Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Sorbonne Confidential

I feel like this book is my life in France. Rejection for my life's work... It's so backward, the states may have a lazy attitude towards learning languages, in fact clearly we see very little need to be bilingual- and it's to our own detriment, we will lose in the long run. But Europe knows that learning English is important if not essential, so it's required, but why does France stock it's English teachers with non-native speakers whose sole qualification is passing a super duper hard test/oral that has absolutely zero reference on whether the taker is fluent in English(or other subjects) or has any aptitude for teaching.

Teaching and education is my downright passion, I get worked up about it like nobody I know. France pisses me off. America's education fails in so SO many ways, but we don't go at it with an ass backward arrogance about language, tradition, and in this case protectionism. If you can't speak English, then you sure as hell, aren't going to be able to teach it...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Yep. The whole CAPES thing is insane. I taught at an IUFM and the whole system was riduculous. All those who showed any aptitude in teaching didn't get through the overly academic exam. Although once you do pass the CAPES, they do care about your accent at least. I mentored one student who was sent off to Malta to get rid of hers. Yep, Malta.

Sorry to hear you didn't get to be a Language Assistant. I did that twice and it was fun. It was before I qualified properly though. You might want to try the academies (regional education boards) directly at the end of September, there's always some assistants who don't show and they do employ locally in that case, I have a friend who did that. Have you tried any of the private schools? They're outside government jurisdiction so may employ you without the CAPES.

Nat in Vina del Mar (thanks again for the yoga tip, I have yet to go in search, but I will!)