Humanising Language Teaching
Year 5; Issue 4; July 03

Struggling with French

( Beate is a native speaker of English, teaching in a German University. Here she describes what it was like plunging back into her distant school days French)

Now my French classes and most of what I thought I once knew belong to the distant past and I found it quite a struggle to follow the conversations, let alone join in. Basically my friend, being fluent in French, took over all the negotiating, whether I wanted her to or not. and during various get-togethers with my friends and their friends ( basically a lot of French people) I spent a lot of time trying to understand what they were currently talking about and then slowly thinking about a possible contribution ( words and phrases in my head, spoken, not written, no pictures, feelings of frustration and confusion at times.)

By the time I was ready to say something the conversation had moved on to another topic. My face obviously gave the impression that I was unhappy big time ( which I wasn't, just concentrating very hard) and my friends' children ( 10 and 11) decided to look after me. The whole experience was very humbling, though, at the same time, I found this experience very helpful because I now understand my students much better- when they search for words, fight frustration and despair or simply feel fed-up. It's shocking what students have to put up with sometim