First Day at School

Actually, my first day at Athenee Royal Lucie Dejardin (sorry, I don't know how to do the accents on my laptop yet) was yesterday but there were no students there.  The buildings are reasonably modern and made of concrete blocks. There are over 500 students at the school.

The main teacher that I will be working with is called Daniel. He is very enthusiastic about teaching and his students, and I liked him straightaway. He has been teaching for many years, although in a former life he was a politician! He teaches academic and business English to senior students. He himself speaks excellent English. I was in two of his classes today.

This was the first full day for most students and it was interesting to see how he set up his classes. Unlike most of the other classrooms, he has decorated his walls with maps and posters. The other classrooms have bare grey concrete block walls. Daniel uses an interactive whiteboard (there are only a few in the school) and showed the students in his business English class the All Blacks doing the haka after introducing me. I hope they don't think I will be so fierce!!

 In the academic class, they were revising some question structures, so I suggested that they ask me some questions. The first question was 'Where were you when they had the earthquake in Christchurch?' Very impressive, eh? It turned out this boy is actually repeating the course even though he passed it last year because you must pass all of the classes to go to the next year. He is very capable but is not catered for in all of his classes, so he becomes bored and doesn't do anything.

By the way, the second question was 'How old are you?' As good luck would have it, the bell rang at this exact moment so I have left them in suspense until tomorrow!

Yesterday, I was introduced to most of the staff and they were very welcoming. I had lunch in the school canteen: le boulet et des frites -a meatball with gravy and apple sauce  and chips.  Apparently it is a traditional Liegeois dish. It was delicious. (Better watch out that I don't turn into a little meatball!) I also had salad and fruit and water. I could also have had soup. The teachers and students can get a hot meal or a sandwich every day except Wednesday because on Wednesday afternoon there is no school!

This brings me to the teaching load. The school day is from 8.15 - 4.10. Teachers teach 18-22 50 minute periods and when they are not teaching, they can be at home. Some days they might start in the afternoon or teach only in the morning. There is no duty slot and they do not have to take any extra- curricular activities. Food for thought indeed.