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Teaching and evaluating

Lecteur: what the job entails

A lecteur is a foreign language teaching assistant, generally recruited for one year through inter-university exchange programmes.

The English Department at the University of Nice has eight lecteurs, some on exchanges with universities in Edinburgh, Cork, Virginia, and Toronto, and some recruited locally (often renewed from the previous year's exchange posts).

The main task of the lecteurs is to help students develop their oral English - listening comprehension and speaking skills - through communicative teaching by and extracurricular contact with young native speakers (i.e., you).

This section of the site describes

your teaching duties: general information and specifics on each class
evaluation of students
programme coordination
other responsibilities

Teaching

The role of the lecteur in the classroom is to provide

an authentic model of an educated speaker of contemporary English
an apppropriate atmosphere in which language learning can take place
specific feedback on student performance in terms of grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation

Although different classes may deal with different topics (LCE classes may lean towards more literary topics, and LEA more contemporary issues), you as a teacher are not expected to provide substantive input as regards the content of the materials under discussion, but rather focus on the form in which students express themselves.

You will teach oral English is three different types of class:

Comprehension: listening classes
TP Oral (travaux pratiques à l'oral): speaking classes
Labo: pronunciation and internet for oral language learning

Details of each type of teaching, and the specifics for each different class you will teach are here.

This overview of the administration of the whole programme gives details of groups and times for all oral classes.

Evaluation

You will be asked to give an evaluation (grade out of 20) for every student you teach.

You will also be involved in writing exams, invigilating/proctoring listening comprehension tests, and grading them, and will participate in oral exams.

Click to see sample teacher transcript/answer sheets and student question papers.

Click for instructions on how to prepare exam materials.

Details on how we run our oral exams are here.

Click to see our grids showing the five-point scale for grading the oral proficiency of LCE and LEA students.

Programme coordination

In addition to teaching duties, each lecteur is responsible for coordinating one course, e.g., 1LCE or 4LEA. Coordinating a course involves designing the syllabus, supervising the preparation of class materials, day-to-day follow-up over the semester, exam writing, and lots of administration come exam time. First and second year courses involve more work because there are more students and more classes, but third and fourth year class coordinators are often drafted in to help.

For those who like to have it all up front:

Coordinator duties

SEMESTER 1

1. Make sure you understand the goals of the class, who the students and teachers are, and how they are organised.

2. Get a copy of the official student information sheet/booklet with information about how the students will be evaluated. This is available from the secretaries in the main offices (121 and 121 bis).

3. Check out the materials available from previous years : you will use the same format, with some modifications based on what worked well/badly last year and to keep repeating students on their toes.

4. Put together a syllabus : which lessons when, and distribute texts to other teachers to prepare lessons, making sure they understand (1) above. You will need about 12 lessons (COMP syllabuses should include at least one practice test, taken from this September).

5. Type up your materials. Students need a packet of the worksheets (1 page per week for the semester) with an introduction outlining class requirements and evaluation ; teachers also have answer sheets and transcripts of recordings. Give them to Shona to proof.

6. Make your master tape and copies for teachers and the library.

7. Order photocopies of student and teacher packets.

8. Update the page for your class on the Oral Englsih Website and get a copy of your syllabus and requirements up there.

SEMESTER 2

You get to do all this over again for the second semester ; luckily (or not, depending on how Semester 1 goes), you keep the same students, goals, and evaluation procedures. You just need new materials.

EXAMS

1. Coordinators of classes where lecteurs teach COMP (1LCE, 1LEA, 2LEA) also need to select material for COMP exams in January and the resits in September: 2 exams for each semester. Ideal material comes from longer recordings which have to be cut for class, or from texts which share topic or format with a class text; it is essential to choose exam texts at the same time as you design your syllabus.

2. Select and record audio texts, and distribute to your teachers to transcribe and write questions.

3. Make a scratch tape and copy questions to try out at a lecteur meeting. We will give feedback and suggest modifications.

4. Make up exam materials: the question papers, answer sheets, master tapes.

**This has to be done with the utmost secrecy – if you tell anyone I will have to kill you.**

ADMINISTRATION

1. You need to get copies of class lists for all students in your level on disk. The secretaries will eventually get these to you on Word, you will need to transfer them to Excel files in preparation for exams and recording grades. We are working on sharing files with our various offices, but don't hold your breath.

2. You need to touch base with your teachers enough to make sure everyone is on track and to raise questions and problems at weekly meetings with Shona.

3. Come exam time, you will need to collect continuo