My Life in Montpellier

New Year's resolution #1: update my blog more often. Here's to hoping I'm better about updating my blog in 2013...haha! A busy fall spent eating, traveling, and meeting new people mixed with some technical difficulties (my converter broke preventing me from being able to recharge my camera battery) and before I knew it, it was January. Anyway, in order to give you all a better idea of my life in Montpellier, I've compiled some photos to show you where I live and work. Enjoy!

This is the living room in my apartment. It is very spacious and has a nice balcony that overlooks our quaint little street (pictures of balcony below).

 

This is the dining room area, which is attached to the living room area. The two rooms together create a wonderful open space for entertaining.

A view of the living/dining room area and the balcony. I took this picture on a gray day, but normally it gets lots of sunlight.

The view from my apartment

This is my room. After many donations and a trip to Ikea, it finally resembles a real bedroom!

 The one thing left to get is a nice, warm comforter to match the white and blue wallpaper the previous tenants left behind.

                                                    A cozy little place to work

                                      The kitchen with another balcony out back

                                                   Another view of the kitchen

                                                            The bathroom

I have come to greatly appreciate overhead showers now that I don't have one :-(

Most homes in France have a WC, in fact, I have yet to find a home where the toilet, bathtub, and sink are all in the same room. It is quite practical if someone needs to use the toilet while you are in the bathroom, but weird to have to go into another room to wash your hands. I haven't decided if I like it or not.


Now onto my schools! First stop: Ecole Sibelius-Pottier in Montpellier

This is Ecole Sibelius-Pottier. It was two schools up until a few years ago when it joined to become one. There are still two separate buildings, but they have a common courtyard and are attached by a terrace on the second level.

My Classroom - Every day I work with a group of bilingual students in this room. These students are a part of the "International Section" of the Sibelius-Pottier school. At one point or another they have all lived in English speaking countries and many of them have already lived in several countries at the age of 10! I have students who have lived in the USA, England, Norway, and Egypt.

Each classroom has a mezzanine area. In most classrooms it is used as a reading corner, but it is also a great space for small group work.

                              The spiral staircase leading to the mezzanine area.

In addition, each classroom has access to this communal terrace. This is a great place to play games and teach lessons in the nice weather. The two buildings are connected by this terrace making it easy to go from one to the other.

                          Another view of the terrace with the courtyard down below.

Next stop: Ecole Primaire Condorcet in Jacou

Here are some pictures I "borrowed" from the school website. I don't have any pictures of my own, because I'm only ever there during school hours. I work at Ecole Primaire Condorcet on Tuesday mornings. I teach four classes: a 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th grade class (or CP, CE1, CE2, and CM1 as they are called in France). This is my first real experience teaching ESL classes and, although it can be challenging, I really enjoy it!