I seem to have developed kind of an underground reputation for giving the honest nitty-gritty overseas study-wise. It's not a bad rep but if it gets too widespread certain members of the department may take exception...
Yet another (I've had about 4-5 in the last three years) panicked senior French major came to see me freaking out about how they still can't speak French after 4+ years in our illustrious French program and how they're about to graduate and supposedly have a BA in French under their belts, yet feel they can barely communicate. Most of them are correct about that last part; the one today is considerably more able than the previous ones. Anyway I told her quite frankly that if she wanted to get her French up to max potential in the time she has at her disposal she should not go on the department's Paris program but should either go with another university or (preferably) on her own to any one of various independent study institutes (of course I highlighted my fave tho). (Note: she's done with coursework after this semester and will not need any more French on her record but just wants to be able to say, accurately, that she's fluent before she jumps into jobhunting.) I showed her websites of the program of my alma mater and of the aforementioned independent institution as cream-of-the-crop measuring sticks and sent her to do some web research.
Anyway don't ask me why our students historically have come back from the summer program still unable to carry out anything but the most basic 101 conversation. But if a serious student asks me my opinion and it's too late for them to need any more credit from here anyway then I'm going to counsel them to go elsewhere. With any luck maybe since our program has moved to Paris this year it will produce some actual French Speakers, but would I risk it in this person's shoes? I doubt it. Not when she has a 2-month window before she needs to be making a living, if at all possible with her French language skills fully operational.
So there. Guess I just needed to rant a minute so I would deflect the piece of my head that is feeling disloyal...
2 comments:
I have no idea what the University's Paris program is like, but I found that when I was living in Japan, that it is very easy to get trapped in an English speaking "bubble".
In my case, I was merely working overseas and had a non-professional interest in learning Japanese. There were several problems that I encountered. One, I lived with other native English speakers. Also, the Japanese people I did know all spoke exceptionally good English, so it was hard to engage them in Japanese. Third, the random Japanese people that I met outside my circle of friends almost always saw meeting a gaijin as a free opportunity to improve their English, so I could attempt to speak to them in my broken Japanese but this was rapidly turned around when they would respond in very skilled English.
You're so right... I experienced almost all of this when I was in Japan, too. One's context has a lot to do with it - for the French program, since it's the first year for Paris I am not sure but the program they held in another city before this didn't offer family situations for lodging, which is one big reason the English Bubble was even harder for students to escape!
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