As we’re packing for our move, we’re having to decide what to keep and what to throw out. I found my old cahier from when I taught in France, and I was about to throw it away (I’m not going to be teaching French, especially not with that text, anytime soon), but I still flipped through it.

I found three pages at the back of the notebook that were research notes for my paleography study on Ste. Marguerite’s confrontation with the dragon. From these notes, its easy to see why I sometimes wish I had done my graduate work in the Classics, and gone on to become a medievalist. My teacher (who’s back in France now) once spent a summer traveling around Europe to transcribe the 19 existing copies of an epic love poem.

Just from this one afternoon with a card catalog, I could have justified a similar adventure. There’s even a reference to a manuscript at the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York.

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Well, this semester has been adventurous for new teachers. It was complained about us that there was not enough variance in the grades we gave for oral exams. Basically, the students take these tests on computers that record their responses, and we’re supposed to grade them on five factors.

Of course, low variance in tests scores may not be probable, but it is possible. Also, if the variance is artifically low, then it is most likey a result of lack of rater instruction which in turn causes low discrimination by the raters.

Anyway, I had already normalized my scores to increase the spread of my students (yes, I know that this can magnify error as well as discriminatory ability), but I guess my boss wanted a wider standard deviation that I had put in. Note: Those in charge didn’t even notice that my mean was, convieniently, 85% and my standard deviation a nice round 5%.

So, I’ve concocted a new scheme. I’m grading the kids on a +/- scale on each of the five factors. On some factors, like accuracy, students lose a point for every error they should not make. Others, like vocabulary, the get points for using new words. I have a web page that allows me to add/minus points easily for each factor, and it records the timecode from their audio file of when the mistake was made.

I then standardize each factor to a mean of 85% and a standard deviation of 5%. I then multiply the percentage by the number of points possible in each factor (they are not equal).

When I add up the scores I get a grade out of 100, adjusted on independently on each factor. Now, I could still wind up with all B’s, but since most of these categories are positively correlated, I should be pretty safe.

In case you haven’t heard, my teaching French 201 will not be for naught. I’ve have been hired as the Study Abroad student assistant for Paris next semester. Brooke, Ben and I will be leaving here Dec. 22 and spending Christmas with my family in San Jose. We’ll then fly from San Franciso to London, then to Paris on Dec. 29-30.

We’ve found someone to sublend our appartment while we’re gone, but we have yet to find an appartment in Paris. Brooke is frantically working on this, and we should have something soon.

While were there, I’ll be teaching French 201 (again) and French 211/311 which is a conversation class. I’m loking forward to being out there, and getting to know Paris (I’ve never been there).

I received notice yesterday in the mail that I have been accepted as a French teacher at BYU for next Fall semester. The letter says nothing about the class I will be teaching (I assume 101), or the time the class is taught. Much of that depends on my class schedule.

No matter the class I teach, I will be teaching 5 hours a week, and grading/preparing about 12 more hours a week. I will be teaching a Computers in the Humanities class with Dr. Hurlbut next semester as well, but that class is only twice a week and I don’t think I’ll be spending more than 10-15 hours a week total on it.

The down side is I don’t know what to do about my present job. The plan had bee for me to teach the humanities class, and work the rest of my hours at NSEP. The problem is that I now have about 17 hours less a week to work here. I’ll be on contract for the French class, so I can still work plenty of hours, but I need to pay more attention to my coursework.

I cannot drop below part time, as I would be obligated then to pay back my student loan. And I cannot quit my job entirely since the Arabic project will not have been completed, and I’ll be the only one here that was in Cairo.

So, I have a lot of work ahead of me next semester, I just have to make sure there are enough hours in the day to do what I need to.