My High School Beginners' French Class

Of three classes that I took over for student teaching, the one that terrified me the most was the High School beginners’ class. It is a class of nine boys, whose ages range from fourteen to seventeen and, as one might imagine, they are not very enthusiastic about French class. Of these nine boys, there are three Americans (two of whom happen to be the US ambassador’s sons), two American-Guinean boys, an Australian, an Indian, one Lebanese, and one Swede.

When I was observing the class in the two weeks before I began teaching them, behavior problems were a constant issue. They were always blurting things out in English and talking to one another from across the room. Half of them never did homework. Two of them were really having a hard time understanding the material and one was quite frankly insolent. The only one of the bunch that was a truly serious student was the Swede. I was really worried that these boys would eat me alive.

In spite of my anxiety, I was really comfortable with the class by the second lesson. I realized that I had two advantages over my cooperating teacher. First of all, I am young male in a class full of teenage boys. This means that I can make jokes and use unorthodox methods of inciting French conversations. For example, when I used a Power Point featuring photos of famous people to teach a lesson using adjectives to describe people, I inserted a photo of the president of Senegal posing with Paris Hilton. When I asked the kids to describe Paris Hilton, it sparked a ten minute long debate about whether or not she is attractive and intelligent. If there were girls in the class, I wouldn’t have allowed the conversation to continue, but the boys were actually excited about speaking French, and as long as no one’s feelings were being hurt, I saw no reason to stop the debate. Afterwards, the classroom teacher said it was the first time she had ever seen them so eager to participate in a discussion. Another advantage to being a young male is that the kids are curious about my life, so when I used another slide show to show pictures of my family, they were truly interested and asked a lot of questions. In other words, I think they feel like they can relate to me to a certain extent.

The second advantage I have is that I coached three of them during the soccer season and I formed a good relationship with them. This, I think, helps to keep their attitudes in check. It also helps that unlike my cooperating teacher, I don’t pretend not to speak English, and on more than one occasion I’ve held kids after class to discipline them in my native tongue. Somehow, when I speak English they realize that I’m pretty serious.

Of course, my approach does have the potential to backfire. First of all, because the kids know that I speak English, they get more frustrated with me when I refuse to explain something in English. One of them insists on speaking English to me. In order to make a sort of compromise with the class, I’ve told them that they could speak to me in English after class; even if they’re getting extra help. The next potential problem is the possibility of conversation becoming inappropriate. That whole Paris Hilton business could have gotten out of hand. In order to avoid this, I need to find ways to remind the kids that just because I am young and like to joke around, I’m not their “buddy”.

I also make it a point to engage the Swedish boy. His level is already well above that of his classmates and he has many questions—some are about grammar and others are about my traveling experiences in the region. For instance, he knew that I used to use the public buses (most Westerners don’t dare to) and he wanted to know where he could catch one, how to pay, where to get out, etc. He also wanted know about taking a bus to Bamako (which I did and will never do again). The idea is that, though I have to slow the speed of the lessons down in order to make sure everyone understands the material, I do everything I can to keep the overachiever in the class from getting bored.