I am still typing on an AZERTY keyboard; please forgive any errant keystrokes. This afternoon each group presented its project to each other group in turn, and for ours ('Les Jardins Partout Pour Tous') I was presenting the objectives and benefits of creating community gardens and allotments on currently waste ground. I really enjoyed it - I'd love to do another one tomorrow. I have come to the conclusion that giving a very short presentation should be scheduled at the start of the week, to increase students' confidence in speaking. I now feel myself much more sufficient to hold a conversation in French (and have indeed since done so) than I did this morning. Giving a presentation repeatedly on something I understand has increased my confidence and fluency - by the time the second group arrived I was improvising without my notes, and after the second or third repetition I even spontaneously varied the tense (even to the conditional and the use of 'si'!) and mode (use of the subjunctive!) of what I was saying. That is how to gain practice in hearing one's own voice pronouncing sentences.
All week they've tried to teach us how to hold a spontaneous conversation mostly by throwing us into such conversations, with fast-speaking French people, with little or no preparation. This is not realistic for people whose conversation practice in the preceding twelve months is practically nil. My knowledge and understanding of French was good when I arrived and may now be very slightly better; but I could have improved so much this week if there had been a strong element of non-spontaneous speaking early on. I don't have to create French statements or think up responses to questions on a daily or even a monthly basis in my ordinary life, so how am I to be expected to respond to suddenly being required to do so for days at a time? However I might have been expected to react, what happened was that I became painfully shy and have only really expressed myself fluently in French when irritated. I do not wish for the solution to my shyness to be constantly becoming aggravated.
So that is my conclusion at the end of an expensive and debilitating week in Caen: starting with structured presentations may bore the people who live in France/are French,* but they are not the ones who need the most help and the week needs to focus more on noticeably improving students' speaking ability by beginning with something to give them confidence. I may email an edited version of this post to the course organisers when I get home.
* I understand that there is at least one French person here this week and I can only say that I am extremely grateful not to be in his/her tutor group.
P.S. I have been given my dates for the speaking exams, and they could hardly be more convenient had I picked them myself: Spanish 6-9pm on Monday 24th September (a weekend to revise!) and French 6-9pm on Thursday 4th October. Win. With luck and a following wind I may pass this year creditably, and go on to visit my young man in Holland afterwards with a clear head. :)
All week they've tried to teach us how to hold a spontaneous conversation mostly by throwing us into such conversations, with fast-speaking French people, with little or no preparation. This is not realistic for people whose conversation practice in the preceding twelve months is practically nil. My knowledge and understanding of French was good when I arrived and may now be very slightly better; but I could have improved so much this week if there had been a strong element of non-spontaneous speaking early on. I don't have to create French statements or think up responses to questions on a daily or even a monthly basis in my ordinary life, so how am I to be expected to respond to suddenly being required to do so for days at a time? However I might have been expected to react, what happened was that I became painfully shy and have only really expressed myself fluently in French when irritated. I do not wish for the solution to my shyness to be constantly becoming aggravated.
So that is my conclusion at the end of an expensive and debilitating week in Caen: starting with structured presentations may bore the people who live in France/are French,* but they are not the ones who need the most help and the week needs to focus more on noticeably improving students' speaking ability by beginning with something to give them confidence. I may email an edited version of this post to the course organisers when I get home.
* I understand that there is at least one French person here this week and I can only say that I am extremely grateful not to be in his/her tutor group.
P.S. I have been given my dates for the speaking exams, and they could hardly be more convenient had I picked them myself: Spanish 6-9pm on Monday 24th September (a weekend to revise!) and French 6-9pm on Thursday 4th October. Win. With luck and a following wind I may pass this year creditably, and go on to visit my young man in Holland afterwards with a clear head. :)
No comments:
Post a Comment