Middle-schoolers, ahhhhhh! (Macauley Culkin's scream from "Home alone") )

Three ESL classes with middle-schoolers in one day is beyond tiring. And to add to that, discipline. I've never dealt with middle-schoolers before so this week has been interesting and very exhausting. To make matters more difficult, I'm dealing with sixth graders (sixiemes). They just got to middle school and for the most part, don't know how to behave. They're, of course, going through a transition and set out on a quest to prove themselves both to their teachers and peers. Certainly, some of my middle-schoolers today were kind and some of them even said, "I love you" and "You are beautiful." Awww, I feel touched. Enough with the sentimental. Now on to discipline... there's always a couple students that will be disruptive. They wiggle in their seat, get on the floor, and goof off. One even tried to pull the fire alarm in my class. To say the least, I didn't know what to do. I don't know the rules for disciplining children in France, and all I could do was to tell the student to sit down and be quiet. That did not help very much.

I felt rather inadequate today and not ready to handle behavior issues. The students would not be quiet, and I began to get very frustrated. In addition to all that, technology was not always reliable, and different rooms had different programs, which added an extra level of stress to my agenda. Showing my PowerPoint to each class was not always possible. So I had to get out my laptop and show things to my students.

Fortunately, for me, I will only see these students once every two weeks. One week (like this week), I'll have six hours of courses with middle-schoolers. And the next, I'll have only two courses. Breaking it up would make it a lot easier. Still, I need to have ideas of what to do to maintain discipline. My host mother has already told me to dismiss the disruptive students-- to tell them to go to the office or mark on their behavior card a disruption. Those are pretty good ideas. I'll talk to Pascal, my host father, to see if I can get more ideas.

Thank the Lord, one more class with middle schoolers, and I can celebrate the vacation of All Saints Day!