"not so bad for an american"

This evening was my first hour of "conversation workshop". It's not as informal as I had originally thought. I did in fact have 18 students show up. I assumed (we all know what happens when you do that), that they would know more about this whole thing and I tried to get as much information from them as possible. I think I only worsened the situation. Considering the group was called "C", and I also have B, B2, C2, and D, I (here I go assuming again) thought that those letters corresponded to some sort of proficiency level, some sensical division of students. Nope. It could have been the Smurfs Group for all anyone cared, because C means nothing. I had one student who has an undergraduate degree in English and spent a year studying abroad in Birmingham, England. I have others who studied a little English at university and others who haven't seen it since middle school. Although it is naive of me to even search for a reason for why they divided them this way (well, a reason other than "it's France"), maybe they thought the different levels would challenge students to talk more. Instead, I had very nice one-on-one conversations with two students and everyone else stared out the window. Knowing that British English is the standard in French classrooms, I mentioned that my accent and vocabulary might be a little different. This is when the English major popped in and said "You're really not so bad for an American." Thanks.

I asked everyone to go around and introduce themselves and explain why they chose to study English. A few said that they would like to improve their English, or that they enjoyed studying it. I was disheartened by the number who merely said: "well, they make you pick something. . ." I was also amazed at how many were behaving like high schoolers, giggling and passing notes. These are all college graduates. Given that everyone in the room studied something different at university (everything from law to history, to art to psychology, to physics to linguistics) I have a feeling that the IUFM is where you go if you flunk the exam that lets you do what you really wanted to do. Didn't get into law school? Ahh, just go be a teacher. I suppose some things are the same everywhere.