Monday, October 1, 2012

Coming Soon to French Schools Near You...



I've got a little story to tell you all.

Between late 2010 and early 2011, Yours Truly participated in a series of pedagogic English-speaking videos that were created to instruct French students on refining their oral and listening comprehension skills. All I really remember from the affair were the several hours of script-writing, filming, acting, voice-recording and being plagued by a stuffy nose and cough that beleaguered my vocal chords. I pretty soon forgot all about these videos and let the good folks at CRDP Dijon handle the nasty business of refining the videos.

Now, in 2012, a couple of these videos have survived the editing process and have been made available for sale on the Internet so French English teachers can use them. English teachers like me.

*record scratches*

Wait, what?

Yes. That's right. I, Barb the French Bean, who currently works full-time as an English teacher IN FRANCE (which explains the lack of time I have to blog), have the option of using videos in which I starred to teach my French students English. Inception...

(Click on the links to hear how my voice sounds; of the two girls, I'm the slightly fatter one.)

Helen Keller video 

Smoothie Recipe video

A new day of teaching English in French schools has come, and I expect to become the next laughingstock in schools everywhere. Or, better yet, the next "Brian" that French comedian Gad Elmaleh so taunted in his shows.



Yes. I can just picture it now: teachers all over France will show the clips of me talking about Helen Keller and making smoothies and then ask their students questions.

"Ouair iz Bar-ba-ra?"

"She's in ze keetchen. And she loves smouzies. Zair so healzie."

Barb the French Bean

P.S.
I can't even remember the last time I made a smoothie.

7 comments:

  1. Hahhah that is VERY cool. Definitely show it to your students!!

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  2. Haha, that's awesome! "How. Do. You. Make. A. Smoothie?" Bah, I remember listening to the French sound clips in class. There was newscast (I forget the website) that would speak in French but meant for English speaking people. "Il... est... tres... chaud" (I suck at French). Stuff like that.

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  3. How awesome is that...haha. No really, it is always cool to finally see or hear from someone whose blog you have followed for so long.

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  4. You will be walking the red carpet next week! That is awesome!!

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  5. That's kinda funny. I'm sure you're students would get a kick out of seeing those videos.

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  6. Hehe. That's brilliant. You're students should start asking for your autograph. You should call them your entourage instead of your class.

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Apparently, leaving comments on this blog is a hit-or-miss game of Russian roulette: you are either lucky and can comment away, or you are required to log in when the settings are CLEARLY set to allow trouble-free commenting (sorry 'bout that, folks). If anything, the Facebook page is always a viable option. :) -Barb