One of my goals with this visit is to learn to better speak and understand the French language. On Saturday morning, I accompanied Adrian to a session of her French-English Conversation Group, a program she has offered for over 10 years. The goal is for native French and English speakers to meet for informal conversation—45 minutes speaking French and 45 minutes speaking English. She divides the attendees into small groups and we go from there.
Obviously, I was very nervous about my incompetence but she assured me that everyone feels the same way the first couple of times. She, in fact, swears she only listened and never spoke for six months in her group when she moved here years ago. It’s most important, she says, to just accept your level of language and that’s when you become comfortable—confident enough to be able to handle any situation because you persuade the listener to meet you at your level. Hmmm, we’ll see…
There were seven of us in my group—three Americans and four French. I did OK—especially when we spoke English (tee hee)—and I was able to understand many words and phrases when they were speaking French. I could tell at one time that they were discussing Bush (always…), their work and why they needed to learn the other language, where they grew up or came from, David Beckham’s move to the LA Galaxy, his Spice Girl wife, etc. Although it is really pushing my comfort level to subject myself to these insecurities, I think it’s important that I swallow my fear to attend as many as I can. Besides Saturday mornings, they have sessions on Tuesday evenings (only a couple of blocks from me) and Wednesday afternoons at the Eurocentres (language school) where the Saturday one was held.
And after I made my way home (more about that in another post), I spent a couple hours studying my lessons for Myrtille. I tried not to feel too sorry for myself—studying most of the day on a Saturday! I still have plenty of time jouer (to play).
Obviously, I was very nervous about my incompetence but she assured me that everyone feels the same way the first couple of times. She, in fact, swears she only listened and never spoke for six months in her group when she moved here years ago. It’s most important, she says, to just accept your level of language and that’s when you become comfortable—confident enough to be able to handle any situation because you persuade the listener to meet you at your level. Hmmm, we’ll see…
There were seven of us in my group—three Americans and four French. I did OK—especially when we spoke English (tee hee)—and I was able to understand many words and phrases when they were speaking French. I could tell at one time that they were discussing Bush (always…), their work and why they needed to learn the other language, where they grew up or came from, David Beckham’s move to the LA Galaxy, his Spice Girl wife, etc. Although it is really pushing my comfort level to subject myself to these insecurities, I think it’s important that I swallow my fear to attend as many as I can. Besides Saturday mornings, they have sessions on Tuesday evenings (only a couple of blocks from me) and Wednesday afternoons at the Eurocentres (language school) where the Saturday one was held.
And after I made my way home (more about that in another post), I spent a couple hours studying my lessons for Myrtille. I tried not to feel too sorry for myself—studying most of the day on a Saturday! I still have plenty of time jouer (to play).
