Finals

We're all just going to pretend I wrote this two weeks ago. Cool? Cool.

It feels, in some ways, like I'm still in college. I spend a lot of my time hanging out with cool people my age, I spend overall very little time at school, there's some French in there somewhere, and I still have that good (bad) old end-of-semester crunch. The only difference now is that I'm the one making, giving, and grading the tests instead of simply studying for and taking them.

So, yes, I had to take care of everything involved with giving each of my 8 sections a test. There was a lot of overlap in subject matter... most everybody had to label basic parts of the body and a few had to match feelings to drawings (like sleepy or happy, which they often pronounce "appy"). My more advanced classes did days of the week, directions (N, S, E, W, etc.) with U.S. cities, and American money (e.g., "A penny is worth one cent."). There was an oral exam as well... My oldest class had to (one at a time) make small sums with actual American coins. Everyone else had to come out into the hallway (one at a time) and answer the four questions:

1.) Why is this night different from all other nights?
2.) Why do we have to eat matzoh for the next week solid?
3.) What are bitter herbs?
4.) Should we use blue pen, black pen, grey pencil, or colored pencil, and should we write in cursive or print?

Ha. Not really. But they actually ask me permutations of #4 all the time. For more details, go back to this entry.

They actually had to answer:

1.) What is your name?
2.) How old are you?
3.) Where do you live?
4.) How are you?

My oldest class had to use actual American coins to make a few small sums (6 cents, 35 cents, etc.).

...The results were pretty widespread, which made me more than a little nervous about my teaching ability, the merit of my tests, and other such things. But a handful of kids did very well, and one or two teachers told me the results were consistent with their expectations.

I should also note that grades in France don't necessarily follow the same expectations as grades in the States. In the U.S., the goal is generally 100%, because unless your teacher is a jerk (or makes the test unclear/too long), everything on the test has theoretically been covered in class. In France, however, the assumption is less strict. I've heard that, to some teachers in France, kids who get a C (or equivalent) are doing just fine.

Another example: before I started taking French university classes two years ago, I was told that, to get 18, 19, or 20 (out of 20), you basically had to be smarter than the professor, and they had to admit it.

I hope that's the case. My French is good now, but I started at age 5 and I sucked at it for a good ten or twelve years. So, I hope the grades aren't as big a thing, 'cause learning a foreign language takes a long time even with good teachers like mine.

The other heartening part of this whole testing thing was the wonderful new batch of English mistakes. Of these, the greatest hits can be found here.

So, all in all the whole process went well, even if it's the reason I'm so behind on blogging. I think I'll try motivating myself to test them more often this time so I can focus on just one or two subjects per test. I'd also like for their trimester grades to depend on more than just one exam. I'm still learning their 150+ names, though, so we'll see how that goes.

Happy 2012, everyone. With any luck, there shall be many more French adventures ("adFRENCHures?") to come.

-Andy