On the Triumphs and Defeats of Teaching English

As noted in the previous entry, this month has really been dominated by work - teaching English classes and conducting group interviews in English of first- and third-year university students. Some of these interviews get very repetitive (the first-year ones were all about studying abroad until recently when the groups began their second interviews) and, thus, very boring and uninteresting. Sometimes, we have to find amusement wherever we can and to that end, we'd like to share with you some of the more amusing examples of bad English that our students have written. We would also like to share with you our commentary. This is written/compiled by both of us.


From an essay written by Aaron's first-year law students on the differences between American/British universities and French ones:

• “I motivate to go and study in American or British universities because I can learn speak english and for today it’s interessant to speak two languages for instance english and french,”
• Hopefully this person didn't mean that it's interesting to speak two languages at once, which is what it appears he's doing in this sentence. (AWW)

• “For exemple for entry at Harvard, first university in the world, you must paid 50,000 dollards.”
• The dollards, a form of currency perhaps used by the Lollards, a sect from the 1300s. (LSB)

• “They are many advantages to study in America; teachers are the best due to big salaries, campus is like a small town with climbing walls for example, technology is very impressive and the level in the most big universities can help students to find their futur job with best degrees.”
• My small town doesn't have a climbing wall. Also, I'd like to see that big salary and that job. (LSB)

• “Who never heard anything about Havard, Yale or Princeton? Nobody do not.”
• This just makes me giggle. Every time. (LSB)

• “American universities are the most prestigious universities although the world.”
• Although the world disagrees? Although the world does not understand them? So many possibilities... (LSB)

• “But this type of universities don’t enjoy me because if you have money, you can go in this universities, but if you haven’t money, you must work more and more to deserve to be in, moreover sometimes athletes who are performant have their places in this universities just to be the angular stone of sport’s coach of universities.”
• I've always liked angular stones. (LSB)
• Also, I didn't know that a college athlete can simultaneously be an angular stone and a coach. (AWW)

• “Some private universities like Harvard or Darthmout (Columbia, Princeton) are fees up $22,000 per year.”
• Apparently, it's not Dartmouth, but Darthmout. Perhaps it was founded by Darth Vader's lesser-known brother, Darth Mout. (AWW)

From Lisa's classes of business students after asking for their definitions of the "American Dream:"

• "Owning a big house in suburbs, a big car or a fast car, a blonde woman with huge fake nipples, and a home cinema, and a good lawyer."
• And I always thought it was only big cars that counted... (LSB)

• "The american dream is to have one wife, a house, two dogs, three kids, plenty of money, and being able to shout home sweet home when coming back after work. The newer version would be to be rich, popular, famous? But not including the house anymore. (Rock Star like)"
• Only one wife?  Man, I was hoping to have two. (LSB)

• "The famous version of the American Dream is to going from rats to riches."

• "Basically, the american dream is to reach the top, starting from scratches."

• "One version was to buy a house and to live inside with your family for a very long time."
• I can picture this one: "Hey Joe, look at this great house I just bought. My family and I live in a tent in the back yard, though." "Oh. Do you ever go inside the house?" "Yes, to use the bathroom, but we don't live inside it." "Wow, you're not living the American Dream." (AWW)

About Religion in America (from Lisa's business school students):

• "It was surprising for french student, for who God is not, most of the time, a source of hopping."
• For French students, and for many Americans, there is little difference between God and the Easter Bunny (or God and Santa Claus for that matter). (LSB)

• "It seems that God is a lot more powerful in the US than anywhere else, for, as I've seen it, he can help you not only for your life after death but also help your team wins a football game, and a bunch of other stuff (winning the election, kicking the mexicans out of this holy land)..."

Le Mont Saint Michel

The Abbey

The last few weeks have been very busy with work, job applications, and (to a much smaller extent) personal research project(s), meaning that 1) we haven't been going to cool places or doing much that's terribly interesting and worth blogging about and 2) we haven't had much time to write about what we have been doing. So here's a long overdue entry about our day-trip to Mont Saint-Michel two weeks ago. 

View of the mainland from the
ramparts, now with silt!

First, if you've seen any pictures of France beyond the standard ones of Paris (the Eiffel Tower, Champes Elysees, Notre Dame, etc.), you've probably seen a picture of Mont Saint-Michel, although you may not have realized it. (Here's a good picture of it, courtesy of Wikipedia.) It's a medieval abbey built on a rocky island just off the coast of Normandy in the English Channel at the mouth of a river. Historically, when the tide came in, the island was cut off from the mainland (although a causeway was built in 1879 allowing permanent access to the abbey). It was a monastery and a pilgrimage site through the Middle Ages, but by the time of the French Revolution, very few monks lived there. The abbey was closed and turned into a state prison, but by 1836, a campaign had begun to restore the monastery (Victor Hugo, author of The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables was one of the campaign's leaders). The prison was closed in 1863 and the site was declared a historical monument in 1874. In the last hundred years or so (especially after the construction of the causeway), the strait between the island the mainland has begun to silt up. Right now, the French government is engaged in a massive construction project to remove the silt and replace the causeway with a kind of floating bridge, in the process allowing the river to flush out the silt and allow the island to again be completely surrounded by water at high tide.

A view of the street from the ramparts.

For the next few months, the regional bus company is running a special deal: round-trip tickets from Rennes to Mont Saint-Michel for only 10 euros, so we took advantage of that. Unfortunately, we weren't the only ones traveling there that day. Our bus was full of Japanese and Spanish tourists and there were even more tourists already at the site. (For the record, about 3 million people a year visit the abbey, so I guess this was just a normal day for that!) What that meant for us is that we didn't even bother trying to get into the abbey; the line was too long. However, there's a little town built at the foot of the abbey at the base of the island, and we spent our afternoon walking around there.

Saint Michael in the parish church.

The parish cemetery.

The town is built in a couple of small semi-circles of different heights around the base of the mount. There's only one, very steep street winding around the side of the island with shops and restaurants on either side. We walked around the ramparts of the city, getting some nice views of the mainland and of the bay. We also walked along the street, doing some shopping, having a bit of ice cream, and trying to dodge some of the many other tourists. We also visited the small parish church and its attached cemetery. Essentially, we walked/climbed any part of the island we could get to that wasn't the abbey itself (although we saw plenty of the outside of the abbey since it dominates the whole island). It was a lovely afternoon and we got quite a work-out climbing up and down the street!

The side of the abbey through
an arrow slit in the ramparts.

We've decided that we're going to go back in December, during the week off we have between the end of classes and the time we leave to return to the US. Lisa's thinking of it as a kind of Advent retreat, because our plan is to spend the night at one of the several small hotels actually on the island (there are several other, chain-like hotels on the mainland), go to the evening church service at the parish church, wake up early the next morning and go to the morning service in the abbey (there has been a community of monks in residence since 2001). We can then visit the main part of the abbey itself (which opens at 9:30) before the buses of tourists start to arrive! We hope at that point to have more pictures and better stories to share about Mont Saint-Michel.

(PS This says it was posted by Lisa (me).  I did the arranging of the photos, but Aaron did the writing. Remember, you can always click on the pictures to see them larger!)

A Welcoming French Weekend

France is a walk in the park.

What's more welcoming than a goat?

Last weekend, we attended two (very different) welcoming events. On Saturday morning, we went to the first (though all the pictures are from the second): a welcome reception for people who have moved to Cesson-Sevigne in the past year sponsored by the mayor's office. It was held in the city's cultural center and there were probably 80 or 100 people there, including some kids. (They even had a kind of "youth director" whose job was to entertain the kids during the reception.) The mayor was at the door to shake our hands and greet us. When we informed him we were Americans, he told us his son is currently living in Austin, Texas, of all places.

Kids here learn to build structures out
of soil and plants.

The welcome reception consisted primarily of a 30- to 40-minute-long presentation by the mayor about all the great things about Cesson - its economic development, its schools, its parks and green space, its transportation network, its opportunities for sports and recreation, and its commitment to preserving the environment. The whole thing was in French (obviously) meaning I didn't understand much of it, but fortunately he was accompanied by a PowerPoint presentation, so I had things to look at and read, which helped my understanding immeasurably! When he finished, he introduced the youth advisory council. This is a group of 12- to 15-year-olds elected by the youth of the city to serve as a kind of junior city council to advise the mayor on various issues. It struck me as being something that probably wouldn't happen in the US, but as Lisa pointed out afterwards, France may not (we don't know) have much in the way of student council and student government at school so, instead, they have a city-wide council for students to be a part of.

There was a really cute little girl
feeding this asinine animal through the
electric fence. Asinine is also a good
adjective for the questions we heard.

After the presentation, the floor was opened to questions, many of which were rather ridiculous things to ask the mayor, among them:

• "I live next to a business that has outside lights on until 7 or 7:30 at night! That's too late! What will you do about it?" (Mayor's response: "That's not really a civic matter, you have to take it up with the business.")
• "The grass outside my house is so long! It hasn't been cut since I moved here several months ago!" (Mayor's response: "We believe in letting our grass grow here because it's healthier for the plants. But you're free to cut it if you want, we won't stop you.")
• "I've noticed that there are a lot of tree roots that are breaking up the sidewalk and making it uneven. Isn't there anything to do about it?" (Mayor's response: "Well, we can really only dig up the sidewalk and cut off the roots, which kills the tree, and we don't want to do that. But don't worry; everything will be fine.")
• "Where can I recycle my glass?" (Curbside recycling in Cesson only picks up plastic and cardboard, not glass. The mayor didn't really have a response to this one, despite the fact that there are numerous drop-off points throughout the city for recycling glass.)
• "I think it's too far to go from my house to the grocery store. What can you do to help build one closer to my neighborhood?" (Mayor's response: "Actually, a grocery store did a feasibility study about putting a store there just last year and they determined that there weren't enough people living in the area to make it profitable.")
  

This makes the mayor sound kind of like a jerk, but really, he was pleasant to all the participants as they assailed him with demands. The questions just kept coming, and unlike presentations I've been to the US, there was no attempt to say, "We'll have one more question and if you still have questions, you can ask me afterwards." Instead, the mayor wanted to answer every question that anyone had. When that was finally over (before noon), we exited to the lobby for some nice hors d'oeuvres and free wine (very French, right?). As we left the cultural center, we found a demonstration going on outside of baking bread using a wood-fired oven. One of the leaders of the demonstration was none other than the real estate agent who rented us our apartment. He apparently lives a double life as a wood-fired-oven-baker!

Canal, with locks.

The other welcoming event occurred on Sunday. One of the other English teachers in our department, Nicolas, invited us and several other people to the country house that belongs to his partner's mother for an afternoon barbecue. Among those in attendance was our American colleague and former OSU student Todd and his partner Anthony, meaning he could drive us out to the country (after we successfully navigated our way into Rennes and to his apartment around a massive half-marathon that was happening on Sunday morning) - thanks Todd! The house was about a 20- or 30-minute drive outside of Rennes in a very rural area, complete with a corn field and cow pasture behind the house (the field and cows didn't belong to Nicolas and Remy, by the way). We sat around in the backyard eating various hors d'oeuvres, grilled sausages wrapped in galettes (the local Breton variation on crepes--made with buckwheat flour instead of wheat), salads, and a delicious apple tarte tatin - not to mention drinking several glasses of wine. Almost all of the conversation took place in French, but I'm proud to say I understood about 20-30% of it (although unfortunately, I was unable to fully form any sentences in French to respond to anyone).

Nicolas, Todd, Aaron, collecting chestnuts.

Afterwards, we all went for a leisurely walk along the Canal d'Ile-et-Rance which wasn't far from the house. The canal was built in the early 19th-century to link Rennes and Saint-Malo. It was a lovely fall afternoon and there were a number of people walking along the canal, making it all very pleasant. Upon returning to the house, Nicolas offered us some chestnuts and apples from his trees. Lisa made applesauce out of the apples and boiled the chestnuts that decorated our dining room table for the past week since we were there. (Nicolas said that chestnuts are often used in stuffing and that's what we'll probably do with them.) In the end, we spent about six hours in the country and we ate so much that we didn't even need to eat dinner when we got home. It was a very traditional French Sunday in the country and it was welcoming in a much more intimate (and, to me, much nicer) way than the Saturday morning welcome to Cesson.

The Braderie, or The Biggest Flea Market I've Ever Seen

That's right, not freedom fries, not
French fries...American fries!

Last Sunday, our town held its annual Braderie. According to the bi-weekly civic information flyer we get, the Braderie consists of 3000 vendors from all over the region and occupies almost four miles of city streets. Bus service was even halted through Cesson-Sevigne because of it! Naturally, Lisa and I couldn't pass this up, especially as the sale began about 500 ft from our front door. So after lunch, we grabbed our cash and headed out to see what was for sale.

This doesn't look like any licorice
we've seen in America.

The first thing that struck me was the sheer number of people buying and selling things. The streets were packed with people and every time we rounded a corner, we discovered another street full of booths. There were even food vendors out on the street selling everything from grilled sandwiches to fries (which the French refer to as "American fries"!) to cotton candy to churros (which are called "chichis" in French and aren't like the churros I've had in Mexico; these are more like funnel cake). There were also several bulk candy booths which we couldn't pass up!

Our purchases.  I call
that Lisa's explorer bag.

Look familiar?  They don't to people
here.

In general, the Braderie was sort of a mix of a flea market and a big city-wide garage sale. There were people selling antiques, postage stamps, old postcards, and other collectibles, but there were also a lot of people selling old clothes, lamps, videos, DVDs, and other things that looked like they had been sitting in someone's basement for quite a while. Still, we were able to find a few good treasures at a good price. Among our haul: an old end table that we turned into a TV stand; a couple cheap books (including a French translation of my favorite book, The Secret History by Donna Tartt); a shoulder-bag for Lisa to carry; and some old Greek drachmas (the coins Greece used before they joined the euro-zone). I bought the drachmas because they had pictures of ancient Greeks on them: Perikles, Demokritos, and Alexander the Great. The guy who was selling them was very interested and impressed to learn we were Americans. We also thought it was funny that in his big box of coins, he had a couple perfectly good American quarters and pennies. Of course, I'm sure a French person going to a flea market in the US would find it amusing to see perfect good euro coins for sale!

The church during the
braderie, and yes, that's
the bouncy house...again.

In the end, we spent about three hours walking the streets, browsing the various stalls, and we still didn't see everything. Last week was unusually warm and sunny for this part of France at this time of year - low to mid-80s. (In fact, the local paper called last week "a summer in the tropics"!) After several hours out in the hot sun, we decided we couldn't handle much more so we headed home. Still, it was another eventful weekend in our town. This weekend promises to be eventful here, too. Tomorrow morning, we're headed to an official reception at the civic cultural center that's put on every year by the mayor's office to welcome new residents of Cesson-Sevigne. Hopefully we'll have some good stories about the mayor's presentation, the free drinks we're given afterwards, and meeting more people like us who have recently moved here!

Tarte Tatin aux Poires

Translation: upside-down caramel pear pie.

We've been quiet on here for about a week since we started our "full-time" jobs, and we thought we'd wait to share what those are like with you.  However, we realized we already did that a few entries ago, and there's not a whole lot to add yet.  We have mostly pleasant students both in class and in the interviews, and we're learning a lot about the French educational system.  This week, we also designed scenarios for the students to enact later this semester--one about genetically modified food, one about immigration in the UK, one about binge-drinking, and one about renewable energy.  We'll let you know how they go once they start!

What we did do was make a Tarte Tatin aux Poires, and it was fantastic!  Unlike in the US where pears take at least a week to ripen, pears here are ripe in two days and MUST be used.  The best use for almost any fruit is of course to make an upside down caramel pie.  How could anything be better?

Think about caramel for a minute.  Think how simple it is.  It can be just one ingredient even: sugar.  You heat it until it melts and then continue until it's just at the point where it would start to burn, and voilà!  Caramel.  Now, let's add an ingredient to that, sea salt perhaps.  If you like chocolate-covered pretzels, then you know how wonderful salty-sweet is as a flavor.  Let's go ahead and add one more ingredient: butter.  Oh, now that's just mouth-wateringly delicious.  Butter, sugar, salt, all cooked together until you have one thick, gooey mixture.  You can even choose from a variety of textures!  Sauce, chewy candy, harder candy.  Ingredient four: pears.  We're on our way to having a pie.  Ingredient five (and six): flour (and water).

Dismantled frying pan.

With these five simple ingredients, you are ready to make your pie.  We were certainly ready to make ours!  We talked a bit about the overly sugar apple version earlier.  This time, I was not going to fail.  I examined the frying pan, saw the screw that held on the handle, and I realized that if I ruined the pan, that would most certainly NOT be the worst thing that ever happened!  I dismantled it with no problem at all (I even got it back together, too).

Tarte pre-flip.

Following Brad's instructions, I melted salted butter in the pan (just a couple tablespoons), and then I sprinkled that with white sugar.  I let that cook until it all melted together, and then circled slices of pears (three pears in all) on top of the sugar.  This cooked for over an hour before everything started to caramelize.  Oh, the heavenly smell!  Then I put the pie crust I'd made on top and put it in the oven for another hour.  After letting it cool a bit, I turned the pie onto a plate.  For those of you looking forward to making this yourself, here's the best part.  You, the baker, get to take your spatula and scrape the best caramel that forms out of the whole process and eat it all yourself (there's only about a teaspoon, so it would be hard to share).  Pear-infused caramel with sea salt.  This is good.

Then you get to share it!  It was fantastic, and made a wonderful beginning to the fall season.

Finished pie, complete with crispy, caramel crust.

Next time, we'll tell you all about the biggest yard/garage sale/flea market we've ever seen!