CAVILAM

I've been in Vichy for a week and a half, and have not had a moment to sit down and write.  I'm taking advantage of the national holiday to do a bit of catching up.

I'm here on a partial scholarship (tuition and housing) from the French Embassy in the U.S.  I applied through the Consulate in Houston in January, at the same time I applied for the FFT grant, hoping to get one grant that would provide structure and meaningful learning opportunities to my summer.  I was surprised to get both grants, and even more pleased that the timing for both worked out well.  Cooking in June, pedagogy in July.  While I knew that the French Embassy grant would be centered around teaching French, I wasn't sure what to expect.  Turns out, neither did any of the other Americans.

I arrived on Sunday afternoon, and realized that most of the people on the train were headed to the CAVILAM as well.  I followed the advice I always give to my students, and chose to stay in a host family rather than the student housing.  M. et Mme C met me at the station, and away we went!  A quick driving tour of Vichy, where I was surprised to learn that stores are open on Sunday afternoons.  The streets were teeming with shoppers, unlike Amiens, which was always pretty empty.  The house sits on a hill overlooking the city, and the view from my room is spectacular.  So is the air conditioning - most welcome during the heat wave!  I have a huge room with TV and my own bathroom.  I feel so spoiled!

Monday morning, I reported to the CAVILAM to figure out what to do.  As I walked to the center, I realized that there were hundreds of people in my same situation.  As I was in line to find out which group I was in, my Fulbright friend T came running up.  He's the one who told me about the grant opportunity, so I was happy we were both accepted.  He'd already found another Yankee.  We made a game out of guessing which teachers were American.  In our first meeting in the amphitheater, we quickly found three more.  That made six.  From e-mails, we knew there would be ten of us.  Where were the other four?  It took us a couple of days to find the rest. 

At that first meeting, we learned that there were 410 French teachers present from more than 40 countries.  Add to that about 600 students there to learn French, and the center was overflowing.  This requires an amazing amount of coordination of schedules and activities, and those familiar with the French way of doing things will be surprised to know that it's remarkably well-organized.  We're all impressed!

Each week, we can choose a different class.  Because teaching written expression is one of my weak points (as evidenced in the IB scores I just received), I chose to focus on that the first week.  There were 20 participants, and three different instructors.  The first day, we were all anxious and therefore too serious, but we quickly broke the ice and ended up laughing until we cried at least once a day.  The workshop was definitely worth it - I'm going home with tons of ideas to use in the classroom.