Vanessa's Blog

So it’s the official countdown to the end of the Leonardo Project in St.Raphael and it has been one of my BEST experiences ever!!! To try and explain to you just how enriching this month has been, would be impossible however, I will sum up for you just how fascinating, inspiring and unforgettable this past month has been!!! When we first got told that night that literally the next day we would be teaching, I did almost have a mini cry to myself out of fear! But. I remembered just how much preparation we had prior to coming to Nice from Michael and all the other fantastic teachers at Denbigh, and also the reassuring faces of Gemma and Christophe and for a moment my fear subsided and was replaced with anticipation and excitement to meet all these new faces at my school and who I would be seeing for the next month….!! Institute Stanislas is a Private Catholic school almost in the middle of nowhere, in St.Raphael. Absolutely lovely school, the kids were polite and the teachers were accommodating and friendly. I managed to embarrass myself slightly when the headmaster welcomed me in French by saying “Bienvenue” (which means “welcome”) I ridiculously replied “bienvenue” that was followed by a strange look by the headmaster who probably couldn’t figure out why I had welcomed him to his own school…good start?! However it did get much better from there, I was introduced to Cathy (she was the teacher of Years 8,10,11,12 and 13) who helped settle me into the school and introduced me to all the students I was teaching. The first week was more of an observational week, where Cathy wanted me to basically assist her with the class, get to know the students, let them get used to me, observe the way she teaches and follow suit from then, which was fine, although I was keen to just get stuck in! I did notice though, how heavily they relied on text books and workbooks and initially I was thinking OH NO! how am I going to do the desert Island game if all they ever do is gap fill exercises about “Michelle who’s lost her dog!” (that actually was one of the topics!) But, now that I look back at it, I am really glad that everything I expected that I was going to do with the students didn’t actually work out that way because it really put me to the test to show what I had learnt and the tips I had picked up from the pre training and then adapt them to the workbooks. It made me dig deeper into the exercises that were presented in the text book and really think of ways to make them better. The younger students were very keen to play games such as the verb table, when they were learning about the present continuous and the older students were just as happy to participate in games such as the Desert Island game when learning about debates, which just goes to show how versatile these activities are and not only are they fun and interesting but they also get the students talking English, which is a major accomplishment!! I have two more days left of teaching and I feel like I could do this forever! Its been exciting, rewarding, challenging at times but even when it has been a little bit tough, such as shy students who don’t want to speak during a speaking activity! Or Very noisy 17 year olds who have SO much energy, I have always been able to face the challenge head on, doesn’t mean that it all went perfectly well at those times but, when faced with the same challenge I knew how to deal with it head on! (also the fact that the school has a policy of 4hr detention if you misbehave did help a lot I must admit) Would absolutely recommend the Leonardo Project to anybody interested, it will be something you remember for life! Vanessa