What I Said I would Do
What I Did
I started the semester off saying I would do a bunch of things at least once a week. I quickly realized that each of these things could take me an hour each. Spending 9 hours a week on french was just too much. I divided it into four sections: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. I try to do at least one thing from each of these every week.
I've been speaking with Ana and Si (the other students studying french) every Friday for at least 15 minutes. We have been recording these, but the first few we weren't able to hear us, so they aren't here. It's been a bit of an experimental process.
Listening has definitely been going the best out of these areas. I enjoy it the most, so I have been doing it the most. I've listened to Coffee Break French Podcasts regularly. These play someone saying something in french, break it down piece by piece, and then play it back.
I have written a free write and two blog posts in french.
I read one chapter of Venise n'est pas en Italie and created a vocab log of the words I had to look up.
What I'm Doing Next
Writing is something I just haven’t been doing enough of and have no good reason for this. Nikki (my french mentor) has a bunch of short stories she would like me to read. I will no longer be reading Venise n‘est pas en Italie. I realized finishing it at the pace I would read it would take the whole year. I think short stories will be better for teaching me a variety of new vocab words, learning about various topics, and continuing to captivate my interest. It seems like a general theme we will be following with this is different french speaking cultures around the world. In the next quarter I will be holding myself more accountable on my weekly goals and especially writing and reading. Speaking has been the most challenging to get practice in since it requires other people. I’m hoping to do more of this in the coming quarter.
Second Quarter
What I Did
I have been doing a meeting with my french mentor every Sunday and going to french classes every Tuesday evening. The classes are with my mentor which she teaches through Alliance Francaise.
I’ve started watching movies and TV shows in french. I haven’t been documenting these because they are kind of just a fun thing to improve vocabulary and pronunciation. Another thing I have found very helpful to my listening is Coffee Break French. This is a podcast that takes will go through something completely in french and then break it down again in English. I think for the same reasons movies have been helpful this has also been.
I’ve also been doing grammar work this quarter. A few weeks ago when I met with Nikki we went over a piece of my writing. She had a lot of grammar points, some new to me and others I just need to review. I took a week and dedicated my french learning to grammar. I’m trying to learn new verb tenses and other grammar points while doing other things such as reading.
I haven’t been sitting down and trying to memorize vocab lists. Instead, I’ve been pulling pieces of vocab from the different things I read, listen to, and learn from conversations. I’ve been recording these things in my notebook with my other notes and then later on moving my new vocab to a vocab log. Although this is a little tedious, I have found it very helpful as it requires me to go back and look over my notes again. This solidifies the vocabulary in my mind better.
What I'm Doing Next
I have a list of activities that fall under four categories: reading, writing, listening, and speaking. I set up a schedule for the next semester to prepare for the AP exam specifically. So far this year I have kind of just been getting back into the swing of the language. I divided the weeks left before the exam into different themes. I will be focusing my reading, speaking, writing, and listening on these themes in order to be ready for the exam.
Everything has been going well this semester and as always I want to be doing more than I have time or energy for. I would like to be doing more speaking and recording it for documentation. I would also like to be doing more writing.
Everything has been going well this semester and as always I want to be doing more than I have time or energy for. I would like to be doing more speaking and recording it for documentation. I would also like to be doing more writing.