Write up of me in the school paper

So we have an English newspaper at school called the "Anglomane", and one monthly feature is an interview with one of the lecteurs. My friend Meghan Harris wrote this biography of me...

Kate Brantley comes from Madison, Mississippi in the Old South of the United States. Her accent doesn’t give this away because she consciously strove to minimize it when her French students had trouble understanding her.

“I had to carefully pronounce words. Instead of drawing out vowels, I just say them quickly and stop,” she explained. Americans might not agree on where they think she is from based on her current accent, but it’s a mute point for French students who don’t seem to recognize the differences among American accents at all.

Kate spent her first year in France as a teaching assistant at a lycee in Metz during the 2007-8 school year. Going to France seemed a logical next step after completing a double major in English literature and French at Birmingham Southern College in Alabama. She added the French major toward the end of her studies because she thought she'd lose her language skills if she didn't continue. She was eager to go abroad because, she jokes, there’s not much to do in Mississippi. To illustrate the point, the summer before she came to France, she was working at the Barnes and Noble bookstore chain and had gained notoriety as the top loyalty card seller at the store.

A year in France would also help her improve her practical use of the language because her French classes were mostly literary in nature.

"I could talk about Zola and other authors when I first came to France, but not about everyday things."

Her literary interest came in part from having an intellectual family (her mother and grandmother were teachers) and perhaps from having a famous Mississippi writer living down the street from where she grew up. She noted that a lot of writers come from this state: “It’s a complicated place, so there’s a lot to say.”

She liked France and wanted to stay another year, so she applied for a teaching assistant position at the Université Nancy 2. Between teaching in Metz and Nancy, she was an au pair in Provence for "the worst family in France," in her words. That may be an exaggeration as it sounds like her creativity simply clashed with the mother's parenting style.

As for teaching, she notes that French students expect teachers to do everything. And her desire for creative discussions and participation again clashes with the students' desire for structure. She finds the students' perfectionism amusing. A great example is when they use correction fluid to cover a written mistake on their papers instead of just scratching it out.

In her teaching role in Nancy, she expected students to be stronger than those she taught previously, but said it has been mixed. Her students this year are studying in diverse fields—psychology and law, among others. It's more challenging than last year and she's learning a lot, but the hardest thing are bureaucratic hurdles that cause her to spend a lot of time to take care of simple things, such as making copies.

There’s nothing she particularly misses from home, but she said she watches the comedy program, ‘The Daily Show’, everyday via the internet. She has come to appreciate Mississippi more lately, however, because the usually dreadfully hot, humid weather seems like a welcome change to the clouds and frequent rain showers in Lorraine.

As for her future plans, they’ve been influenced by the Spanish boyfriend—an Erasmus student—she picked up while ditching her accent in Metz. She’s visited him in Spain this year, but will see him more often when she takes a post this Fall as a teaching assistant in Almeria on the coast. Professionally, it’s a step down, but because her Spanish isn’t quite up to par, it’ll make the situation less stressful.