Fun with French

My first NOVA class is finished and I haven't written anything about it since I started! How did that happen? Well, it's called--this isn't my only journal. I have written elsewhere. But maybe I should share a few things with you about it. I had seven wonderful students enrolled in my Introductory French course, and we covered a lot of ground together.

So much ground that I'm positive some of the things that came up as questions or during my preparations as seemingly significant to teach, I'm positive I didn't learn in my introductory French course back in 8th grade, and yet we met in that class for an hour every week day for an entire semester. What on earth did we do in all that time we had? I have to confess that I wonder that about a lot of subjects. But that is for a different conversation.

I think those things came up just because of this man named Murphy. You've probably heard of him. He has a law. That is, as I feared, students asked me questions I didn't know the answers to. It has been a few years since I was regularly conversing in French, and even more since I studied it.

Still, I think I didn't do too badly.  After all, it's not like they were asking these questions because we moved  so quickly as to bypass my abilities. No, they still had a hard enough time learning the things I was trying to teach them--things I did know. I think that's a unique problem to teaching adults. They just know enough to ask obscure questions--like the gentleman who had a litany of military-related questions. I'm not really much of a historian, let alone a military historian, and much less a French military historian. True, I probably should have brushed up a bit on the masculine/feminine case of a few words I got stumped on, but no, I'm not so sure it was all that big of a slight that I didn't know all the answers.

At least they were learning something, and I could definitely tell in this case. That's a nice thing about taking people who start with next to nothing in a subject--you know when they make progress.

And still, in spite of the embarrassing questions, I had fun--even learning answers to those questions, as well as finding things as I prepared for the classes that I didn't know. For example, I had thought that lavabo was the word for sink, of any kind. So when I was in France, I never completely understood the funny looks I got when I used the word to refer to the kitchen sink. Eventually I stopped using it and just used  "bobiné" if necessary, since I'd at least gathered as much as to know that that probably meant tap, since when they gave me tap water they said it was "du bobiné." But I learned that evier is the word for a kitchen sink. Who knew? What's the big difference, I don't know. But there you have it.

There were a few other obscure words I learned, as well as I had refreshers of lessons I learned back in the 8th grade that for whatever reason haven't come up as significant since then. Isn't language interesting?


One of the best things I learned from teaching, however, is that some students can actually be forgiving of blunders and embarrassments, and keep on smiling as you push forward. Maybe because French is such a beautiful language, it's a little easier to see le prof en rose.

Fresh French

While in Roanoke, I bought a lot of books. I can't help myself. I felt proud of myself for not going to the Green Valley book fair. That's an awful temptation. O didn't even buy any books after the author visits. But I still bought a good handful of other books at the faculty reading. I figured these people I knew and I was happy to get their signatures in the books, too. And then I also received a few gift books from a sweet teacher for my tutorial, in effort to help me with my Sleeping Beauty story by giving me some Medieval history books. Oh boy, history. Yes, I will have to read some history. I actually did read some library medieval history while I was in Roanoke, and it was pretty interesting. You should be proud of me.

But after receiving all these books, I came home thinking I was eager to read so many of them. I just couldn't decide.

Well, because I had taken so many of my own books with me down to Roanoke, and then with the acquisitions, I had a lot of reorganizing to do. I took just about all my books, even the ones that stayed, off the shelves to re-order and even changed the shelves for some topics. I did another project too to make room, but that's another story.

Anyway, in all of this self-enforced rummaging, I ran across this French book that I'd bought in Princeton like about a year and a half ago--le Petit Nicolas. And that was suddenly what I wanted to read. French. All of a sudden English didn't interest me at all. I felt this certain tiredness of English. All of these silly American stories, blah! They all seemed the same. Why couldn't English be like French?

Well, I just finished it tonight, and I have to say it was pretty sweet. Funny, clever, sometimes a little sad--as you'd expect from the culture. Sometimes it was a little predictable. I guess that kind of comes with all kinds of literature. But overall definitely enjoyable. I think I'm going to have to go get some more French books. Is that Green Valley Book Fair still going on?

Just kidding, I think I can read some English again, but I will be reading more French. It's just Fresh. What can I say?