New semester, new students

Week one of semester two is over and done, and I have met my lovely new students in French.  Having just finished exams it's nice to start fresh and get a new bunch of recruits in.  I have a nice group it seems and I'm looking forward to getting them going as they seem pretty keen.  I'll admit that on day three with them I had the overwhelming sense of "holy crap, how am I going to get them through all of this?".  I like to start speaking as much french as I can from the outset, which means lots of blank stares when I say "Sortez une feuille de papier" etc, and it always feels a little scary.  I don't think that I'm the only teacher who gets a bit nervous when the new semester or school year starts, but sometimes it's nice just to acknowledge that it's hard to believe that I do what I do for a living and that so far have survived the first week jitters again.  I think it keeps me on my toes too, which isn't a bad thing!

On commence!

A bit of background:  I'm a teacher at a smallish high school in British Columbia.  I am relatively new to the profession and have been a keen blog-reader for a while now.  Most of the blogs I follow had been about my hobbies and interests, but in the past year I've started reading a few other teacher blogs and have been inspired to start one of my own.  I teach math and science and french.  There are more than a few math teachers blogging out there who write insightful, interesting and funny blogs, but I had yet to find any similarly interesting blogs about teaching modern languages.  So I have decided to jump in to blogging with hopes of filling in the gap a little!

My goal is to blog about teaching a modern language in this new era of web 2.0/technology/smartphones.  There may be some interludes to discuss the state of teaching in the public system today too.  Being a french teacher, there will be some posts in french, and about french language and culture.  I hope to integrate some web 2.0 tools into my teaching bag this year and look forward to hearing feedback from other teachers about integrating technology in the modern language classroom.

Alors, commençons!