Learning French as an Adult, page 2

by Alan R. Palmer

Page 1: "How it all started"

"The main quest had then begun"

We found the money to be able to visit France the following year and again had a great time. I found that I could do more than just "get by" by that stage – but I realised my vocabulary was still limited. I felt I needed to expand my level in the language and I had heard about a new course offered by the Open University of Great Britain. Although established as a University and offering many different courses, a language course was a new venture for the OU. All courses offered by the Open University are basically offered as correspondence courses, but of a very high quality. This suited me as I knew it would offer me an academically challenging course that I could do mostly at home. I realised on taking a preliminary test that I wasn't at the right level and waited another year to try again. I managed to start the course "Diploma in French" in 1995 which was to last for three years.  

I followed the course through each year which comprised an academic year from February to October. The course consisted of structured lessons with a number of assignments marked by either a computer or tutor. Things had really started to develop now and I became aware of how much I needed to learn and also excited by the challenge. 

The first year went well and I passed the end-of-year exam with a satisfactory result. This meant that I could carry on to the following year. This second year was much more demanding, but involved a week "summer school" at the University of Caen in Normandy. I really enjoyed the chance to meet other adult students who were doing the same course and we had a really interesting week with some intensive lessons and trips into town, taking notes and visiting different parts of the town. The third year saw a much increased workload and a welcome repeat visit to summer school in Caen . By this time I had realised I was putting in 15 hours per week (as the library book had suggested!) and I made the effort to achieve a pass result when the final exam came in October 1998. I had achieved a qualification in French! This was something I had not expected when I started learning. 

Did I feel fluent? Well I could hold a conversation fairly well without many mistakes and I realised that my initial concept of fluency had now changed. Where I had hoped to be able to speak just about general topics, I could discuss more specific things and understood quite a lot more of the French and Francophone culture.

What was I to do after the end of the diploma course? Well I had already joined a local French association that organised visits between "Twin towns" - a European idea where towns are "twinned" for cultural exchange with a counterpart in another European country. Our local town was twinned with a town just outside Paris and my family and I were lucky enough to be able to stay with a French family during a visit in 1998. This was particularly enjoyable as I could use my improving language skills and help other colleagues who weren't French speakers during the visit. 

More recently I started to have some private lessons at home with a French teacher. Just one hour per fortnight which I find particularly useful for helping to improve my conversation skills and pronunciation. 

To conclude, I find the About.com French site has become an excellent follow-up to all I have done before concerning learning a second language. I have found, since starting to visit the About.com site six months ago, that my ability to communicate in French does not now just extend to France only – but thanks to the Internet, to a whole world community of French learners and  native speakers. I recently left a message on the site forum about my adult learning experiences and I was startled at the number of responses and to learn how many people feel similar things about learning French as I do. My nine years of seriously learning French has been very enjoyable as well as challenging and I have found it can be a life-enhancing venture to learn another language. I still am not sure whether I'm fluent yet or not, but to be honest, I'm more interested now in just using my existing skills and trying to keep developing. This probably means you never actually completely "learn" a language - rather you "keep trying to learn." It is important that you learn by whichever method suits you best. I also think it's important to remember to keep a sense of achievement for what you have learned.

Alan Palmer May 2000

Learn French as an adult

Discuss in my forum