Thanksgiving in the French Classroom

This week I talked about Thanksgiving in my classes. The older kids read about Thanksgiving in French and then they learned and wrote a few words like corn, turkey, mashed potatoes, pumpkin pie, and family. For the little kids, I gave a simple explanation, reviewed colors, and then had them make hand turkeys, which they kept calling poules (chickens). No! Not chickens! Turkeys!

Kiddies in my CE1 (2nd grade) class at JF showing their hand turkeys.


This was taken just before the one above. Shows how well they listen to me!

Grandma & Grandpa Swails in Paris

Tom's Grandparents visited us several weeks ago in Paris and I thought I should share some of our pictures. They were here for about 10 days, minus a weekend in London. They said they had a great time, which made us happy hosts. Tom and I were tour guides for much of the time and we loved it! We had waited to revisit many of the monuments and museums so we could experience it with the Swails.

They took us on a dinner cruise on the Seine for my birthday!


G & G Swails at the Louvre. Not quite like the Da Vinci code, though, huh?


A nice dinner together their last night in Paris. Toni had her crème brûlée and everything was perfect...except the wily waitor trying to charge us for a bottle of wine we didn't have and then asking if we wanted to leave a tip! Nous sommes américains, monsieur, mais je sais bien qu'on ne donne pas de pourboires en France! (We are Americans, sir, but I know that you don't give tips in France!)

Thanks for visiting!

2 months

It's already been two months that we've been living in France, so this is officially the longest I've been in France and away from home at one time. I decided this would be a good time to see how I'm doing on my list (over there, to the left).

speak French every day. Yes! I am disappointed that I'm not improving faster and I often get down about that, but I LOVE that I get to hear French and speak French every day. Somedays it's not very much because I speak English at my schools and with Tom (we're working on that). Other days I surprise myself by becoming a chatterbox in French, like the last conversation night we went to. Awesome!

become part of a community. Not quite there. This has been tough. We have been going to a church called Trinity, which is an international, mostly English speaking church. I like it ok, but... I don't know. There is an obvious community at our foyer (residence) and we cherish our community dinners, but there's something still missing, not to mention the fact that we are one of the few married couples here. Next week, I have an appointment at Secours Catholique about becoming a volunteer. Maybe I'll find my community there. Really, I feel the strongest sense of community when people with common values are all working together for a common purpose. I'll let you know how this goes.

learn to cook. I made an effort. Then I put it on the back burner. I went to a few Ateliers Cuisine (Cooking Workshops) here at the foyer, but I really just followed other peoples' instructions and had no clue what I was doing. When we move to the new foyer in a month or two, where we'll have our own kitchen, I'll give it another shot.

make French kids like English class. Yikes. Some of the classes, those that are more "under control" because the teacher is with me, actually get the opportunity to have fun. In fact, one of the teachers told me that they get excited every Thursday and ask if I'm coming. :) In the other classes, the kids might like English class, but it's because they think they can walk all over me and talk the whole time. That's not the reason I want them to like it.

visit Nantes. Maybe next month?

find the best coffee in Paris. I am removing this from the list because, really, coffee just isn't the same here. I'm very picky. I learned to like coffee at Mocha Joe's and can't come to like much else now.

go back to Franceville. In the spring! Maybe with my dad, sister, and B?

read more. Yes! It usually takes me ages to get through a book even if it's a good one. Since being here, I've read two novels, La méchanique du coeur by Mathias Malzieu, a wonderful story that I've mentioned before, and La jeune fille au pair by Joseph Joffo that I stumbled across in the library which made my metro rides to work a little more enjoyable. This past weekend I started French Colloquial Grammar. What I really need to do is start reading more news. I've gotten really bad about this, especially since I don't have class in the morning anymore and thus do not grab Direct Matin, one of the free metro newspapers.

assess my level of French, then improve it. See the first goal. I had thought about taking an assessment like the Test de connaissance du français to see where I am and then improving my French. But the TCF is expensive. According to my Sorbonne class certificate, I have excellent comprehension and very good expression. Maybe I'll just get really awesome first and then look into taking the TCF before coming home?

visit the Loire Valley. Done! We would like to go back to visit Orléans and some more castles, but we already have a long travel list.

learn more Spanish...or German. I'm not really sure what to do about this one. French obviously has to be the priority this year since I'm in France. But, since we are hoping to go to Germany in June before returning to the States, I might take a few private German lessons later on.

So readers, what do you think? How am I doing?

Time to learn some vocabulary. C'est parti!

Voilà quelques mots et expressions que j'ai appris et que j'entends souvent. Attention! Je ne vous donne pas les traductions du dictionnaire, mais ce que j'ai compris par ces mots. (Here are some words and expressions I've learned and that I hear frequently. But beware! I'm not giving dictionary translations, but what I've understood them to mean).

C'est parti! I have heard this about a million times over the past two months! I can't think of one good way to say it in English. Several possibilities are: Here we go! And we're/they're/it's off! Ready go! It's begun! I also saw that this was used in the subtitles of the movie Away We Go when Burt says "Play ball."

Turbulent. Wild, noisy, crazy. As in: Les CE2s sont toujours turbulents. (The 4th graders are always wild, noisy, and crazy.) Yes, I learned this word from a teacher. I did cheat here and looked up the actual dictionary translation, which is boisterous, but I like wild, crazy, noisy better.

Se débrouiller. To manage, to make it. Several people have told me concerning my French "Tu te débrouilles bien." I'm only managing? :( Not excelling? ;)

C'est chiant! That's annoying! This is very familiar and maybe vulgar (?), but I hear it all the time. The first time I heard it was when my French friend Julie said it. I said I didn't know that word and she kind of smiled when she explained it to me.

Tranquille. Calm, relaxing/relaxed. I've heard people say this when answering to ça va? (how are you?) and comment s'est passé ton week-end? (how was your weekend?).

And now I sleep in.

Today was the last day of my French Oral Expression class at the Sorbonne. It was for five weeks, 8-10am, four days a week. So, in 40 hours of French Oral Expression, what did I learn? Well, not as much as I'd hoped, and I'm not so sure I've progressed much in speaking French.

I was really disappointed that we didn't have much lab time. A few times we went to the lab, had a more or less natural conversation with a partner, and then the professor corrected us. I wish every class had been like that! Another thing I really appreciated was learning more about the different language registers. Not only do you have to distinguish between tu and vous, but you use different language and expressions depending on who you're talking to and the setting. I think I will try to learn more about this on my own.

Now that the class is over, what do I plan to do? Sleep in (a little more) in the mornings! But to work on my French, I am going to continue going to the conversation exchange group on Tuesdays, and I'm going to try to find a language exchange partner. Some one-on-one French time would be very helpful. I also will, eventually, start reading French Colloquial Grammar by Rodney Ball. En plus, I am looking into volunteering, something I miss doing.

It's time for dinner and then that conversation group! Send French thoughts my way!

Châteaux and more

Tom and I had the chance to get out Paris last weekend and go to the beautiful Loire Valley. We based our stay in Tours.

On Friday, we discovered Tours and had an amazing dinner. We both had poulet au miel citronné (Chicken cooked with honey and lemon). Tom had rillettes (a type of pâté special to the area) as his entrée and he actually liked it! He is very picky, so I was happy.

The restaurant, Grill du Roy (with the old spelling for king- Roy instead of Roi):

On Saturday we visited two châteaux near Tours. The first was Chenonceau in the village of Chenonceaux.



This castle's history is dominated by women: Diane de Poitiers, Catherine de Medici, and Louise de Lorraine. My favorite room was Louise's just because it was so interesting. She was in mourning when she lived at Chenonceau, and she went beyond black and white morning clothes. Her room was solemn, with painted crown of thorns and silver tears on the walls.



The second castle we visited was Amboise. And we just realized we didn't take a picture of the outside of the château. Oops! However, by visiting the chapel of the castle, we stumbled across the (presumed) tomb of Leonardo da Vinci, who spent his golden years in France.



We also had a great view of the town of Amboise that we visited briefly after the château. We also found a place to déguster (taste) and buy some Loire Valley wine.




Despite having a terrible headache on Saturday, it was great. Sunday, we weren't sure what to do. It was Toussaint (All Saint's Day) and everything was closed in Tours and busses weren't running to castles. At the Tourism Office we found that there was a guided tour of Tours. Tom, being the great husband that he is, accompanied me on the two hour walking tour in French. I loved learning about the architecture of the town. We saw the place where Joan of Arc got her armor before heading to Orléans, another city in the Loire Valley where Joan had her great victory. The houses where you can see the wood are from the Middle Ages- at least the style is, and they've been restored. I don't know pretty much any architectural terms, so I can't really describe it, but I enjoyed hearing about it anyway. The guide talked a lot about how dangerous this style of building was for fires, and how the more affluent Tours residents reconstructed their homes (back in the day). Luckily for us, some weren't able to and we still get to see the original style.