Mon voyage français
This week was successful for a struggle at the same time. I was able to practice my French through different programs but struggled to maintain my practice in Duolingo. I only made it to level 48 this week, as it is becoming hard. I think I might have shot higher then I should have. However, I am going to keep pushing myself and see how far I get in the next week. I might not make my goal of 80, but I am wondering, what level do you all think I can get to? I think with learning online, it is important to schedule time out of your day to practice, which I have not been doing. For the future, I am going to plan a part of my day that will be dedicated to learning, and I will hold myself accountable for that.
Another struggle I faced was finding the Classics2Go Collection App as this was nonexistent when I went to search for it. The other week I discovered that App online and was excited to use it, as I talked about in my previous blog post. However, the App does not exist, so I picked a different route that was not an App. I found a book reading resource which has different levels and all sorts of topics of books that you can read in French and other languages too, on the internet. I posted a video to Twitter of me reading a book in French with the topic revolving around family. I chose that topic because this past week that has been a major theme within my Apps for practicing French.
The other day, my friend from Prince Albert commented that when I talk in French, I completely sound like a tourist. I did not know how to react to this, and I actually took it to heart because it felt like an insult. After a while, I began to think that he is right. I am learning. I shouldn’t be so hard on myself because I am not going to be fluent , but rather it is something that is going to take long, hard practice. In relation to this, I found a video about having an American accent and what that might sound like compared to a native accent. It became SUPER clear to me that he was absolutely right. I think over time that I could eventually get there if I stay persistent and dedicated to my learning. However, now I am now completely comfortable with saying that I have a Canadian accent and I am not fluent because let's all face it, I am far from it but eh, that's okay I am in the process of learning.
The other App that I did try this week was French Vocab, but I was extremely distraught with this application. All that it had available were cards to practice with and then you would tap the screen and it would give you the answer. It did not provide any opportunity to practice speaking or writing out words, which I did not find helpful. I personally believe that when you are first learning something that it is valuable to write it out as you begin to remember what you are writing (or at least I experience this in classes I take). However, a way I could have fixed this could have been simply grabbing out a loose leaf of paper and writing out the questions and answers; however, I did not take this route as it did not become apparent to me until writing this critical blog post. If I were to use the application again, I would definitely try out this alternative.
This week I made a video discussing how I felt about the journey of learning French in which you can find below. I felt it was important to show you how I am doing with speaking the language. Before hand, I typed out what I wanted to say, which is why it looks like I am reading something. I also chose to record it using SnapChat because it is a fun feature that I use on a daily basis, so I thought it would be a different idea to incorporate it into my #learningproject.
Translation:
Hello, today I am talking about French. Learning French has been hard but fun. I enjoyed learning, and I continue to want to learn more. I even read back of boxes all the time now to see if I understand what it is saying. I am still very slow with talking, and I plan to keep practicing. Maybe I will be faster at speaking. It has been a good experience, and I am content that I chose to learn this language. How long do you think until I am fluent?
It took me many tries to record this because I wanted it to sound perfect. After recording this about ten times, I realized I would never sound perfect, and I will make mistakes as I even do that when speaking in English. So I decided to stop and show where I am truly at. How do you think I am doing?
Overall, I think French is a challenging language to learn and I have heard before that it is one of the harder languages to learn. However, after reading this article, it became clear that I am wrong and in fact, it is one of the easier languages to learn. No matter how hard or easy it is, it is important to me to learn it, especially living in Canada as it is a bilingual country. Do you believe it is one of the easier languages to learn?
Finally, it has become clear that I am OBSESSED with Ted talks as it seems to be a weekly theme within all my blogs. But this video I found is all about teaching students to learn how to learn, which is something I found super interesting because thinking back I did not have this experience. I feel that I never had the opportunity to teach myself and instead, there was always someone pushing information into my brain, and then I was required to memorize the information and write a test. I truly never learned how to learn on my own. In my future classroom, I think an effective way to incorporate this would be through Genius Hour, which is something so authentic and valuable.
All and all, my journey in learning French has been a rollercoaster and something that is tedious, difficult and frustrating. However, at the end of the day, I am loving to see the progress and how comfortable I am becoming with being critical of my work and online learning. J'aime le français!
