French is a tricky language

Being a teacher is hard. Every minute of every day you have to keep thirty people happy. Thirty people who are a group that you are not part of. The psychology of group behaviour tells us that this is a dangerous position to be in and worse if they perceive you as different. If the group aren’t happy they can turn on you. My first form teacher at senior school was a young French teacher. My form, as a group, decided that they didn’t like her. It was instant and those who hadn’t made up their minds had no choice but to go along with it. There were times when my form made her cry and no matter how uncomfortable I might have felt about it, I did nothing. I hope I didn’t join in but I know there were people in the class who did, despite not liking what they were doing. One day, the class locked her in the cupboard. I sat, horrified, whispering to the girl next to me, “This is horrible!” but we didn’t help her . In my imaginings, I stand up and let her out, or wait til the class has gone and make sure she is alright but I’m fairly certain I did none of this.

Being the leader of a group of thirty can also be dangerous if they are on your side. You can get them to do anything and throughout history I’m sure there have been teachers with psychopathic leanings who took advantage of their position. Luckily, I have no stories like this.

I’ve often wondered what happened about the teacher in the cupboard incident. Did she ever tell anyone? Were the ring leaders ever spoken to? Did they tell their parents? Did I tell mine? I have no idea. I’m sure my parents would have been horrified and I’d like to think that the parents of the jeering, clapping, laughing crowd would have been too but I’m not sure.

Parents don’t always back the teacher. Sometimes, when a child goes home and says they don’t like French, the parent will see the teacher and complain that their child shouldn’t be made to speak that disgusting spitty language, full of oui oui and poo poo.

Teaching is hard anyway but can you imagine doing it in a foreign language? Our school is lucky enough to have a lovely native French speaker to teach the language. I feel very protective of her, probably thinking about my first form teacher and have tried not to laugh when the children tell me that she swears in lessons. Don’t panic! She doesn’t actually swear but when she says,”Shhh” she closes it with a ‘t’ sound. This is probably how it’s done in France. It’s a minefield.

Before we went into a lesson she said, “Julia?”

I love the way she says my name, all singsongy with a soft j at the front.

“When you go swimming how many lines are they?”

We had a conversation about how busy it is at the pool, the best times to go and other pools that are quieter.

“It’s no good,” she finally said, “You see I can’t stand the promiscuity,” and walked off to teach her class.

I stood for a while, scratching my head until I finally decided that she had just mis-pronounced proximity.

Because I feel protective, I thought I’d mention it. I didn’t want her going to reception and demanding non promiscuous swimming. 

“But you have the word in English?” she said. “What does it mean?”

I told her and she was horrified. I asked her what it means in French.

“It’s just, you know, where you have too many people."
"It's probably just a little more specific in English," I told her.

I'm so glad the only French I have to worry about is the names of composers, although this has proved tricky this week. "What is EDF PDF?" one pupil asked.  I think she meant Edith Piaf.