Kids Today

My students have not been showing up to their scheduled meeting times.

Let me explain the system: I, unassuming language assistant, i.e. "the American" am expected to take a group of 5-10 students from various classes once per week per class to fill 10 hours of "English study." I have 10 different classes once a week. Basically, all I have to do is talk to the kids in English for an hour, they shuffle in, shuffle out and are somehow better prepared for their bac at the end of the year.

That is, if they bother to show up.

Since my hour with them is supposed to be an extra hour of English, in addition to the two that they get in regular English class (three total per week), I have not taught any English classes. I am not in the classroom with them, but in my own, separate classroom to meet with the small groups of students during gaps in their schedules, or what used to be their free time.

Some of them still think it is their free time.

I hope sincerely this will change by the end of the week. I was told it should not be a problem at all, but I am still having a hard time believing 16- to 18-year-olds will willingly wake up at 8AM to come and speak a language they're not very good at (and in every likely scenario despise) to a complete stranger who also happens to be a native speaker of that dreaded language, and is probably fat, boorish and inane like all of the stereotypes of her country suggest.

I hope this is not the case--that this is what French teenagers thing of me and my country. But, I can only guess what they think. Since so few of them have decided to put in the effort of even meeting me, what else can I think?