Madame Lachance was worried about the style of her presentation in front of the class. She was using a low, plain style--nothing grand or eloquent in terms of sentence structure or word choice. The ninth graders she taught would probably watch all that stuff fly over their heads, anyway. They didn't want a fancy sermon. They just wanted to learn.
That's why Mme Lachance made special use of as many slightly slang-y terms as she could. That way, she could get across what she wanted to say in a way that they would understand clearly. (And also gain some "cool" points with them.) That's why she also made sure not to be too serious or boring, not to stand at the front of the classroom and lecture the whole time. That was a very un-stylistic style of teaching, and one that none of her students preferred.
As far as delivery went, Mme Lachance concentrated on keeping her tone light, happy, and encouraging, sprinkling in sternness when Laura got out her phone again or the boys in the corner started talking about sports. Typically, this kind of enthusiasm in her voice--even when she internally wished that the day was already over--inspired participation in the class, even quiet Courtney. Often, she tried theatrics, too, in conjunction with writing on the board and her Prezi slides. "I would never address le président Hollande by saying tu!" she'd explained once. "Tu is for friends, not for fancy people." Then she'd put on a gangster pose and continued, "That'd be like going up to President Obama and saying, 'Wut up, bro.'" The students laughed for a quite a while at that. But they got the idea.
Most textbooks aren't that interesting, but the old French textbooks Mme Lachance had were just awful. All the pictures were from the '80's, and thus rather laughable; all the group activities seemed too silly to use in class; and the writing was pretty much devoid of style or figures of speech.
But little else could be expected of a grammar textbook. It got the job done, after all--it was plain and straightforward. Plain and straightforward and boring.
So Mme Lachance supplemented the students' grammar reading with poems and songs, pieces of writing full of figures of speech. She even encouraged them to read such writing in English, because students seemed to be more comfortable learning the passé composé, for example, when they were familiar with figures of speech like simile. To help students form the tense, Mme Lachance would compare it to a train with three cars (three pieces, three words). Anastrophe, too, could provide a frame for the placing of words in general, as adjectives come almost exclusively after instead of before nouns in French.
The bell rang and her students formed a clump near the door, the boys right back to their sports talk and Laura with her thumbs glued to her phone.
But she could've sworn she heard one of the last ones say on his way out, "Ya know, most of my professors are lame, but Madame Lachance has got style."
*Sorry my post kinda addresses the same things as Katie's. I wrote it Wednesday and my brother is getting married tomorrow, so I don't have time to do it over and make it as different and fancy as hers! Those teachers just all have the same style, I guess!
I like how you used the exact same style you were describing as you wrote your post. I could imagine what you were talking about when you said firm but friendly because your writing style reflected both of those characteristics. Especially since, as your post was written, you could change the font size to both emphasize and make your characters seem more playful. Really well done, and that's saying something coming from "quiet Courtney" haha.
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