My First Day of School - Littré

I will be working 12 hours/week divided equally among 3 different collèges (equivalent to our grades 6-9) in the area. Each of them has around 700 students and a staff of 6 English teachers. My primary school is called Littré, named after a French philosopher from the 1800s according to the street sign, and is about a 5-minute walk from my apartment. They have decided to take advantage of the fact that they have an assistant for 4 hrs/week and have put me on a rotating schedule. Week 1 I see one set of 4 classes, then Week 2 I see a different set of 4 and then back to the Week 1 group. As if that wasn't enough, they've divided each class in half and I will see each half for half an hour. Whew! That's a mouthful! What it comes down to is that I will be working with around 200 students for a half an hour once every 2 weeks. It will be hard to put together lessons that will carry over 2 weeks, but its half the lessons that I need to prepare!
My first "first day" at Littré (since I will have 4) went rather well. The teacher had the students ask me questions in English. The kids were cute; the teacher, on the other hand, was kind of scary. She spent half the time yelling at the kids and went so far as to make one kid stand in the corner, something I've only seen done on TV! The students' crime? Laughing and giggling about their mistakes. I had to watch it as I found my self laughing along with them at times. They were funny. One poor kid got chewed out because he asked if I had a boyfriend. The previous question had been if I was married and considering that the kids were trying to think of something they knew how to say in English, it seemed to me to be a reasonable follow-up question. Not so to the teacher who reduced the child nearly to tears. Of course, this is the same teacher who called another child crazy and told me he had problems on multiple levels (in French) in front of the entire class. So much for not ridiculing kids in class! She's a really nice woman outside of the classroom, if a bit of a perfectionist; but I wouldn't want her for a teacher!
My second "first day"was much smoother. We used the same format as the first day but the environment was much more relaxed. The students were allowed to laugh and joke about their own mistakes. They were also allowed to ask more questions and I got everything from 'do you have a boyfried?' to 'do you prefer Bush or Kerry?' to 'do you like French wine?' I abstained from the political questions not wanting to start an international disaster. I found the students' responses to my answers to be interesting. I had one group Boo my list of favorite singers while another class cheered the same list. They'd never heard of Dave Matthews Band but were familiar with artists of lesser popularity in the States. They were also shocked to learn that we do not get French songs and TV shows in the US considering the number of American influences here. Students watch CSI, Dawson's Creek and Smallville and listen to Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake and Madonna. I think I'm going to be learning as much from the studetns as they will from me (if not more). I'm even learning the English language! One of the students had asked me, "have you got a pet?" Which I then repeated back as, "do I have a pet?" so that the students could hear my pronunciation. At which point the teacher informed me that 'have you got' was teh British way of saying it and because their text is based out of England, that's teh way they've been learning it. Oops! It'll be an interesting year. By the time I'm done, I'll be tri-lingual: American, French and English! :o)