explosive spring

After England's subtle palette, France is an assault on the senses: soaring temperatures stimulate psychedelically green pastures and a mist of green as the trees begin to come into leaf. In the garden flower power bursts through.

Yet 8 degrees, and more snow in the mountains, is forecast...

vision-board evening

Rebecca's

Emma's

Kelli's

Thanks, Kelli and Emma, for making this happen and sharing a lovely evening.

a cold, grey spring in the mother country

Part 2 of Bill Palmer's shiatsu course was my excuse for a week in the UK.

At B on Avon all was well. We had our usual food-management debate (Dad had to use a chisel and hammer to blast a wizened lime in two and even then Mum's protests were such that I returned it to the fruit bowl!)

Stourhead was looking wintry dour, but put on a spectacular show of daffs:

Dad powered on ahead of me, as he always has:

... while Mum contemplated the trees...

Back at Sandy Leaze Mum and I had good times playing the Beethoven violin sonata that we had been working on, independently, and Dad and I had fun with his recorder sonatas. I got to see Buff and Olly, too. So a great visit. Thank you, dear family.

Big Bad Berlitz post 1

I've kept quiet on this subject as it causes me all manner of anguish. But some blogging is overdue - Berlitz can represent up to 3 days of my week, after all. I need to write or go completely nuts with it.

So the short story is: I started with Berlitz in November 2009, since when all the financial incentives used to get me to sign up have been removed. Last March I stepped down from my Lead Instructional Supervisor role, which I found an organisational nightmare. I am now an "ordinary" teacher. Earning just 8 euros an hour before tax doesn't sit well (on a day when I only have 1.5 hours of teaching I can even lose money because of the cost of getting to work); and the terms and conditions are execrable, with a need to keep myself available for lessons that can be cancelled as late as 18.30 the night before. But the health insurance and little salary are seductive. And, above all, the contact with students, some of whom I get to know very well, is rewarding. I've become good at the "Berlitz method" and this gives me the freedom to be myself during lessons. Students like my style and have a positive experience of learning English. If I can keep the dragons at bay it's worth it, and the "routine" - headbashing though it can be - gives me a sense of purpose and stability.

Now the long version...

It takes either a certain kind of nerdiness, or an ironic sense of humour, to settle into the Berlitz method. Once taught, new material is practiced via a sequence of questions ("Yes", "No", "Or" and "Key"). For the Method to be successful students have to "let go" and allow me to take them over hill and dale, repeating new language and structures in different ways, tenses, contexts - that can be real or as silly as I'm feeling. 

So, for "yourself/myself", it could be: Do you drive to work yourself? ... do your English homework yourself? ... brush your teeth yourself?

It requires trust and hard work, and some students don't take to it. They may have well-established coping strategies, using a mixture of pidgin English and body language, and a vocabulary level that is way ahead of their syntax and grammar. These students are usually very smart, and find the business of submitting to the Method, a woman, a foreigner a bit of an ask. This is a disaster for me (and them). I end up embarrassed or bored by the material and look for opporunities to go off piste. This in itself isn't a problem - the Method can be applied to any piece of text. But I have to be on the ball, and choose the text carefully. 

Last week, with Farid (learning English prior to relocating to Beijing in July), on an impulse I went with his interest in English song lyrics. Fatal. Printing off the lyrics for Simon and Garfunkel's "The Boxer" I found myself teaching "squandered my resistance with a pocketful of mumbles, such as promises...." hmm. Squandered? pocketful? mumbles? such are? And that was before we got to "I got no offers, just a come-on from the whores on 7th Avenue. I do declare, there were times when I was so lonesome I took some comfort there. La la la la". La la la la, indeed. Farid got to learn "come-on" and "whore" (but I didn't push it to the nth degree - Does Mr Bennet take comfort from whores? Do you take comfort from whores? Do you take comfort from whores or chocolate? Why do you take comfort from whores? Great.

bons citoyens

We know it's spring because it's Vaulnavey-le-Bas' annual clean-up operation. With just a little arm-twisting Juan joined the team...

who are those two foreigners skulking at the back?

... the mayor, a handful of mairie employees and three or four eco do-gooders like us. Whilst the majority opted for picking up beer cans along the main road we chose the big stuff - diving into our local wood and hauling out a prodigious quantity of long-buried plastic, tyres and metal. An edgy business - what might we disturb under those piles of decaying synthetics? Luckily just a surprised salamander. A very worthy and satisfying morning. Vive la solidarité.

"Putain!" expletes our mayor.

spoilt brats at Chamrousse

Despite fears of a Bank Holiday Monday skiing crush, we had a fabulous time - enjoying the first sun in five days.