My plane will take off from Paris in about 15 hours, and while I am--amazingly--nearly completely packed, save the necessary toiletries for my morning routine, I still find myself scanning every inch of my room, opening drawers and inspecting neglected nooks and crannies for anything I may have forgotten.
One thing I noticed on my dresser was my old egg-timer, almost exactly like the one in the image to the left. You know, one of the ones my 16-year-old self would think was so clever because it was an EGG-timer and it was shaped like an EGG. I haven't touched it since my debate years, but I think I'm going to throw it in the suitcase. One thing I mentioned to my contact person at the school I will be working at while discussing how I could be more involved with the students is that I could lead a debate team. It has taken awhile for me to truly appreciate how important debate (and forensics in general) was to my intellectual and academic growth, but now I am strongly convinced (resolved?) that there is little better one could do in their "free time" to this end.
It's still undecided whether these debates would be conducted en français or in English, but I'm open to both. I think having the debates in French might prove more valuable--God knows just thinking about debating in a non-native language still makes me squirm. But then again, talking and thinking about such complex topics could also do wonders for their English.
Thoughts?
Rachel! You have a blog now? Haha... I'm behind. Anyway, are you supposed to be teaching the kids English, or just...stuff? If it's English, we had kids do debates in Turkey all the time, and it worked out great - provided their English was good enough to debate in in the first place, haha.... But it definitely made them use their English a lot, and sometimes we'd provide them with vocab if it was a complex topic. It also made class really easy for us, especially if the kids got all fired up, haha. On the other hand, I'm sure debating in French would quickly make your Francais kick ass, and I don't actually know what you're supposed to be teaching them.
ReplyDeleteOther than that, hope life's treating you well - where are you, anyway?