French Language Course

My French immersion course at the American University of Paris transformed my speaking, writing, and reading abilities. I spoke French for 6-8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for six weeks. From the first moment of class, our teacher spoke French exclusively; that is, immersion in the French language was immediate. Our class comprised a variety of formats and configurations. Group class took place in the morning, and one-on-one instruction took place in the afternoon. As a class altogether, we acquired new skills and vocabulary. In groups of two and three, we reviewed the new skills, and then in different groups of two and three, we reviewed new as well as old material. Each week, we acquired new vocabulary according to a theme (e.g. one week the theme was French cultural festivals, vocabulary for discussing art practices like painting, music, and theater). We also learned a new verb test each week, and we used it to read, write, and talk about the week’s theme. Each night we had corresponding homework that we submitted either in writing or via voice recording. We received feedback on these each day, and we had the option to resubmit our voice recording according to the feedback on our pronunciation and grammar. The group class culminated in two exams, oral & written. For the in-class oral presentation we had to employ all acquired verb tenses in order to introduce an important French historical event. For the in-class exam, we had an hour to complete listening comprehension questions, reading comprehension questions, conjugation exercises, and then write a short, faux-postcard to a friend describing our time studying and living in Paris. I received an A- on the written portion and an A+ on the oral portion.  

As a group, we also took a few field trips to various museums and sites around Paris in order to practice reading comprehension and real-world speaking experience. These field trips included going to the Musée national de l'histoire de l'immigration and the famous Bon Marché grocery store.  

In the afternoons during the individual instruction, I alternated each day between translating French texts and speaking one-on-one with an instructor. For the translation days, I provided a few articles from the French-language, Pan-African journal titled Présence Africaine.that was founded in 1947 and published articles about Black culture and politics. I proposed articles that related to my research about Black mid-20th century poetry and cultural decolonization. Each day, we worked through them as I learned new syntactical structures, idioms, and vocabulary. For the oral portion, I practice pronunciation and phonetics. I also practiced talking about my research and having academic conversations, including navigating archives and conferences. This one-on-one instruction also culminated in two exams, one written and one oral. For the written exam, the instructor gave me an excerpt from a French-language article from the same time period and on the same topic but from a different journal. Over the course of 90 minutes, I translated the excerpt and wrote an English-language reflection essay about the differences between French and English grammar systems. For the oral exam, I gave a 20-minute presentation synthesizing the material I had translated from Présence Africaine. I received an A on both portions. My grade for the overall French Immersion course was an A.