On the first day that Claire and I arrived in Montreal at the ILSC linguistic center, we had to take a placement test to see what level of French we were at. We both got placed into intermediate, and from the sound of the name we weren't too concerned. Unfortunately that all changed when we actually got to the class. EVERYONE is fluent in this class, but they are kind of terrible at grammar. Claire and I are the exact opposite. This is because, in the United States only, conversational speaking does not take precedent over grammar when learning a foreign language. So we are sitting in class, listening to all of our class mates hold lengthy in depth conversations with one another, while we are sitting there dumbfounded and kind of scared. So far we have been in the class for a total of 5 days and after that extremely scary first day, things seem to have gotten easier, at least speaking personally. I am slowly becoming able to communicate my thoughts by picking up on the words I didn't know, in order to form coherent sentences. I’m excited to see what the next 2 weeks will look like in terms of what Claire and I will gain and begin to understand more! This is not an easy senior project by any means and it is pushing our French abilities to a point we didn't know was possible.
Sunday, May 5, 2013
We're Kind of In Over Our Heads, But It's Worth It.
On the first day that Claire and I arrived in Montreal at the ILSC linguistic center, we had to take a placement test to see what level of French we were at. We both got placed into intermediate, and from the sound of the name we weren't too concerned. Unfortunately that all changed when we actually got to the class. EVERYONE is fluent in this class, but they are kind of terrible at grammar. Claire and I are the exact opposite. This is because, in the United States only, conversational speaking does not take precedent over grammar when learning a foreign language. So we are sitting in class, listening to all of our class mates hold lengthy in depth conversations with one another, while we are sitting there dumbfounded and kind of scared. So far we have been in the class for a total of 5 days and after that extremely scary first day, things seem to have gotten easier, at least speaking personally. I am slowly becoming able to communicate my thoughts by picking up on the words I didn't know, in order to form coherent sentences. I’m excited to see what the next 2 weeks will look like in terms of what Claire and I will gain and begin to understand more! This is not an easy senior project by any means and it is pushing our French abilities to a point we didn't know was possible.
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That's very interesting that they tend to focus on the exact opposite of what we did in French class, glad to see that you were able to try your hardest and fit in though!
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