Je me présente...

Bonjour!

I've had many blogs in the past that recounted my adventures living abroad and teaching back in my home state.  However, recently I've been taking inspiration from other teacher blogs that I've been beginning to follow.  Reading through other teacher's blogs has given me fresh ideas for games and activities, and it has encouraged me to begin documenting and sharing my own good ideas.  I also intend to include personal stories from the classroom, as I have a terrible memory and would love to keep track of my experiences, both good and bad.  I'd love to be one of those big teacher blogs with a TPT account and lots of readers, but realistically, I don't think I have enough free time to dedicate myself so fully.  We'll see!

So, a brief introduction without giving away too many personal details (though I'm sure my students could find me online in a heartbeat--they're so sneaky!)...  I'm twenty-eight years old and teach in a rural town in the south of the US.  This is honestly not where I thought I would end up, but at the time, it was the only school eager to hire me.  Of course, the year after I took this job a bunch of other positions opened up closer to areas I wanted to live in, but c'est la vie. ;)  

My school has fewer than 900 students, of whom I teach about 110.  Being the only French teacher at my school, I teach all levels: 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5.  I honestly hate the amount of time and effort and organization it takes to plan for all of these classes and keep everything straight, but I love the fact that I have all of my students year after year and am the only person responsible for their entire French education.  As a perfectionist and a control freak, it's kind of nice not having to plan or share with someone else.  It's also fairly isolating and I often get stuck in planning ruts (hence the blog-reading!).

This is my fourth year of teaching, and so far it's the best one yet.  I'm finally getting the hang of classroom management, I'm able to reuse lessons and materials from previous years, I'm honing my skills in creating fun activities and efficiently explaining them to students.  My rapport with students is better than ever, and I'm finally gaining respect from coworkers who have spent entire their lives teaching at my school.  I'm even the most senior member of my department, and thus I'm the department head over all of the Spanish teachers.  I feel like I've finally hit my stride and I'm very confident about the job I do (which is amazing to be able to say!).

Hopefully I'll be able to share ideas and materials that other teachers can use in their own classrooms, and I'll document my own stories from my early years of teaching.

On y va!