Mistral
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Posts posted by Mistral
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I use either crème semi-epaisse whipped with some sugar (or icing sugar) or marscapone which replaces double cream quite well
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As an aside how much use of IWB's and PC's is there in France ?
Errr IWB? should I know what that means? Is it (moment of inspiration! ) an interactive white board? I've heard of them. A cousin who is a primary teacher in the UK has mentioned them and I saw a teacher's TV buyers guide programme on them. One of our maths teachers asked for one last year. But (1) no-one knew what he was talking about and (2) it was too expensive. I have never heard of a school that uses them. I can say with great certainty that my kids' maternelle, primary and secondary schools don't have them. Nor does the collège my husnad works in or either of my collèges (one of them being brand new) The collèges do have video projectors you can attach to laptops (our dept is spoilt, every pupil in 4eme and 3eme is lent a laptop as are their teachers- next year the loan becomes a gift- except for the teachers) We have 3 video projectors in a collège of 600 pupils.
PC use is difficult to really calculate. Again my dept is spoilt with all the 4emes and 3emes having laptops (well, if you don't count the kids who have lost, broken, blocked .... theirs) and the conseil general has also got a plan of 1 desktop per 5 pupils (still in collège) This means a computer room with 15/20 computers and a couple of computers per classroom. Of course, you still need to have teachers who are willing to use them and who have the training. I did a course on using the laptops in the classroom last year and sat through three days on how to set up a firewall, how to personalise the school intranet so that they got different things appearing depending on the room they were in and the laws on what you could or couldn't put on internet- when we asked about actual practical use, he sent us to our subject websites on the academic server for inspiration ( which suggested that I could use computers to do webquests or hotpotatoes exercises- I had been hoping for a little bit more) I sometimes use mine to show powerpoint (well actually star office) presentations, but only when I can get my hands on the video projector, I make hotpotatoes exos and send them to the kids as revision help and I get them to record themselves and send me the recordings. That's all. And I'm probably one of the people who uses it the most in class. As for primaries, well my daughter's school has 7PC's (when they're all working and haven't been stolen) so small groups go and type short texts from time to time, but some friends' kids didn't see a computer all the time they were in primaire.
All this is a bit worrying when you realise we are supposed to validate the B2I somehow
Sorry, rant over. [:)]
Yes, I know that if I had had the patience to plough through the TES site I would proably have found loads of things, but I was hoping someone would be able to quickly say "we expect them to do X,Y and Z and we use extracts form books with short and answer comprehension tests" or something like that. I'll have a better look now it's the holidays but I was hoping for a quick fix since it's not actually one of my pupils and I was doing the asking during my lunch break.
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Didn't think of it, but that's a very good idea. I'll try there Thanks
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Thanks for you replies. We've more or less decided to go for a combination of activities, mainly based on the material I have available. I've got comprehension/language quesion/composition books (including the excellent bond assessment series) and books on verbal reasoning for short exercises.
In answer to your questions, he has to do English because it is the only LV1 offered by the school, there is no possibility of doing Spanish or German instead. We though of asking for him to start spanish along with a class of 4eme LV2, but it would be difficult to find a 4eme with spanish at the same time as he has English and then comes the question of what to do with him when he goes into 4eme when the rest of the class starts Spanish while he's already done a year. in a way that's making him doubly different.Of course we could suggest he doesn't come into English lessons and just does the tests, but the teacher thinks that he should still learn all the why's and wherefore's of English (plus spelling always a problem) and he is the sort of pupil who doesn't want to stand out or be treated as "different". He has been in france for a long time and considers himself to be the same as any other pupil in the school. This is also why we don't want to suggest that he works as a teacher assistant. It's not in his personality.
John, I put a question on the TES staffroom even before I posted here. but no-one replied. [:(]
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Because of a mésure de carte scolaire, I have to work 3 hours a week in a collège that has just opened in a small town about 20kms from where I live.
In that collège there is an English-born pupil in 5eme. Apparently he has been in France since about the age of 8 so he doesn't need any help with French. But he is extremely bored in English lessons. His English teacher has asked me what I could suggest to help him be less bored. We are both agreed that he must follow the programme and the fact he speaks English well doesn't mean that he writes it perfectly nor does it mean that he understands the ramifications of English grammar that are so important to the French.
But it doesn't seem fair to leave him to be bored while the others struggle to learn. I know that in many cases, British pupils have extra french lessons instead of going to English, but this pupil doesn't need them. The English teacher has suggested he integrates a 4eme Spanish or Italian lesson, but that means he would be bored next year in both LV1 and LV2 and finding a timetable match is probably going to be impossible. So we're back to finding things for him to do during the English lesson which allow him to follow what the rest of the class is doing but at the same time keep his interest.
So what I am asking (yes, I've finally got to the point) is have any of the parents of children who were in this sort of situation got any suggestions or experiences they could share? What did your children's schools offer and what would you/your children have wanted?
I don't mind writing lessons for him and checking them and the teacher doesn't mind me doing it. But it would be nice to know what the people who have been through it think.
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[quote user="Cassis"] Do any French people ever eat their potato skins? [/quote]
No.
I really can't see the point of cooking them in their skins if the result is going to be encouraging your guests to scald their fingers while trying to peel them. Of course the advantage is that while the French parts of the family are faffing around trying to peel boiling hot patates, i'm already eating [:)]
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We're very french about it, we generally do the standard classic raclette meal. i.e. we melt raclette cheese which we eat with charcuterie/viande des grisons and boiled potatoes. My husband is getting more adventurous and now accepts that we melt different kinds of cheese (goat's is good) instead of only the raclette.
I once read a suggestion of doing dessert with a raclette, things like slices of apple or banana with sugar on top to caramelise. I once put crumble topping on and then grilled it which was nice.
On saturday nights we try to have a special meal with the kids and raclette is one of their favourites so we eat it about once a month and we had fondue only last night.
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It's true that you can come across as really fun and exciting while making a lot less effort than you would in the UK (from what I've been told) Most parties my kids go to seem to be; playing, cake, (lots of ) sweets, more playing. If you do any form of organised games or themes, then you go down in history. One year all I did was let the kids dress up in all all our spare dressing up clothes and raid my make up box (not much in there, mainly stuff left over from various dance shows the girls have done) and no-one wanted to leave (I have a feeling the mums were a bit shocked when they came to pick them up, but never mind)
Like the idea of a pinata. Pass the parcel always goes down well too, once you've explained the rules.
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In my experience, whether you have a reply slip or put a telephone number on, most parents won't bother replying and you'll have to rely on grilling your son on who said in the playground that they were going to come, who said they were going to be staying with daddy that weekend and who said that they might be able to come but only if they had good enough grades in the spelling test.......
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[quote user="Garlic"] The FLE stopped as suddenly as it started the powers that be must have just decided that they didn't need it any more. The hard thing for us is helping with homework although we get better every year and I suppose it stretches the brain! [/quote]
I think that technically there is only FLE allowance for the first two years because after that they are supposed to be up to level in French. (I actually read that on a casnav website!! How anyone in a country that goes on and on about how difficult the French language is and gets them learning their verbs at 7 and still doing dictées at 15 can think that 2 years is going to be enough to catch up is beyond me) or maybe the rectorat decided that three pupils wasn't enough for them to pay a FLE teacher. As I said before, we've gone up from 3 to 21 hours, but at the same time the other schools in the town have lost the same amount of hours.
Helping with homework is tough for French parents too, although they do have the advantage of understanding what the teacher is acutally talking about. I remember trying to help with a fiche de lecture, before my husband took over an explained that it is a very precise thing which has to follow certain rules. No-one had explained that to me. It's one of those "everybody knows" things that those of us who didn't go through the French system miss. Just try telling any class that you're going to do a correction. They all immediately get out green pens.
Emma; keep us updated
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I was sitting listening to a "what is happening to this country" type converstion last week. The main gist was that there are so many unsocial people you can't even feel safe in your own home, even taking the dog out for a walk is fraught with dangers. Quote" there are places where the police don't dare go. The law is decided by the people who live there. This is not a country I want to live in." This was a group of french people talking about France.
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Yes, I've heard of the casnav, I've come across it while doing internet searches trying to find some sort of help. The aix-marseille casnav site is next to useless (surprise!) but the strasbourg one is interesting. HLG here posted an interesting casnav/crdp site in bordeaux which had some useful stuff (particularly vocab sheets I've handed out ot my pupils) A lot of the casnav sites are typically "intellectual france", you can find of thrilling articles about how difficult it is to integrate ENAF's into your class and even why. But nothing about what you can concretely do to make things better for everyone. Are you still in the lyon academie? I'll have to have a look at their casnav site.
I just get so frustrated when you've got 7 non french speakers in one class of 4eme (used to be 8 but one left) with very varying levels of french and absolutely no help/advice. Everybody seems to think that feeding them loads of hours of FLE is all that's necessary. And somehow they are going to miraculously pick up all the other subjects and not get behind. There's one Armenian who's trying so hard, and follows well in class (not the grammar part obviously) but he can't do the homework because the workbook instructions are in French (new live) he's the one I'm translating the lesson ito german for. At least he can read and write.
Anything and everything you learn at your stages would be very interesting.
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As Tourangelle says, there is FLE (français langue étrangère) help in some schools but for budget reasons, it is only available in schools with several non-French speaking pupils. My collège has nearly 40 recently arrived non french speakers (for just under 500 pupils) so we have been allowed 21 hours of FLE. But we had to fight to get it up from 3 hours.
As a collège teacher (and fomer Prof P of 6eme) the first thing I would suggest is asking for an appt with the professeur principal. If you're not comfortable with using french, either ask a friend to come along to translate or ask if one of the English teaching staff could be present, as Lori suggested. When asking to meet the prof P, it would be a good idea to write a short note (not just fill in the demande de RV part of the carnet) explaining why you are coming in, so that he/she can check round with the other members of staff and check your daughter's primary dossier (it should have followed on) and her evaluation results. The important thing to find out is if she is struggling because of the language or because concentrating on learing the language in primary has put her behind in the other subject. or any other reason. Many pupils find the move from CM2 to 6eme difficult (even bright, french ones) it can easily take until christmas for some to settle.
Depending on what the prof p can tell you, you need to then ask what help the collège can give. Unfortunately, if it is purely with French and the collège doesn't have an allocation for FLE, then you probably won't get any help there. Most collèges offer aide aux devoirs after school during which surveillants or teachers (rare but possible) help pupils on a one to one system. As your daughter is in 6eme, she has the right to 2 hours of ATP (aide au travail personnalisé) per week. You will need to ask about that too.
Tourangelle, you had training on how to integrate ENAF's into your classes? ? Any info/tips/suggestions would be gratefully received. I'm a bit fed up with making it up as I go along (and translating my lessons into german)
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I wouldn't worry about it too much. I'm not sure that ES is particularly harder than L. I think this is more linked to the French mentality that L must be easy because it's "fuzzy subjects". Most French people consider that an intelligent pupil should automatically do S even if they prefer arts subjects. Legend says that S students put their heads down in 2nde and come up for breath after the bac. All my old pupils seem to have a social life regerdless of which filiere they are doing (except around bac time)
As a professeur principal in 3eme, I tell pupils who are definately science, arts or economy minded to take the logical filiere. For those who aren't too sure or who don't have a particular "strong side", I usually suggest ES. In S and L, the subjects are more uneven (things like 5 hours of maths and only 2 hours of language) In ES, apart from obviously having a lot of hours of economy, every subject is taught for about the same amount of hours. Looking at your list of subjects, I would say that ES is probably the most logical choice for you.
To be perfectly honest, unless your french is nearly fluent, you're not going to follow much in any of the filieres at first. I would use the time to concentrate on improving my French if I were you (and that definately includes having a social life)
This is my point of view from doing the orientation advice in collège. Other people here can tell you as parents who have seen their kids going through the different filieres or even from the point of view of lycée teachers
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Interesting. Bouches du rhone comes out 9th over all. It must be because we were top on "meteo" (I'd like to know what the criteria were- days of sunshine or days when you can actually go out of the house comfortably? i.e. not baking hot or mistral) We were waaay down on most other things, in particular securité (when we were 3rd bottom) situation social and prix du logement. Strangely enough, we were very high on soins but very low on santé.
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[quote user="Tourangelle"] since the beginning of the week, all I've heard is Madame, j'ai faim. [:@]
[/quote]Really? They sound like a whingy lot. Mine go through the whole thing stoically. No way am I not doing tests for a whole month and the question has never been asked in any of the schools I've worked in. It should get better next week, they get used to not eating.
I forgot to ask, did you get a decent mut'?
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On the I'm/ I am discussion. Both forms are taught in collège/lycée. At one point (many years ago) pupils only learnt the full form. The obvious problem being that when they actually came face to face with an English speaker, they didn't understand the contracted form. Then the idea swung the other way and only the contracted form was taught. This doesn't work either because the full form is still used in written English and a lot of English speakers tend to use it when they slow down to speak to a foreigner.
Now we teach both. It is important for pupils to understand where the apostrophe comes from and you can't explain that without using the full form. You also need to explain that the contracted form isn't obligatoy (many pupils assume that it is like the apostrophe in "J'ai". You can't say " Je ai" whereas "I am" is a perfectly acceptable form) I tell my pupils that the correct form is always "I am" but for ease English speakers contract it to "I'm" which is usual and acceptable in spoken English and in written English when you are writing speech. (most texts studied in school are dialogues)
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Sorry, I forgot to post a warning about the strike [:$]
I'm assuming the comments about english teachers are from the primary sector. As JonD says, it was one of the gov's bright ideas to introduce foreign langauge teacher for primary pupils. The idea was to start with the CM2, then the next year CM1 and CM2 and so on until you got to GS (I kid you not, youngest child in GS has just started English lessons) BUT the next gov realised that they just didn't have the staff to do it, so it became sort of "if it's at all possible" but not obligatory.
The recrutment order is supposed to go like this. First a teacher from the school who has the habiliation (this way the rectorat doesn't have to pay extra) . This is getting more and more difficult as more and more classes have the lessons. Next, a teacher from the local collège (they are paid extra but lose their free half day, so it's not easy to find one) next another person who has the habilitaion and lastly the first person of the street who is willing to do it. When I taught primary teachers at the IUFM 14 years ago, we had three levels of habilitaion, 1) can teach, 2) can assist an English teacher 3) shouldn't even be in the same room. Unfortunately, lack of money means that more and more primary teachers are being pressured into teaching English when they don't want to (or are capable of doing)
It's not really something to worry about. The level of English teaching is so varied that we start from the very beginning in 6eme with everyone. The only thing I can expect kids to know are the numbers (up to about 20) and colours. The rest I teach as new.
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Most of my pupils start ramadan at around 12/13, but it seems to be a personal choice here. We have a tiredness problem too, both children who will have partied all night and those who won't be eating anything all day. I have to say that most of them are very impressive, you wouldn't know they are fasting. The main problem is to do with PE lessons, especially swimming (many worry that they might swallow water by accident)
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I was amuised to see that M6 is showing a new series with Cyril Lignac. He was the one who did a series called "oui chef" based on a JO programme last year. This year he is going into school cantines and telling them where they have gone wrong. (sound familiar?) Of course, this being France he is more worried about making the meals varied and interesting than getting rid of the deep fat fryer. Apparently he had a few failures at first before he worked out what kids would actually try and eat. http://www.m6.fr/cms/display.jsp?id=p2_356250
A lot of French schools are served from a central cantine. The food is prepared there and delivered to the schools to be reheated. In our town, this is organised by an outside caterer for the primary schools (and for some unknown reason, my husband's collège) My school has its own chef who cooks from fresh. It's the CA who decides the budget and the menu but the chef makes all the difference. the one before was useless, she could calculated quantities and there always seemed to be a lot of tins in the bins out the back.
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A personal preference for "non homologué" because it was the first French album I ever bought way back in 1986.
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I tried vitamin B6 earlier this year and I've found that my secret chocolate stocks haven't gone down as fast as they usually do, so maybe it's having an effect. I also tried cutting down on the amount of wheat I ate and that seems to have an effect on bloating.
For whether or not the pill is reimbursed. it all depends on the age of the pill. The "first generation" pills were all put on the reimbursement list, but the more recent ones haven't been. So if you need a specific one or one with a lower doose, there's a good possibility that you will have to pay for it. But might not be frightening expensive even then.
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Beurk [+o(]
French perfume?
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