Only in French … or not?
08 Aug 2009
The debate has been running for decades. Should an intensive French course only be taught in French… or should the teacher use English at his or her discretion? When working with children under 10 there is no question that letting nature take its course is the way. Young children will normally pick up a new language in a few months, if they are freely interacting with other children in the new language. It can still be a stressful adjustment for them.
What about adults and teenagers?
Here the answer depends on the level of the student. The more someone knows, the easier it is to adjust to an intensive French-only environment. For absolute beginners and people who know very little I feel that a wise combination of some explanation (in English) and a lot of practice (in French) is the best solution. The mix is also dependent on the personality of the student: some people love to jump out of airplanes on a whim… others meticulously prepare an afternoon bike ride in a park. So a good teacher will be sensitive to how adventurous a student is. Is she comfortable with not knowing? Does he need to know he is right?
With French, you are dealing with a language which is a close relative of English. As Emile Zola, the 19th century novelist remarked when he started to learn English: “English is just French…. badly pronounced.” (An anecdote I heard from linguist Michel Thomas) So it is helpful to a beginner to hear that all the English words in “ tion” (nation, revolution etc.: more than a 1000 of them) are exactly the same in French as in English. And all are feminine to boot! Any hints and tricks and associations that students receive helps them absorb enough initial material to be able to start using French right away. When you are first learning, you need to be encouraged, supported and guided, since for many, the jump into a new language is stress-producing.
Briefly explaining points of grammar can save a lot of time; and it really seems to help students. It takes thirty seconds to explain that “in French we say the house white, la maison blanche… not the white house. You as a student think: aha!.. and you can proceed to let your teacher guide you through a lot of practice. Time, knowledge and confidence have been gained, not lost.
The disadvantage comes when the teacher only talks about French and doesn’t let you hear it or use it much. (Remembering her vacation in Tahiti in 1976).
The ideal then, in a good intensive French course or immersion course, is that you receive sufficient guidance (so that you don’t waste time stumbling in the dark) while simultaneously, you are continuously guided and encouraged to speak French (so you progress rapidly).
You can access the site for my Language School in Phoenix, Arizona at www.FocusLanguage.com. or email me at info@focuslanguage.com. Enjoy learning French.
Jean-Paul Setlak
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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