Stages/Orientations

There are 2 orientation sessions (Stages) for the secondary assistants. All of the English students are grouped together. Our stage is in Saint Lô. Whoever your responsable is will take you to the stage and stay with you the whole day. For us, it was Bernard. The stage is only half of the English assistants in the Académie de Caen (the départements of Manche and the western half of Calvados). The other half will (Orne and the eastern half of Calvados) meet in Argentan. All of the other languages are grouped into one stage together.

The first orientation session was just before our Toussaint break. The stages are great opportunities to meet your fellow assistants and form friends! The take place at the IUFM (teacher's school) and lunch is included. At the first stage, we just go over basics about the job and do some practice activities that would be fun to work with in classes. It wasn’t that helpful, but it was informative. It was more of a meet-and-greet and formalities than anything. The second stage takes place just before the Christmas break and is extremely helpful. Basically, you spend the whole morning complaining about things that bother you about your classes and teachers. Then during the afternoon, you go around and say one activity that worked well, and one that didn’t work so well. This is an excellent opportunity to get lesson ideas, so write them down!

The stages are run by English teachers, and they tend to alternate between doing the activities in French and English. I was glad that they allowed some of it to be done in English, because when I arrived in September, my French was not stellar (I hadn't taken any French classes in 3 years). It's great getting advice from these teachers though, and also from the other assistants. Take notes while you're there, something that may seem non-important may be useful to you later.