that a lot of paperwork is involved when moving to a new country

Monday and Tuesday I was at a two-day workshop for the primary school language assistants in the area.  On Monday, we observed a 3rd grade class.  They are learning Halloween vocabulary, so most of the class period was spent learning the phrase, "For Halloween, I dress up as a ____________."  The H sound is hard for them to pronounce, so the teacher exaggerated it a lot to get them to say "hhhh."

Tuesday morning we observed a 1st grade class.  At the beginning of the class, they crouch down and count "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10," and pop up and they're "in England," so they're allowed to only speak English.  At the end of the lesson, they crouch down again and count "10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1," and it's back to France.  I might use that in my classes (if I can explain how to do it on the first day).  They're learning the words mother, father, and son through Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  They made a family tree of the Bucket family.  After that, the teaching assistants had a meeting and presented different songs that we might use with our classes.  (Anyone have any ideas?  Suggestions welcome!)

The second part of Tuesday was not so exciting.  They basically reserved the last three hours of the day to do paperwork!  I ended up having seven or so different folders of various copies of important documents.  Photocopies of my passport, visa, bank account, social security application, proof of address, official work contract, birth certificate and a translation of my birth certificate.  I did the translation of my birth certificate, and the French teacher who has been helping me corrected the errors I made.  There was just one that she didn't catch until after she printed it out.  On my birth certificate, it says that my dad's job was Grain Buyer when I was born.

(What I should've put on the translation) Acheteur de graines: Grain Buyer

(What I did put) Acheteur de la graine: Buyer of one piece of grain

Sorry, Dad, but I told the French government that you spent two years in Lubbock, Texas, trying to buy one piece of grain...

Overall, at the workshop we were told we're there to speak English, so ideally we shouldn't speak any French at all with the kids.  I'm going to try my best to do that, but it's hard to stick to English when you have a room full of 22 blank stares!

A few more days of observation this week, and I finally start teaching on Monday!