Intensive French: an overview
07 Aug 2009
An Intensive French course can be an amazing and fulfilling event in someone’s life. It can also be a disappointing one. The key to the quality of experience lies in the quality and effectiveness of the instruction. The fact that your instructor is a native speaker or a professor in no way insures that you will be taught effectively and will come out speaking French acceptably and confidently.
It is very useful to understand the 5 vital tasks you will undertake when you begin a French Immersion Program.
* You will need to develop good pronunciation so you can be understood and feel good about speaking French.
* You will want to quickly develop your vocabulary. Fortunately French is a close cousin of English and this task is quite feasible.
* You also need to learn and learn how to use basic French grammar. Once again, French has much in common with English, but having a skilled instructor can make the process far, far easier.
* You will want to develop your comprehension of basic French. This is always a gradual process.
* Finally, you will need to express yoursel in clear, simple and correct French.
I have found that there is no approach that yields such quick progress as an immersion program. Away from distractions, stimulated and challenged students are able to reach that often elusive goal: to learn to speak French.
Good programs contain some crucial aspects:
* There is a safe, creative and enjoyable environment for learning.
* French is presented in a practical way. (The information must be usable.)
* Students are taught how to put all the different pieces together: vocab, grammar etc. so they can begin to communicate immediately.
* The students are future-paced so they understand how they will continue to develop their fluency through the months.
As a native Frenchman living in the US, I am well acquainted with the English-speaking world. I have taught French – as well as English, Mandarin Chinese, Hindi, Punjabi, Italian and Spanish - for over 25 years. I have guided hundreds of students to fluency: beginning to advanced. I have also studied 14 languages through the years, reaching varying levels of fluency: this has taught me a clear path to fluency. I have made this process a specific and usable blue-print.
I view the process of learning French as an exciting journey, and I take responsibility as a skilled guide, to make this journey fulfilling and profitable.
Beginners, as well as beginning intermediate students, who attend my 5-day Intensive French program are able to achieve their pronunciation and communication goals, while intermediate and advanced students are guided to the next levels of fluency and confidence.
Feel free to contact me with any questions or comments at info@focuslanguage.com, or call me at (602) 569-7526. To get more information about the Intensive French programs you can also go to my website: FocusLanguage.com.
French and English have much in common, especially on the level of vocabulary. They are more distant when it comes to pronunciation. English is fundamentally a Germanic language, and its sound system reflects it. French comes almost completely from Latin, though, on the level of pronunciation, it was also influenced by the Germanic tribes which invaded Gaul (France) in the early Middle Ages. (Remember that the Franks who gave France its name came from Germany.) The famous French "R", "EU and "U" are really Germanic sounds.
So how can you maximally improve your pronunciation in French? The following ideas are meant for beginners, but they can really be applied at any level.
- Immerse yourself in the sound and sounds of the language. Listen to French
One of the most crucial and yet elusive tasks at hand when you are learning a Foreign Language is to develop your comprehension in a systematic way. Just exposing yourself to the language will not do it, or we would all learn French simply by walking around the streets of Paris. Yet, you originally learned English without knowing any other language. What made it possible? Well, for one thing, you had nothing but time on your hands laying in your crib or screaming in your playpen. You also had a good staff (Mom and Dad) taking care of your basic needs and wants, allowing you to focus on understanding what was going on around you, and learning communicate with the locals. It still took
Once you are past the tasks of learning basic French sounds, as well as some basic vocabulary and grammar, two new tasks appear before you in a French Intensive course. The first is to speak, the second is to understand. They are both challenging and call on completely different skills. Comprehension, our topic here, lies at the very core of acquiring a new language. What then, are the steps which can facilitate and accelerate your progress in understanding French natives? It is useful to recognize the various levels we go through as we move from absolute non-understanding to full knowledge and command of a language. First you hear a wall of unfamiliar and absolutely incomprehensible sounds. As your familiarity
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