Week 1 @ Accent Francais

I chose Accent Francais for a few reasons, I can’t say if any of them were sound.

Primarily, I was worried a school in Paris would leave me with too much room to speak English, since most people my age in the city will hear my accent and immediately “practice” their English with me. Practice is in quotes because they speak English as well as I do. Secondly, it was cheap. Seriously cheap. Thirdly, it has a government stamp of approval for quality language teaching which not all language schools do. And lastly, Montpellier is a well-connected, growing city in the southern part of France, where I hadn’t been (though a fellow student was corrected that Montpellier is NOT in South France but in Occitania).

The first day all the new students arrive at the school (in one of three buildings) and are divided by how they performed on the written exam. They are given an orientation and a oral exam for final placement. Luckily on the plane I had looked at the rules for conjugating the future and “Passé Composé" (past) tenses and then practiced them that morning on my way to school. I used them both during my oral interview and was placed in the A2++ level. Comparatively, my written test (which I took just 14 days earlier) put me just barely in the A2 range. 

Needless to say, I knew less than everyone in my class the first day. In fact,  I missed a class  the first day because I didn’t understand that, although the teacher was leaving, we were all supposed to come back for another teacher later in the day. Oops. Great way to start off in a new school. That afternoon the new students have a meet and greet and then a city tour with Jean Paul, the school’s official tour guide. Try to imagine an effervescent Gru from Despicable Me (who also knows 12 languages and plays the flute to call the students back together) and you have Jean Paul. The tour was in French, so I understood very little, but we did learn the layout of the city and landmarks for finding our way.

The first week was a bit overwhelming. The homework was manageable but in class I often felt lost. This was my own fault, of course, but constantly being behind the curve is not my usual space. However, I learned more in that week than probably all my previous studying combined and my improvement was palpable (just ask my host). By Friday I presented the United States Healthcare and Insurance System to the class and fielded and answered questions about it all in French. This is a hard task at times in English so I will not pretend I did so flawlessly, but I count it as a major accomplishment.

Since I enrolled in the “Intensif” course, I had the standard 20 hours a week in the morning (9-12h15) and an additional 9 hours in the afternoon, Tuesday-Thursday (13-16h). From the people I’ve spoken with the Intensive lessons get mixed reviews. Each week of the year is assigned a theme by the school and we are taught vocabulary based on the theme. It is pretty hit or miss theme-wise, but the first day we focus on pronunciation (which I desperately need) and the rest of the week is a mix of oral expression and listening comprehension practice based on the vocabulary. I have really enjoyed these hours because they are a little more relaxed and we are given more time to engage with our classmates and actually use the language, and I have felt like we get good feedback on our pronunciation in these sessions, more so than in the standard courses that have more guideposts to meet.

One thing I must say, is that the teachers are impressive. While I was working toward TEFL certification, I was told I wouldn’t need to know the native language of the students and I remember thinking there was no way that was true! These teachers are hard-core immersionists. Even outside of class they speak to us in French. If we use a French word that is obviously wrong and they can’t think of what it could be after a lengthy description in French, they will occasionally allow us to say the word English to see if they know it. But this is rare. As in twice in three weeks (and my teacher didn’t know the word “curate” anyway so we promptly returned to French).

It has also helped me to appreciate school, and particularly homework, in a new way. Here at least, homework is not about getting it right. In fact, it seems to be better when we get it wrong. Every mistake is an opportunity for the teacher to try to explain it a different way, or introduce a nuance of the rules of the language. It seems as though every assignment we have been given to do out of class has at least one answer that is something we haven’t learned yet, and propels us forward for the next class. I have come to really appreciate this way of doing things. We have a small “exam” Friday of each week which is graded, but it is completely for our own benefit (as we are not given grades) to see what we have understood and retained and what we need to review.

I have been extremely happy with my time here so far and am excited to see what else there is in store!