At the beginning of the year I had said that one of my goals was to inspire just one student to learn to enjoy English. Last week I had a Year 10 student ask to see me privately. At first I was worried as she had said that she had a problem with English but as it turns out she just needed some help with some work that she had to do because she was excluded that day. I had known from the first time I taught her that she was capable but it was when we worked one-to-one that I realised exactly how bright she is. Afterwards she asked when I was leaving because she would like to have some private lessons and she thought her parents would agree. She said that in the future she now aims to study in the US for 9 months which her parents have agreed to provided that her English skills are good enough. If she continues to work hard with it I have no doubt that she will be able to go and have no fear of communication issues. In a way she's not the typical overachiever. She can play up in class, she has been excluded from classes a few times but on a good day she tries extremely hard and she succeeds. She has also been extremely supportive of my French endeavors. Although I try to speak as much English as possible to the students, I sometimes end up speaking in French. In the moments, particularly at the beginning of the year, where I hesitated she was one of the students that would say 'Don't worry, you can speak French, we'll understand'. The great thing was, she's pretty popular. She's one of the key kids where if you win her round, you win the class round. She definitely was a student that made me feel at home at the school and helped me become more confident with speaking.
Another thing I'll strangely miss is singing with the school choir. I haven't done anything like that since I left school, though here we only really sing pop songs(some are in English though!). Even though my singing is kinda rusty I really feel that learning the French songs have really helped me improve my accent. By rehearsing with the kids and trying to make my voice and tone blend with theirs I can sort of mimic their accent. Another thing it has helped me develop is my leadership skills, as cliché as it sounds. Because I have some experience with singing, I help the music teacher with singing by learning the alto parts and helping the altos learn their part. I've also been teaching them the English songs and helping them with the pronunciation. On Monday I was actually thrown into singing the soprano and alto part of a Coldplay song alone to help teach the choir which made me kind of nervous but I went along with it and it wasn't so bad :)
Now that I know I'm leaving soon, I've begun to pack some things away. My family are coming to visit me this weekend and they are going to help me take some stuff back that I don't need so my wardrobe and drawers are beginning to look a little sparse. I'm eating through the foods in my cupboards and soon I'll be taking down all my posters and photos which I had pinned up to make the place look more like home. My brother will be turning eighteen this weekend so we can hopefully go for a nice meal. I'm looking forward to seeing my family as I haven't seen them since the Christmas holidays.
I've started reflecting upon everything that I've learnt and achieved here. Just a few days ago I managed to have successful conversation on the phone to SFR, something that would have never happened a few months ago. I've improved on budgeting, eaten some really delicious French food, learnt how to live alone as well as improving my French. Still, there's time to cram in a little more learning!
For now, I'll keep planning some fun lessons to say goodbye to the kids with.
ttfn x
PS: I forgot to mention that before the holidays, I went to see the D-Day landing beaches. Here's a few photos:
Omaha Beach
The American cemetery
The Commonwealth cemetery
