ILA French School

I am finding that going back to school at my age is not easy. Not only am I surrounded by students much younger than myself, my retention leaves much to be desired. Presently, I am in the Programme Cours Standard A2. Basically that means I am a beginner, but up one level from the bottom. This course runs for 4 weeks from 9 - 12:15 p.m. with a 15 minute break. (During the break or pause in French, students from all the classes race out onto the street for a coffee and/or croissant from the small cafe next door and perhaps a smoke) The course includes 20 lessons of vocabulary, grammar, conversation, phonetics etc. My classmates and I work through a variety of activities that include different media - videos, cartoons, cards, drawings, quizzes etc. Most of my friends are educators so you can appreciate that a large number of teaching strategies are employed to appeal to all types of learners. We are also assigned homework to do for the next day. Needless to say, I have to spend extra time in the afternoons and evenings reviewing the material. Even with that, it is a stretch. The first week of school is not yet over, so I must be patient.

In the afternoons and on Saturdays, there are additional learning activities offered by the school. Some are free and others have a cost. I went on the tour of Les Hotels Particuliers that I described in a previous blog and I tried to sign up for a cheese tasting class, but unfortunately it was full. Next week, there is a wine tasting of wines from the Languedoc region. That one really interests me so I will try and register early Monday morning in order to reserve a spot. On Saturday, there's an excursion to Carcasonne, but I think I will give it a miss and go to the Saturday morning market at Les Arceaux instead. Patricia tells me that market is very interesting. These excursions are a wonderful adjunct to the learning experience, but because my French is still so limited, I am not sure I would get that much out of them in these early days. I am also banking on these excursions/activities being repeated. Over the next 6 months, I'll try to participate in many of them. I've also been thinking about taking some of the Intensive courses offered in the afternoons and/or one-one tutorials. However, I am going to wait before I enroll in either of those options as I'm pretty overwhelmed with what I'm doing presently.

Pauline is a good teacher, but Patricia my host, is also very helpful. Not only will she answer all my questions as slowly and simply as she can, she even assists with my homework when asked. On a side note, there was a breakthrough two nights ago - Patricia agreed to let me dry the dishes. Last night, I did it all. That said, she hung up all my wet laundry from the washer this morning. I'm one lucky girl! By the way, I asked Patricia about the graffiti problem and she said that the police have tried to intervene, but it has been difficult to catch the culprits. In addition, many of the walls and buildings have been washed or repainted to no avail. No sooner is it removed than the graffiti returns. In my opinion, it is quite a blight on the environment, much like the billboards in Canada. The other thing she told me is that smoking is not allowed in indoor bars, restaurants, offices etc. However, people can smoke anywhere outside. There are no rules about smoking 10-15 meters from doorways like we have.

Back to the school. Gemma, the girl from Spain, has met me everyday for lunch this week. Although she's moved up to a higher level, she feels more comfortable with the people in our class. Today, we were joined by Max, the lawyer from Sweden and Alex, the tennis pro trainer from Australia via Singapore. Both Max and Alex were "under the weather". Alex has laryngitis - not a good thing to have in a predominately oral class and Max had a headache which may have been a result of a late night at the disco. Another student in our class has been away most of the week. There seems to be a lot of viruses going around. When I ride the tram, many of the passengers are coughing and sneezing too, so I am being very diligent about hand washing. So far, so good.

That's it for now. I've already sent pictures of the exterior of the school and I'll try and get a picture of our class in the next while. This time, I have a picture of Gemma at one of the outdoor cafes. My duck confit was delicious. Salut!