So finally a post about my new job as full-time faculty Frenchie at ISU. I meant to post something at the end of my first week, but a three-day fever/head cold prevented me from doing much beyond drooling on my pillows and blowing my nose. Far too much in the way of bodily fluids that weekend. This past weekend was spent catching up on sleep and working on the novels (I’ve had some great ideas and just couldn’t concentrate on anything else, much less grading or posting.), so it was fairly unproductive as well. But now I’m sitting and stalling on grading papers and writing lesson plans, so here we go with a post.

Firstly, I really am enjoying teaching French. I have four classes, all of them at the beginning or intermediate levels. I teach on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, so those days are really busy from nine until two; then I have office hours Tuesday and Thursday, but later from eleven to two. While I finally got my voice mail and computer working in my office, I still don’t have an office key so I have to pester the poor secretary to let me in every day. I decorated like mad in there, and I’ll post a couple pics of all my posters below. Technically, I’ve added some more since these pictures were taken, but you get the rough idea. Some of what I’ve added has been Ian’s artwork from his classes. I like showing off that my husband is very artistic.

I’ve had my first evaluation as a teacher already. Keri sat in on one of my classes Friday and she stopped in today to give me her ideas/suggestions. She didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know: I need to do more activities with the class and get them talking more, I need to speak almost exclusively in French but lecture very little, I need to manage the class better when they are doing group work, and I need to be meaner to the people who appear to be falling asleep or who aren’t paying attention by calling on them more. It’s all stuff I’ve already realized is a problem, but it’s taking me a bit to adjust to the switch between lecture class (University 101) and foreign language classes. There’s that and I feel a bit rusty on the whole speakie-Frenchie thing since I have no one to speak with in French lying around the house. But they’re areas to work on, and I figure I’ll get there eventually. After all, this is my first time teaching a foreign language.

On an unrelated note, I received my diploma in the mail today. I probably ought to find a frame or something to stick it in so I don’t lose it. Oh well, back to laundry (blech) and grading papers (blech!) and responding to e-mails (blech!!). I think I’ll turn Apocalypse Now on for some background noise. I wish I could just spend the rest of the night working on the novels, but there’s this thing called “work” I gotta do. Oh well, happy Tuesday, random people!