On Maternity Leave and Thinking About A Career Change

So, I haven't posted in a while even though I've had topics I'm really interesting in writing about. I just didn't have the willpower. One I may follow up on later involves some really interesting things I learned from cours particuliers during our "Tell Me A Story" lessons...it involved no preparation on my part but they really enjoyed it and I learned a lot about them, plus it covered those dreaded multiple past tenses as well as general fluency.

Another post was about the difference between the Assistant program here in France and the one in Japan. Personally, I highly recommend the JET program(me), so if anyone is looking to be an assistant as an after-uni experience, I say Go To Japan. There is a lot of cultural adjustment to be done, but it pays extremely well for the amount of work involved (or at least it did), it's well-organized, and was a fantastic experience for me. However, both of the French assistants I've met here have been absolutely miserable and one left early because she felt that the schools didn't honor their side of the contract. Just what I've heard. If you're dead set on France, then come along by all means...just be aware that what you may be asked to do isn't what you signed up for, and things may be more expensive than you expect. Maybe I'll get into more detail later on.

Finally, I've often wanted to post about the fact that I don't really enjoy my job as I feel I should. Something is missing. I feel more like an animatrice than a teacher. The resources and time spent with the kids limits what I can do with them, so the classes are just a FLEX approach and that's difficult for me. I loved ESL back home -- the kids were motivated and I saw so much real progress, plus I got to do a lot of interesting projects with them and see them using language in authentic ways. Here, I could sort of do that periodically during the English camps, but then the school decided it would be a good idea to have teachers switch groups throughout the week...so my ability to do a group project just got thrown out the window. Oh, well. One of my expat friends with a teaching degree says she feels the exact same way, so at least I'm not alone.

So, for now, at least, I'm taking a break from teaching. I feel that I'm isolated from other teachers here and had hoped to find a way of communicating/supporting/interacting with each other. It's weird.