Dear Dijon weather and chatty lyceens...

... please stop raining and be quiet (respectively)!

The weather here has been quite cold recently, although the shift this week from snow to rain has brought the temperature above freezing.  Annabelle and Paul were sick a week ago, and though I've been fighting it since then I have finally succumbed to sinus annoyances and a sore throat.

Prepubescent boy voice, anyone?

So what does a teaching assistant do when she has a sore throat?  Continue teaching, apparently; or at least that's what I did today. 

I woke up and could speak some, so I figured I should at least go in and give it a try.  These two last weeks before the holiday break, I'm doing a special type of lesson at HF with the secondes.  The students who scored highest on the most recent test are given to me to do a discussion activity while the other students review the test material.  If I hadn't shown up today, the teachers would have been overloaded, and the good students would have missed out on more advanced practice.

The first class went pretty well; when my voice broke a few times, I smiled along with the students because I sounded so ridiculous.  The second class started out pretty quiet, with only a few kids who would respond to questions.  However, soon after my introduction - including the "you need to listen carefully because I'm sick and can't speak loudly" bit - some of the students started chatting amongst themselves, and would not stop. 

Now, I don't really like quiet classes, but classes that chat in French are worse because it's counterproductive.  I'm sure you can imagine, if you haven't experienced it yourself, that trying to speak/read/listen in one language is much more difficult when there is a second language being spoken!  Léna, Quentin and Léa in particular would would not be quiet.  What is almost more frustrating is that they would occasionally participate in English , but then go right back to chatting.  If they happen to find this post and can understand it, good job kids, but you should have respected me and been quiet in class!

Anyway.  I told the three of them to be quiet, I told them specifically to be quiet because they were distracting, I called on them repeatedly to answer questions when they had obviously been chatting... and after each time they continued.  By this point it was severely distracting for me (and I'm sure the other students as well, though they didn't mind as much), and I was getting irritated.  This sort of thing happened at C a few weeks ago and I hadn't realized during the class period how I should react, and I didn't want to make the same mistake this time.  This time, my throat was paying for it. 

Quentin and Léna were the most disruptive, and Quentin was sitting between the two girls.  So finally I responded by saying, "Quentin, if I have to tell again to be quiet, I'm going to make you sit in the corner."  I knew there was a chance that he hadn't completely understood this warning, but I'd given him enough warnings already.  I singled him out partially because of his position (divide and conquer), but also with the hope that Léna would get the hint and not reply back to him.

So, inevitably, the next time he started talking to Léna in French: "Quentin, I told you to stop chatting.  You need to go sit in the corner."  At the confusion on his face, I walked over, took an extra chair, and placed it in the corner, facing away from the class.  Now he understood. 

After the chair was in place, he wanted another chance, but there was no way I was going to have that. "But I'm going to participate, I can say things..."  To be honest, I don't remember whether he was speaking in English or French.  At that point, I'd just had enough, and I wanted to make a point.

The rest of the class period was much more quiet - no more chatting!  Success.  But they were also quieter in general, understandably but unfortunately.  At the end of class I approached Quentin and told him that I'm happy when he speaks English - he's quite good, and he was participating in the beginning! - but that he has to stop speaking in French during class.  It was clear he knew he had misbehaved, and I hope he doesn't do it again.  Léna, who was often a co-conspirator, was off to the side and had a coy looking smile on her face as I talked to her friend.  Hopefully she understands that next time, she will also go sit in the corner. 

These students were supposed to be the good ones, argh.

So in conclusion, what was memorable today?  Confirming that both 5- and 15-year-olds understand that getting put in time-out  is bad, that's what!

I had to do something, and it worked, but now I'm second guessing whether it was the best way to handle the situation, or whether I should have made Léna sit separately as well (there wasn't another easy corner, though).  Thoughts?  I learned after class (of course after class...) that detention does exist here, and I could have just given him/them detentions.  Well, now I have an alternative the next time someone chats to that excess.  But if they want to behave and chat like 5-year-olds, I'm tempted to treat them like 5-year-olds until they realize that I expect them to pay attention and participate.

Whew.  Here's hoping Thursday doesn't require a repeat performance.

p.s. - as I was writing this post, Taigne fell asleep in my lap.  Awwww...