There’s almost always a couple kids in my homestay apartment. Malvina babysits neighborhood kids as a side hustle to the ironing business she runs out of the living room. Sometimes it’s just the one, and when it’s just the one, it’s a kid named Max.
Max has blonde curly hair, glasses, and such a thick accent that sometimes I can’t even tell if he is making words. He’s six years old and has more patience than most adults. He likes to watch weird and disturbing French cartoons on their version of PBS Kids. He is impossibly cute.
Max likes to make fun of me and the other host student, Melanie. He’s not mean about it, he genuinely thinks we’re funny because we don’t speak correctly or know “proper” manners. He understands that we also think he is funny.
A fun thing I like to do with him is go around a room and name things that I don’t know the word for in French, and teach him the English word. Then he teaches me the French word. Melanie and I told him that he is our little teacher, and this greatly excited him. When his mom came to pick him up, I heard him exclaim about his “students.”
And he really is the best teacher. For instance, he once asked me to get an eyelash for him, and when I held it out for him to blow, he gave me a look that said, “What are you doing, you weird American?” Turns out, eyelashes are bad luck here. We taught him how to make a wish with one, but I’m not sure he’s convinced.
He had dinner with us last night. Malvina checked him multiple times for table manners that neither Melanie nor I knew existed, like keeping your hands on the table at all times. Cheese is seen as an absolutely essential after-dinner snack for growing children, and he complained the whole time he ate his small wedge of locally-handmade artisan cheese.
He told us that his mom speaks English and that he is learning a little bit at school, but that students only really start to learn English in what we would consider sixth grade. From then on, all students take at least one language class until they graduate. Malvina says it’s shame they start so late.
Not to be too analyzing about this once-in-a-lifetime interaction I get to have, but this has got to be the best setup for an exchange student on a teaching track. Interacting with this kid is so much easier than interacting with an adult, because I feel less pressure to pretend I understand or to respond perfectly. And I get to stretch out my pedagogy skills.
There’s supposed to be a couple opportunities coming up soon for more formal cross-cultural pedagogy, but right now this is the bee’s knees.
Cordialement,
Allison
P.S.: We introduced Malvina to pb&js today. A magical moment.
Flan in France 