Okay... I know. I stink at this whole "regular updates" thing. Je suis très désolée! But the past month of being back in Paris has been very busy and very exciting! As such, I'll do my best to rapid fire a few posts on what we've been up to now that I'm officially a Visa-toting resident of France!
I guess the first point of interest would be that I found a job! I'll back up a bit to tell the story...
After being in the US for the New Year, I arrived in France on a Thursday at the end of January and spent that weekend chilling out with Paul and readjusting to la vie française. When Monday morning rolled around, I was still hanging out in my pajamas, contemplating where and how to begin my job search when Hark! My telephone was ringing! I was surprised and very pleased when I realized it was the woman who runs an English-speaking babysitting agency here in Paris. I had interviewed with her in October, but since I did not yet have a working Visa at that time, she couldn't assign me to a family. Now there I was, having only been in France and able to work for two business days, and someone was calling to offer me a job! Not bad!!
Since then, I've been babysitting a little girl who is four years old and whose parents want her to learn English. I pick her up at school 4 days per week, bring her home, give her a bath, and all the while I speak English to her. In total it's about 2 hours per day.
To be completely honest, I'm not 100% convinced this method for teaching your child English is completely effective. Or, what might be more to the point, it might be very effective, but it will drive the babysitter and the child crazy for a while! I'm only supposed to speak English to the little girl. Absolutely, 100% of the time, all English, no French. This is to encourage her to work hard on her English skills. If she has to speak English for me to understand, she will, right?
This totally makes sense... except the only vocabulary the little girl knows in English are the colors and animals. If I need her to act like a snake and play around making a "sssssssss" sound -- no problem. (It's kind of weird... she really likes snakes!) However, when I'm trying to, you know, explain why she can't have another piece of candy, or why she needs to stop coloring and take her bath, this becomes a problem. Thus, I caved and explained some of these things in French. (Though I have to say, she learned the word "candy" quickly. She also started throwing "please" around all the time when she realized it was necessary to say that before she could have said candy).
Aside from the logistical issues of the language barrier, it's actually impressive to see how quickly she learns English at such a young age. As we walk to the bus stop every day, I point at the cars and she tells me what color they are. (This gets complicated when the white cars are dirty and look beige, and the silver-gray line is a bit tough to define. We manage, though). I also realized that I say "good job!" a lot, because occasionally she will take our flash cards from me and begin to quiz me on words, and she always says "good job!" Also, when I tell her she's a good girl, she says, "No! Good JOB!" Yes okay... that too. Right now I'm trying to work on things like "cold" and "thirsty," but what really happens is she speaks to me in French and I respond in English. Quite often she gets testy when I encourage her to say the word in English, and with things like "cold," I certainly don't want to let her remain too cold outside while I give her an English lesson.
A couple other fun anecdotes: Don't try to sing the alphabet in English to a kid who is just learning it in French. She approaches melt-down levels when I try to explain to her that "e" in English is pronounced like "i" in French. Can not compute! Abort! Abort! Since the first week I've avoided the alphabet all together. Also, it's the funniest thing when I tell her a word in English, and she looks at me as if to say, "How could you possibly be that stupid," and repeats it to me in French over and over again. I think she hopes that some day I'll learn. Who knows... maybe someday I will. Until then, we're teaching each other quite a few things!
PS- Sorry no pictures with this one... I'll make up for it in the next few!
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