Today I’d like to talk about two magic teachers.  

First let me introduce my friend Alexa.  She’s not the AI Alexa who can turn on your Spotify or tell you the weather forecast.  This Alexa is a real, live French lady who lives in the UK and she is teaching me how to speak her native tongue.  She is extremely patient, very encouraging and has a quirky sense of humour.  We have hit it off extremely well. She doesn’t know me, as I watch her lessons on the Tube of You.  But I’m sure we would get along famously if we actually met, and she is the best language teacher I’ve come across yet.  She also tells me that I’m doing a great job, which is very kind. 

The wonderful thing about learning a language this way, is that I can listen to Alexa’s lessons at any time and in any place.  Mostly I listen to her either in the mornings while I’m getting ready for work, or in the evenings when I am getting ready for bed.  I prop my mobile phone up on the bathroom counter and practise my french words and phrases whilst either putting on my makeup and doing my hair, or removing my makeup and cleaning my teeth etc.  You may not think that would be enough time to make any progress.  But you have to realise how much time I spend in the bathroom on these tiresome daily routines, which seem to be more involved the older I get!  Sigh.

I had actually been learning French for a while before our trip to France.  I’d used Duolingo and a couple of other online sites.  They were ok, but I found the content a bit all over the place.  Dear Alexa, on the other hand, is very methodical.  She has a ton of experience as a teacher and she certainly has a very willing and appreciative student in me.  

I went right back to the beginning, starting at lesson one. Things had been going along quite swimmingly, until we came to the lesson “Quelle heure est il?  Which wouldn’t have been too hard, apart from the fact that French people commonly use the twenty-four hour clock.  Using the twenty-four hour clock involves doing maths.  And maths and I don’t get along too well. Numbers un to dix, no problem.  Onze to dix-neuf, just a wee bit more concentration needed.  But having to add another douze to everything before giving the heure – that’s a bit harder.  Particularly if one does not have a maths brain.  But after a recent conversation at work, I may have to reassess that last statement.  

I remember when my first maths brain-freeze occurred.  I was in standard four, or year six as we now say in New Zealand.  The teacher was doing “Mental” which seems a horrible name for a maths activity, but it was simply quick-fire maths.  She would call out a series of equations, one after the other, at quite a pace,  and we were expected to quickly calculate the answers in our head and write them down.  All of a sudden I couldn’t keep up. I remember feeling a bit panicky and embarrassed. I would have only been about ten years old.  Ever since then I’ve labelled myself as not having a maths brain. The thing is, I can do the calculations, if I’m not under pressure.  But if I am under pressure, it’s as though my brain seizes up and loses all ability in the maths department.   I know I’m not alone in this.  I have friends who tell me they have the same issue.  It can actually be a real handicap.  And until a few days ago, I thought it was one that would be permanent.  However, recently I had a very interesting chat with a teacher at the school where I work.  I’ll call her Mrs Magic because she has been teaching a class called Maths Magicians, where she comes alongside children who have been struggling with their maths.  I happened to mention that I did not have a maths brain.  She immediately reprimanded me and told me that everybody has a maths brain.  She said that some people develop a real maths anxiety early on and this begins to impede their ability to use their maths brain.  Her methods include teaching the children that there are often various ways of performing a calculation.  She also gives them time to work out their maths problem and this helps to rebuild their confidence.  She’s been having great results. I wish I’d had her help in standard four.  What a wonderful thing it is when a teacher can speak into a child’s life at such a young age, and help sort out something that may have otherwise caused a real lifelong issue for them.  Bravo to Mrs Magic I say.  And bravo to all teachers that have that same heart for their students.  I see many of them every day at our school.

So I have decided that I will go over and over these counting lessons with Alexa.  I will commit french numbers to heart and they will not defeat me.  I will shake off that old maths anxiety.   I feel the French twenty-four hour clock and I shall become good friends after all.

Goodness, it is now minuit.  Au reviour and bon nuit.

Learn French with Alexa https://www.youtube.com/@learnfrenchwithalexa