Wednesday, November 9, 2011
Blake and I have been in a French Class for almost 1 month now. We go 5 days a week for 2 hours a day. We wanted to be in a classroom setting, at least to begin, so that we are regularly listening to French. We can hear what the words sound like, we can hear when other people make a mistake, and we try and correct those same mistakes, before it’s our turn to talk. The class is all French instruction, so even though we do not understand everything happening, we can at least hear what is being said, and everyday our French is quickly increasing. Of course, being the good student that I am, I opted to sit in the front center of the class, against Blake’s inclination to take the back.
We started from the VERY beginning, literally learning our alphabet. Which seems really strange, since I don’t remember how I learned the alphabet 25 or 26 years ago. But like learning any new thing, the very beginning is a very good place to start. (Did the sound of music just pop into your head?). We have gone through sounds, and when 2 letters are together what that sound makes. We have learned greetings, vocabulary words, how to rearrange letters (I am not joking) and even how to draw (I am dead serious)!
The school that we are attending is under the French education system, and it is completely different than our education system in the states. There is a lot of emphasis put on memorization, and a lot less emphasis put on actually sounding out letters or reading a list. For instance, we were all required to go through a list of about 30 words…and with the exception of Blake and I, a girl from Zimbabwe and a girl from Zambia (and possibly about 2-3 other older ladies in the class), no one could read the list beyond what they had the ability to memorize in the short time of class.
Blake and I are used to taking notes, as fast as the teacher is writing or talking, so we finish writing our notes, as soon as the teacher finishes, but then…we sit and wait, because the rest of the class, didn’t start taking the notes, until the teacher told them too. That part of the class is getting better, because everyone has now learned that if he is writing on the board, then we probably need to know it :)! Let’s just say it is a very slow paced class.
For me, I don’t mind the pace, I like that I only get a handful of words to learn each day. I like how often we write the same words, because with so much repetition, I am learning very thoroughly. I can read a lot of words, and know what the word is, we are forming sentences, and I can read the sentences. I am going to be more comfortable reading and writing French then Blake will be. However…Blake just wants to talk! He just wants to be able to be with people, speak the language, have conversations, communicate, and he doesn’t care when he would spell something differently, depending on when it follows what verb, or preposition, or…he doesn’t care to really understand the concept of sentence structure, he just wants to speak! So Blake’s perspective on the class, while he knows he needs to keep going and it’s really good for him, is totally different than mine!
Learning a new language however, is really difficult. I feel like I take a few steps forward and then 10 steps back. We have had a total of 8 homework assignments, and 3 tests, and while my homework assignments are getting better, my tests went from 60/60, to 88/100, to 73/100. The second test, Blake and I both missed points because apparently in section 3 “dessinez” means to draw or design the image. We thought it was just matching the vocabulary word with the picture, so instead of drawing the picture, we just matched the word. So when I said before, that we are learning to draw, I was DEAD serious, it was all a part of our test. The 3rd test we took, we lost points because of “in” words and “oi” words. We had to make a list of words that had the sound “in” – which is like an eh sound and “oi” which is like wah. I had a lot of “ain” words, which apparently has a different sound like aeh, and “oin” which is wahn. Are you as confused by this as I am? Seriously, he always asks if we understand the difference, and I keep thinking…NO not at all, they all sound the same to me when you actually speak! We keep hoping that one of these days something will just “click” and it will all make sense.
My, oh my, language learning is difficult. Why did I think that after only 1 month I would be like this master French speaker? I have to continue to go to class everyday, and I know that we keep learning a little bit each day, but I just want to be good at speaking, and I am NOT the type of person to get 73/100 on tests 🙂 I think that may be the hardest part for me, haha! Our current class ends just before Christmas, and then at that time we may do a private tutor for French 2, but until that time, “Je suis a l’Alliance français.”