math. In France, students are expected to learn cursive in first grade, while in the US students learn cursive in third grade. The CP students are even learning addition in English.

This week I got to lead the daily calendar activities and even some math games: I would clap my hands and students would have to write the number of claps they heard; I would say the numbers in order, while skipping one number, and students would have to figure out which number was missing; I would call out two numbers and students would have to write either the smaller or bigger number. I was impressed how many English words/commands the students understood, considering that they started learning English a month ago.

Bring on CE1!

Ma chambre

As promised, here are some pictures of my chambre (bedroom), salle de bains (bathroom), and cuisine (kitchen) at the youth residence:

The residence is essentially like a dormitory. You get a closet/wardrobe, desk, chair, shelving unit, night stand, and bed (covers, linens, and pillow provided).

My only complaint about the bathroom (and many of my assistant friends have heard this) is that the shower only sprays about 15 seconds of water at a time for water conservation purposes. Therefore, in order to get a continuous spray while washing your hair, you have to keep one hand on the water button and use the other hand to rinse through your hair. Nonetheless, I am very lucky because although the bathroom is meant to be shared with two people, the room next to mine is apparently too small for someone to live in. So, as of right now, I have my own bathroom!

The kitchen is on the same floor and is meant to be shared between four residents. I am currently sharing it with two other English teaching assistants. We were very lucky because the previous residents left a microwave, plates, glasses, utensils, pots, pans, and other cookware for us. However, there is no oven, so we have to cook our food on the stove or with the microwave.

As for my progress with français, although my floor-mates and I agreed to only speak in French, we end up so tired by the end of the day that we constantly revert back to English. We need to find some native speakers!