Those Crazy French

So the latest and greatest adventure I’m on: teaching French. It’s probably a combination of the economic recession, living in a smaller town, and the time of year, but I haven’t been able to find much nursing work here in Kelowna. In fact, not much work at all. My own call shifts for detox nursing are about one a week, but I’m lucky I didn’t get laid off like some others there. I am remembering being in Marseille, South France, where the unemployment rate is 40% and aimless youth wander around creating trouble. Or in Antigua, where a day’s wage buys 2 cans of coke. Or Africa, where people trade things for food that should never be traded, like sex, or their children, or their faith.
That all being said, I do have a part-time job, and I just got another, but in a totally different field. It’s not really so far off the charts, though. I’ve always been passionate about languages- in fact, as much or more than medicine, and I have had experience teaching piano, guitar, ESL, and chemistry over the years.
The only difference is that I taught myself French and I wouldn’t consider myself fluent- yes, I can speak it, but no, it’s nowhere close to perfect. Of course I’m not one to let something silly like that get me down, so I applied for a job as a French immersion tutor for high-school chemistry. The day I got the job I rode my bike over to Yvette’s house and said in a panic, I think I’ve got myself into a bit of a pickle. I have a job teaching a language I can’t speak.
Yvette reassured me and I thought, this is okay, I have two days to prepare, I’ll be okay. My first day was on Thursday and on Tuesday afternoon I was talking with Robin when my phone rang.
“Are you on your way?” My new boss asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked. “It’s not Thursday.”
“You were supposed to start Tuesday.” She said.
I opened my email account and stared in disbelief at the email. Tuesday. How had I misread it?
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.” I told her.
Traffic on the highway… I recited French words to myself and roared into the school parking lot in my red pickup. My students were waiting.
The first girl was not too bad, her French was terrible and we spent the hour pronouncing numbers. The second girl, however, was fluent in French and I had to stare at her mouth and ask her to repeat herself so I could understand.
She was asking for help with math. I didn’t even know what grade she was in, I hadn’t had time to read her chart and anyway, I haven’t done math for years. She showed me her worksheet and suddenly I felt my eyes go blurry. French math was not like English math. They use different symbols, those crazy people. Commas instead of decimal points. I had to look at it for a few minutes before I understood what the question was asking. But then how do I explain it to a teenager who can’t understand me?
“Tu utilize une calculatrice dans la classe?” I asked her. (Do you use a calculator in class?)
What are they teaching kids these days, anyway. Why can’t they just use calculators? No one does long division on paper or multiplies complex fractions. I tried to explain to her how to do the calculations. I didn’t know the French words for multiply, times, divide, subtract, add, plus, reduce, denominator, numerator, or anything that would’ve been useful, so I just put on my best sexy French accent and guessed what they were.
The hour went by painfully slow. I felt like the world’s biggest idiot and I wondered if I wouldn’t get fired if I went home and read my French dictionary cover to cover before the next class.
“Are you fluent in French?” My student asked me.
“No!” I answered, strangely relieved. “I understand and read it well, but I can’t speak very well.”
“Really? Well, I thought you were fluent. You speak better than any of my other French teachers.”
I stared at her in disbelief.
“Really?”
She packed up her books.
“Bonne chance avec ton examen.” I told her (Good luck with your exam.) Thank heavens I knew how to say that.
I read a quote today by Henry Ford: “Whether you think you can or think you can’t- you are right”.
I think I can teach French. I think I can teach chemistry in French. Maybe some day this job will lead me to bigger and better things, and maybe it won’t, but in the meantime it is a challenge and it is a change and it is pretty fun.