On Classes

We're about to finish the second week of classes.

Students are assigned to classes of four levels, with at least two sub-levels within each level, according to their existing French language skills. The levels range from the very beginner to those with advanced language skills (some of whom include those majoring in French). In addition to an online assessment, further oral assessments were conducted on the first day of school, in order to refine the classification process.

Since I had never been exposed to French language in a formalized written or spoken form, I was assigned to the lowest level possible. I found that even within the current level, there is a big gap in terms of prior exposure to French among my classmates. On one hand is me, who is starting to learn French from level zero, and on the other hand are most of my classmates, some of whom have taken French as a course at least until grade nine. It turns out that French is a required course in elementary and middle school in many provinces. It has been a challenge not just to keep up with the course work, but also to first catch up with the rest of my classmates to the level of an average student.

Regardless of the challenges, the experience of learning a new language has been great. We are exposed to the language for at least 4 hours of the day in a classroom setting, and at least another 2 hours in the form of tutorials and planned activities, in addition to being in a Francophone city throughout our entire stay. The no-English policy has also been very helpful in forcing us to at least make some effort into speaking French, even if what we have to say to express ourselves is a single word. In fact, a single word at a time is what I have been saying to communicate so far. I still remember with pride the few sentences I have managed to correctly say (in the real world, aside from those that we have to dictate in class).

The school is very encouraging environment to speak in French, as it is mostly occupied with language students who are enthusiastically attempting to communicate in French, regardless of the difficulties in assembling the correct words. The people you meet in the hallways who are not language students also are always encouraging you to speak in French. In fact, it appears as if they are messengers who are hovering around, checking who needs help with their French. You realize this after you speak to them, and in almost all cases, they pull out one of the green cards that are "prizes" for an effort made in speaking in French. Green is a good card; yellow bad, and red worse. In this system, the more green cards you collect, the better French language student you are. Two particular professors have been very helpful to me with my speaking efforts.

It has had its own challenges-- as when you just get tired of thinking very hard to in order to speak the language or just tired of simple "overexposure" -- but the experience has been very positive so far.