A European In Mayotte

In my opinion, healthy food is the best. I don't think junk food is better, because it's too fatty and unhealthy.
Personally, I like healthy food because it's full of vitamins, it's more natural.
I wouldn't say it's the cheapest or quickest but nevertheless, it's important for our health.

Several - if not most - middle and high schools in France have what's known as a European section. In middle school, this means five hours of English per week instead of three, starting in 4ème, which is about Year 10. In high school, this means most of their subjects are taught partly in English.

In middle schools, which I'll concentrate on here as that's where I happen to work, there is usually only one Year 10 European class and one Year 11 European class. One teacher covers both classes. Up until now, a teacher at my school called Lionel had been covering these two classes. He has now left for a different school, so the classes fell to me. Cue great excitement. Seriously. This was very good news.

And it still is. The Year 10s are still reeling, they've had two tests in two weeks and they're not quite sure what has hit them. Suddenly, they have an hour of English every single day, so we're whipping through the programme the others are just starting. I'm supposed to teach them the same syllabus as the others, on top of which I need to tell them as much as I can about England, America and various other English-speaking countries, cultures and habits. They've been selected from various Year 9 classes for their motivation, not their acadamic level, so they're not as good as they could be, but they seem pretty interested. Most of them said English was their favourite subject, and they don't tend to lie about that sort of thing to make their teachers happy.

The Year 11s are used to it by now, and apparently I'm not as strict as last year's teacher, which came as good news to most of them. They do know how to work, and they say things in English that I would never have expected from that age group. Just look at the test question above. I can't imagine any of last year's students writing that. They understand when I speak to them in English. They understand when I give their homework in English. They say "What's the English for...?" when they want some vocabulary. They say "I not comprendre" and correct it to "I don't understand". They laugh when one of them makes a mistake in English.

Then again, they say they understand, but when I go round to check, some of them put their hands up for another explanation. And yesterday, when I said "OK, go!", nobody moved and nothing happened. I might have to slow down just a bit.