Hello! My name is Miss Emmons.

I survived the first day; nobody cried, ran away, or caused bodily harm to themselves or anyone else. I'd call that a success!

Actually, there are multiple successes, which I think is pretty great for the first day. First, the teachers of the classes I taught before lunch (4) during our [2-hour!] break all told me how they were really impressed with my handling of the classes. They seemed relieved, and something was briefly mentioned about it not having gone so well last year... But in nearly the same breath I was warned, "English is still new for them, but after they get used to it, they might not be so well-behaved." Hopefully by that point they'll know I won't accept any nonsense!

My favorite class today ended up being the one I was looking forward to the least. It was the first class of the day, CE2 (3rd grade), with 29 students! I was mostly worried about the sheer number of them, but they were on their best behavior and responded enthusiastically through the entire 45-minute class. I found that class, along with the two other 1st-year-English classes the easiest to manage, mostly because all I was teaching them was "My name is ____" and basic classroom commands: stand up, sit down, raise your hand, listen, repeat, no talking. Fortunately it's all easily mime-able instructions.

CM1 (4th grade), who have had one year of English, also got to tell me their age, and we counted from 1-10 a lot. They were much gigglier than the little kids, I'm guessing because they were able to judge how the other kids in the class sounded and responded. Finally, my last class of the day was my one CM2 (5th grade) class. They are a large group too, at 27, and wow, were they ever annoying! It was their last class of the day, they had just come in from recess, and they would not stop chattering. Even the classroom teacher, sitting in the back, couldn't get them to focus completely.

One of the best parts about the day was hearing little French voices in the hallways and on the stairs as they were going out to recess repeating to each other, over and over, "My name is ____!" They were so excited!

At the end of a couple of the classes, as I was collecting their name tags, they started asking me all sorts of questions in French as they crowded around to hand in the tags. One CM1 boy asked, "Madame, vous parlez français?" I responded, "No." He looked really bummed and just shrugged and walked away, not realizing that 1) I've spoken to their classroom teacher in French in front of them, and 2) I understood what he asked me, in French, and responded! My other favorite exchange was when a CE1 girl asked me at the end of class, "Mais Maitresse, c'est quoi ton vrai nom?" ["But teacher, what's your real name?"] I responded, "My name is Miss Emmons." She looked frustrated and said, "Mais non, ça c'est de l'anglais. C'est quoi, le vrai?!" ["But no, that's English. What is it, for real?"] She got herded out of the room with the rest of the kids before I could come up with a response.

Another day of orientation tomorrow, so hopefully some more lesson-planning ideas to come!