Let me introduce you to Emily the Culture Enthusiast, Richard the Retiree and Alex the Competitive Learner. These are all fictional avatars created by AI to describe typical French Room students. If you are throwing your arms up in disgust at this notion, I’m pleased! You are not a number, a statistic, or a made-up avatar. But these three characters and their ambitions might resonate with you more than you might imagine.
Let me now introduce you to Terri, a real French Room student. Terri came to me 18 months ago stating her intention to become fluent in French. At first, her attendance in live classes was sporadic; maybe I’d see her every 3 or 4 weeks, and we would retrace our steps each time. Then she joined a class, and others in that class were a little flaky, making it hard to get momentum. So we started working together in a private class. We worked on verbs and pronunciation and the mechanics of the language, but more importantly in some ways, we discussed learning strategies, motivation and self-confidence. In that way, Terri became a “think on your feet” fluent French speaker.
Many of us learned French at school, and people come to me and talk about their “schoolgirl or schoolboy French.” It’s interesting, isn’t it? I can’t imagine referring to my schoolgirl maths, for example. It seems that some of us suspend our language skills in time back to our school days. Many of us spent at least 5 years studying the language as an academic subject. Maybe it was 7 years or even 10. And the bizarre thing is that often, despite all this investment, which may have even been supplemented with additional evening classes or self-study in adulthood, we still can’t have a conversation in French!
And what if we were to lose all the progress we have made so far? Because it turns out what we really want to be able to do with our French might be quite small. Meet Ruth; she owns a chalet in the Alps and wants to be able to have simple conversations with people she might be sharing a ski lift with. Simple, snatched utterances commenting on the weather, the quality of the snow, whether it is busy for the time of year. You know, small exchanges, that it turns out can rank up the dopamine levels and make her day. Ruth calls these “life-affirming moments,” and I know what she means.
Imagine yourself in the scenario: you don’t know when the conversation might happen or what will be said. There are so many elements beyond your control, and yet when they arise, you feel calm and collected and able to connect in the moment. How brilliant is that!
Terri and Ruth have both decided to be able to speak French. Some might say that they are wasting their time or foolish to believe it’s possible. The French speak so fast, after all! But it’s the kind of experience most of us would like to be able to live if we only had the right support and guidance to get there for ourselves.
This isn’t just about classroom time. In fact, it’s what you do beyond the time with your tutor that marks you out as someone who will experience speaking French in an “on your feet,” real way. You can do Duolingo and the apps, Instagram and YouTube, and so many more things, but how do you know that what you are doing is time well-invested? How can you measure your progress? Where do you find the self-assurance to use it in real life?
Contrast this with the school French experience: a classroom with desks in rows, passive listening and writing, not much speaking, and not a lot of control over what you learn and when. This all culminates in an exam. The speaking part is often learned by rote from stock phrases, and you couldn’t make it a more rabbit-in-the-headlights moment if you tried. It is a test, after all, and you will be marked pass or fail! This is not to dismiss the great teaching that happens in schools. I myself have my school French teachers to thank for my deep knowledge of French grammar. But this kind of academic learning was never designed for the necessities of real-life, respond-in-the-moment, adult conversation.
You are beyond school at The French Room. You’re here because you want to be. Some spark has ignited the desire to speak French, and you want some help getting there. I remember one of the moments that sparked me to keep chasing those linguistic highs! I had a rush of the greatest feeling one day just from queuing up in une boulangerie, asking for my croissant, and suddenly becoming aware that I was treated like any other customer. “I am French,” I felt. “Oh la la!”
I’ve met many people over my decades of teaching who have found it so hard to believe that they can speak French. I recall one lady who came to every class bursting with anxiety. One day myself and my French assistant greeted her as she entered the room and shared a little nicety about how the room we were using had been refurbished. We both spoke to her in English. Her belief that she would not be able to understand was so strong that she panicked and said, “I’m sorry, can you say that more slowly?” This was a reaction she had developed to all spoken French. But this time we had spoken in English.
Beliefs are so powerful, as the famous phrase from Henry Ford goes: “There are those who believe they can and those who believe they can’t, and they are both right.” At The French Room, both I and your fellow learners do all we can to help you believe you can.
Now is an amazing time to come back to or start learning French. Here at The French Room, you have complete flexibility on how and when you learn. You have a huge range of finely tuned tutorials and classes designed to build up your competence and confidence, and behind it all is a highly experienced and passionate tutor to help you towards your goals, whatever they may be.
