The first six weeks of French are behind me - what a blur! My class was slated to begin on January 2 but, due to the government shut-down, we didnʻt start until January 22 - three weeks late. The first few days were orientation, so we didnʻt actually begin class until the 24th. Weʻre still expected to achieve our necessary scores - for me a 3 in speaking and a 3 in reading - by the original end date of the course, however, which effectively short-changes all of us by three weeks. Harrumph.
I had my six week evaluation earlier this week, and Iʻm just where I should be - I scored the necessary 1+/1+. Unlike my horrendous experience in Spanish, I am really enjoying French and am loving going to class every day. The energy is high and Iʻm super-motivated. R is not here to distract me (heʻs working in Oregon), so I can put in a lot of study time in the evenings and on the weekends. Iʻve found a little mental trick that helps keep me on track: As corny as it sounds, when Iʻm tempted to binge on Netflix instead of French vocab, I ask myself, "What would my highest self do? What can I do so that I can look back on this time and be proud?" That usually galvanizes me into study mode. Now if I could just convince myself to get up at 5:00 am to get on the treadmill!
There are so many good French resources out there - Iʻm using the DuoLingo and Drops apps on my phone, listening to French music on YouTube and RFI news broadcasts, and reading a French-language newspaper from Luxembourg. Combined with class time, Iʻm pretty saturated.
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| This is how the pros do it - The Little Prince. |
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