2010409

In a lecture today, finally, our teacher taught us grammar. That’s what I want!

Nowadays I appreciate my English proficiency, for two reasons. First, learning French is made easier. It may be easily understood that some English vocabulary can be transferred to French with slight modification. Furthermore, many sentences or phrases are easily understood by replacing each word with an English word.

Second, I rediscover that English is very useful as a means of international communication. Since the arrival at this small town, English haven’t seemed useful; just few people speak English here. Another student at my host family speaks both French and English, and sometimes functions as an interpreter between me and my host mom. If I don’t speak English, however, I cannot benefit from her translation. So that’s why I appreciate my knowledge of English.

I started to use my mobile phone. Because the display of the mobile was in French and also because it was not charged with money, I have not used it. I asked a clerk at a mobile shop to change the language and charge 15 Euros.

After that, I went to a big supermarket to buy materials for sushi. I bought rice, smoked salmon, avocados, soy sauce, and a can of crab fresh. I enjoyed walking around in the supermarket so much. It stimulated me and made me eager to prepare meals with materials that are available there.

20100408

As grammar, vocabulary seems essential for a language,,, I will try a website called “smart.fm.” In past, I was told of the website by my friend, but I have never tried it.

At night, I joined a party at the school. It was reconfirmed that I am not good at enjoying parties like that. I really admire a friend who appeared enjoying the party much. I would like to acquire the “ability to enjoy himself” like his.

20100407

After school, I send a request for permission of stay to the office. I was not sure about the procedure, but a madam at the local office was so kind that she wrote address on an envelope.

I realized that we need grammar knowledge in order to talk about complex matters. For example, words like “if” are necessary to make an assumption. So that can be a strong motivation of learning French.

20100406

The first day of my language school. It appears that teachers at the school don’t speak English. That is why their orientation was not understandable completely… Additionally, I understood almost nothing of the test for class allocation. As expected eeeeasily, I was allocated to the lowest class whose students were all Japanese.

Lectures are given entirely in French, which I think is ineffective. Declarative knowledge like meanings of words or grammar systems should be discussed in a language students understand, I believe. We, beginners, don’t fluently understand French, so it takes much time to explain things in French. The only way is to show many examples and let student find grammatical rules.

But an interesting point is that discovering grammar rules can make language learning more enjoyable. When we take to something, it is a strong factor that we ourselves find them and have affection to them. Similarly, if we find grammar rules by ourselves from given examples, we may take to them.

Another ineffective teaching method is listening. At the very beginning of French learning, we don’t know almost all the words of listening materials. What could we understand of materials full of new words? It was completely ineffective!

Having said that, I will just adapt to their method. One of my beliefs is “Circumstances are not what we struggle to change, but what we adapt to.”

20100405

Though it is Monday, our language school was off; it is Easter today. Invited by my friend, we visited a castle. Cousin of his host mom was visiting her and they took us to the castle. The cousin was with her family: her husband and two kids. She is French and her husband is English. So the kids speak French and English. They taught us a French word “froid” that means “cold.”

As I returned home, my host mate had returned from her trip to Paris. She is a South American girl who I can hardly believe is younger than me. Surprisingly, I was found out to be shy in a minute…