The Trail's Our Thing

The Monday of every other week incorporates an orientation for new students. Yesterday there were about 25 new students beginning their program. We all arrived early at 8:30 am and were invited to have coffee and bread on a little outdoor terrace upstairs. I chatted with a woman from Canada, a woman from Germany, and a young American man who is working in Jordan. Everyone was working very hard to speak only in French. We all politely pretended that we understood each other perfectly!

Then we all assembled in a large room on the ground level. The director welcomed us to the school and gave a talk about the school and the educational program. She was joined by a man named Georges and they talked about a variety of extracurricular activities that are offered in the afternoon and evenings to supplement the classroom program. I’m excited about this, and I plan to do several of the activities. For example, on Thursday afternoon, I’m going to go on a hike at Mont Sainte Victoire. And I’m seriously considering the group trip to St. Tropez. (Even though I have the car to use, I know I wouldn’t drive to St. Tropez on my own… and I would love to go!!) Some of the activities are free and some have a fee. The trip to St. Tropez is 25 euro.

Touring Aix with Georges

At that point we started working on a written test. I had difficulty with about two-thirds of the test, since I really only know the present tense. As we all worked on the written test, a couple of teachers started taking individuals away for one-on-one oral discussions. Their goal was to sort us into groups based on our level of language skills. As is often now the case, with my name “Wood,” I was the last person taken away for my oral discussion. I enjoyed talking with the woman Sonia, though my lack of proficiency in conversation was evident.

While the teachers figured out how to organize the groups, Georges took us on a walking tour of Aix. It was all very familiar to me—I always knew exactly where we were—but it was interesting to try to follow Georges’ tour in French. I think I understood 75% of what he said, but it helped to already know the context. At the end of the tour we had just 50 minutes for lunch. Georges pointed a group of us to a little café just inside the péripherique across from the school—me, the Canadian woman Patricia, a Swedish woman named Annalise, and a German man named Karl-Heinz. We all ordered a plat du jour and attempted to converse in French.

The lists were posted back at the school. I am in the lowest group, where there are just five of us. We are “elementaire”—we all speak and understand an elementary level of French. There don’t seem to be any “debutantes” (beginners) in the group of students starting today. Our teacher today was Sonia, the woman I’d had my one-on-one conversation with. She is vivacious and energetic-- I like her very much. Sonia will alternate with another teacher named Christine, so we will have two different teachers. Today we met for just an hour and a half in the afternoon, but normally we will meet for three full hours of class in the morning (not counting a break in the middle).

My classmates are all German-speaking, though they tell me that Swiss-German is quite different from regular German. There is Karl-Heinz, the man from lunch. He lives in western Germany (I could never understand quite where), near the border of Lorraine in France. He works for Michelin and is here for his work. Then there is Urs, whose name I’ve never heard before and can’t pronounce. He is Swiss (Swiss-German speaking) and works for a bank. He is also here for work. Lydia is pretty and outgoing, Greek. She is 29 and a young woman I already admire. She speaks Greek, English, Italian, and Swiss-German. She studied in college in Rome, met her boyfriend, and now lives near Basel where she also works for a bank. But she is here for pleasure. Suzanne is a sweet young woman from near Frieborg, Germany. She is an accountant and will soon start a job with a new accounting firm. She and her boyfriend are renting an apartment in L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue, and she’s driving here for class every day. I think Suzanne will be here for the same three weeks as me, but the rest of us will be an intact group for the first two weeks.

I learned all this in the exercise that took most of our class time today. We had to ask each other questions to gain this information, some part of which I couldn’t understand. The first day was absolutely exhausting for me. I had to concentrate so hard on understanding what was being said. It is especially difficult to understand the French of people whose accent is influenced by some other accent that I’ve never heard in combination before!

After the first class I ran into Patricia in the hallway. She was going to find a bookstore to buy a dictionary, and we decided I would go with her and then we’d have a drink. We met up with Evan, the young American working in Jordan. He works for a French company and has learned a lot of French from co-workers. They are in the class the next level up from me. We all walked down to the bookstore on the Cours Mirabeau and then had a drink, very responsibly speaking French the entire time. Neither of them have spent much time in France, and I was able to help with the ordering and the protocol at the bar. At least I have that!!

And now I have survived also the second day. Today our teacher was Christine and our class worked hard. I am now learning the past tense (the passé composé), though we’ll have to see if I remember it tomorrow. We’re not supposed to look things up in our dictionary in class. If we don’t understand a word, we’re to ask the teacher (she said she is our dictionary), and she will explain the word to us in French. Tricky! The focus is very much on conversation, and with a class of only five, we are all getting to talk a lot. I have a hard time understanding Karl-Heinz and Urs.

I left class at 12:30 with Lydia and Urs, the two classmates from Switzerland, and we walked to almost the opposite end of the centre ville to find a place to eat. (Long story!) We broke rank and spoke English the entire lunch. It was just too hard to stay with the French, especially at our level. They both speak excellent English. A French lunch is supposed to be leisurely, but the service was exceptionally slow. It appears that the Swiss are action-oriented like the Americans.

In the afternoon I went back to the school to try to use the internet, but the wireless wasn't working. I did use one of the terminals for a while, but the French keyboard was slow for me and I didn’t stay online long. I left with Patricia and we found a café on the Place de Prêcheurs for a drink. We spoke English a bit just to have some easy conversation. But then I saw Karl-Heinz and invited him to join us. He doesn’t seem to speak English and our common language is French, so we worked again on our French.

I am starting to have some friends. The work is very difficult, but the people are very nice and supportive. I’m enjoying being with such a varied group. Now hopefully I will progress with my French!