1st week of Classes at Gymnase Jean Sturm

Monday:  On Monday with my new mentor teacher! Our lovely coordinator, Julia, is from Germany so this was her first time going to the high school, so we toured the city for a bit looking for the building. I also got to go to the Elementary school that feeds into the high school I am working in. The Elementary was very big. The students get a 2 hour lunch break, where many students go home, and two 15 minute recesses. The Elementary students are already studying wars, comparing rebellions, and reading Romeo and Juliet in 3^rd and 4^th grade!!!

**The bilingual program allows students to take many classes taught in English. The students will sometimes take their regular French history or literature class and then they will take a similar class in English. She tries to match up the History lessons with the French teachers so that the students can understand the content and focus more on reading/writing/speaking English.

Tuesday:

·         World History 8^th Grade- (10 Students) The students went over Slavery , mainly slavery in America, but they also looked into the slave trade and the American Civil War. The students can read very well; you can however notice the range of speaking abilities, many students have been taking English classes since Elementary school, or they have English spoken at home and in the 8^th grade those influences really play apart in how often and fluently they speak. Many speak with British Accents because that is the pronunciation that is taught in European schools.

o   They had some problems with the meaning of the word trifling and pronounced Peter as (pet- her)

o   The students are assigned homework, but only small amounts and our teacher is very lenient when it comes to grades because she knows their French courses are harder and more demanding than hers.

·         World History 9^th Grade- (6 Students)- Students were assigned a country to focus on for a WWII research paper. (France, England, USA, Japan, Germany) The students have prior knowledge about the content because of their French History Classes. One of the students was born in Brazil and has previously lived in Spain and America. So she was working on being fluent in Spanish, English, French and Portuguese. The students all take turns reading out loud from articles provided by a British school publication. These articles are geared to be like the articles on the Baccalaureate test that they will be taking.  

o   A few of my students were quoting a ASDF YouTube video and I was really excited to be able to talk to them about something outside of school!

·         Individual Development (PSYCOLOGY) 11^th Grade- (11 Students)- The older students don’t ask us as many questions and spend a lot more time whispering in French to each other during class. My mentor teacher handed back their book reviews. Every trimester they are supposed to read a book and do a huge report on it. The students looked at their errors and asked questions. They did really well and my teacher is impressed with them. The papers and all assignments only go up to the maximum of 20 pts. Not 100 or more like the US. (Grade inflation cure??)

o   The class is called Individual Development because the country of France gets thrown off by the word Psychology because they immediately only think about Freud.

·         Sociology- 10^th Grade- (8 students)- These students were working on a research project so they were researching articles on the internet. These students answered our questions and they were really helpful and liked talking to John and me.

o   There were 2 Canadian girls in this class. The first semester 2 French girls went and studied abroad and when they came back they brought the Canadian girls that they were living with, It is a really nice exchange program so at least the Canadian girls knew someone when they came over.

·         Language Arts and Literature 9^th grade (same students as earlier in the day)- They are reading ANIMAL FARM!!!! J YAY! They listened to a George Orwell podcast (died in 1950 tuberculosis. Then the students took over the class and looked up descriptions of all the main animal/characters in the story. One wrote the students comments about the character on the board and then looked up more information to tell the class.

o   The students here are extremely organized. They write in their agendas without being told to and without the risk of them being checked. They know when all assignments are due and are very on top of things.

Wednesday: NO SCHOOL (ONLY OPTIONAL MORNING CLASSES FOR SOME)

Thursday:

·         Sociology- 10^th Graders- The students looked into Peer vs. Parental influence on a human’s development and the mass media influences on teens. They did a lot of vocab, reading, and speaking developments. Reading all of the documents out loud and discussing as they went. Watched a YouTube video on the Bobo doll Bandura experiment

o   The girls took a lot of notes but the 2 boys didn’t

·         Exploring Internationalisms 11^th graders- My teacher really understands when students have lots of projects, tests, or assignments. The due dates for all of the English assignments are discussed and agreed on. Students watched their presentations that they did in class. So they presented and were filmed and then watched the videos again. They engaged in self critiques that my teacher took notes on for their grades, and then

the other students offered suggestions, compliments or critiques.

o   The older students have thicker accents but speak English very well. They are the guinea pigs of the Franklin Programs and are the first set of 11^th graders and soon to be 12^th graders.

Friday:

·         Exploring Internationalism 10^th Grade- Student continued looking up their topics of research. The computers take forever to turn on; so the students spent most of the class chatting and waiting to get started.

o   One group of students is doing a placed based assignment because they are looking for locations in Strasbourg to put a skate park. (lots of kids ride skateboards here)

·         English/ Language Arts 9^th Graders- Students had a small quiz. They read the story out loud and discussed as they went.

o   When she handed their essays back the students actually looked at their errors, not just their grade! This is huge for me because one of the reasons I did Student-teacher writing conferences was because many students don’t look at or know how to fix their errors.

o   My teacher also gives them multiple options for their future essay topics. The students love it because in their normal classes they don’t have a lot of choices.

It is awesome that John and I get to see History, Psychology, Sociology and Literature/ Language Arts classes during this trip! It is the perfect mix for our English and History Education majors.