Jeudi

Thursdays are my busiest days. I have four hours of classes in the morning, two at night and sometimes a half-hour phone lesson in between. That's a lot in one day.

My first three students are 4.0 plus - that's way up there. We usually just shoot the shit, talk about current events here in France, Chirac, Villepin, nuclear energy, do people that smoke or drink deserve the same healthcare as everyone else... that kind of thing. Sometimes I'll throw in a little grammar, comparative and superlative adjectives, phrasal verbs, past simple vs. present perfect simple.

My second three students range from 1.0 to 2.0 - that's really low. How many times do you have tell somebody it's 'twelve' not 'twelven' before they get it. These guys need a lot of repetition.

For the phone lessons we generally do role plays. For example, 'You work for a company in South Africa. You recently placed an order for 250 chickens, but you received 250 turkeys (which you don't want) instead. Call your supplier to find out what the problem is and how they're going to fix it'. It's very amusing.

My night class consists of eight students. Their levels are all mid to high 2's. The big problem here is that everybody works during the day, so by the time they roll in they're all too bagged to try and speak English (me included). But I somehow manage to keep them entertained. At least I think so... it's hard to tell with the French. This is usually the class where I catch myself being an English teacher, and that's just wacked.

Anyway, I'm tired and tomorrow we are going to London for four days.

PS- I had to look up how to spell 'repetition'.