Bonjour! I thought I might put up a series of blog posts about my life here in Villefranche. One about the school, one about my apartment, one about the food, etc... as I find time, of course! I thought I would start with the school. I have just finished my first day of tuition, which is Day 2 of the course. All I can say is - WOW! Today was conducted entirely in French and I'm pleased to say that I understood most of it. I understand how things work here now and it is phenomenal - I've certainly come to the right place.The Institut de Francais follows the a total approach program and they state that their 'one and only objective is to have you speak French as fluently and correctly as possible at the end of your stay.' Sounds good to me. The big question everyone asks is, 'how do they do it? In one month??' Well, the answer lies in a method developed after 4 years of research requested by the French government to combat the increasing number of foreign students and teachers coming to France. After determining what kind of French to teach (scholarly French? tourist French? business French?), they decided to teach the French that everyone speaks in France. They placed microphones in a variety of public places and gathered a large amount of data. They discovered that there was a collection of 50,000 words used. Of them, a list of 1,500 words were arranged according to frequency and that list constitutes what is now known as the 'French Fundamental Vocabulary.' So, this is what they teach! It's extraodinary. So it's not about knowing the right word for something - it's about knowing how to ask what the right word is for something. :)
I feel like I've achieved more today than I ever have, it's hilarious. I just had a little penny drop with one of the big verbs and the present/past/future tense, and already feel comfortable saying what has irritated me for the past 5 years. So funny as it seems hilariously simple and I don't know why I haven't got it until now but I am loving it. Class is hard in that it's very difficult to have the phrases naturally roll off the tongue - the physical resistance to the phrases is so obvious once you hear it and can repeat it in your head only to find your mouth doesn't follow when you try to speak. It's like trying to say a tongue twister fast when there are 8 other people in the room looking at you. But that is why I am here. I am sick of not feeling comfortable speaking French. Gosh, I've spoken more French today than I have in the past 10 years collectively. Not that it's good French, but it should be at the end of 4 weeks!The school is absolutely stunning (see the photos) and the teachers are hilarious and friendly. Breakfast consists of bread (freshly sliced baguettes), croissants, several cheeses, yoghurt and jam. Lunch is a 3 course meal. Yesterday was a vegetable soup, roast chicken/potato/roast tomato/beans and chocolate mousse. Today was Nicoise Salad (the famous Nice salad with anchovies/egg/tuna), beef schnitzel/broccoli/pasta bake and pistachio ice cream. It's very hard not to eat dessert when a plate of it is placed in front of everyone and there are spares in the centre. I've tried not to eat the carbs as much as possible but c'est tres difficile! There is also, of course, always fresh bread on the table and so far I've resisted pouring olive oil all over my plate and mopping it up with bread, as everyone else seems to be doing.
I've been placed in the intermediate level 1 class which seems to suit me well. I'm very happy, I've always been in the beginner levels at the Alliance de Francais so I was pleased. I was suprised considering I felt like I did dreadfully in the tests yesterday - I had to speak for 5 minutes describing a picture for one task, and all I could get out were very simple (and lame) sentences. And I ran out of things to say before 5 minutes! Ha. Oh well. I'm pretty happy with where I ended up.
Now I've just got to work out a way to afford coming here every year. ;)
M. x
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