The Learning of Languages

On a walk today, I got to thinking about languages. I was listening to French music on my iPod and with less than a week until I leave for France, I realized how awful my French is for having earned a college degree in the study of it. I can barely speak it, yet I have a certificate of Oral French Proficiency from my university professors. How is this possible? In my defense, it has been about five years since I've studied it, but even five years ago, I'm not sure I could've held my own in an ordinary conversation.

Thanks to a friend in Spain, I've got a language speaking program for my computer that focuses less on grammar and spelling, but emphasizes speaking in "language chunks." I've been dutifully sitting down to speak with my "computer" for about two hours a day trying to better my pronunciation and recall old phrases and basic expressions that have scarily escaped me.

This makes me think about my French classes from both high school and college. Yes, we did speak, but with rote phrases never used in context like, "J'aime voyager" or "je n'aime pas travailler." They gradually became more difficult as classes progressed, but I never felt comfortable when speaking. In college, we read, analyzed poetry before feeling anywhere close to fluent. There were never any conversational exercises, just reading passages and questions. In class we simply read what we had written as an answer for homework when the teacher asked us the questions.

There was a huge gap in my language learning. Sometimes I think I would've been much more interested in reading French poetry and novels had I a verbal command of the language. I could kind of read it, but barely had a chance to discuss it.

The best French lesson I ever had was during 12th grade of Madame Thorsen's class. She supplied food: chocolate sandwiches and pop (not entirely French, but satisfactory for high school students). We put our desks into a square of four, so it transformed into a dinner table instead of the usual droll rows and columns. Then, for the next thirty minutes, we were to eat and socialize in French only. We made mistakes, asked questions, but the more we spoke, the more I got into it. So much so, that when I left class, I was thinking in French. Nothing like that had ever happened to me before. That day, I had loved French class.

I think language teachers need to break up the lessons in the book with some fun conversational activities every once and a while, even with beginners. Students need variety and a chance to use the language. What good is knowing a language when you can't speak it?
One easy way is to act out situations using key phrases learned from previous lessons. When acting out dialogues in pairs or groups, students shouldn't read off of cards, but just submit themselves to making mistakes and becoming familiar with hearing the words come from their mouths.

As for me, it's high time I finally learned how to speak French properly after all those years of studying.