Communicating

French class continues to move along at a reasonable pace. The attrition in this second level class has really surprised me. We went from 5 to 2 students from week 2 to week 3. It is like getting a private lesson from Madame Hela for an hour and a half twice a week. We still only know two verb tenses, present and past (passe compose), because of late she's been focused on having us speak French more. We are not allowed to ask questions in English anymore and when she introduces new vocabulary, Madame Hela tries to give the definition in French. That can certainly be confusing but since her English isn't all that great (as she herself admits, she isn't an English teacher!) it more or less evens out in the end. We also have to do a lot of readings. My pronunciation has really improved. Even my R's get the nod from Madame now. What I can't seem to get is French spoken at normal speeds when I can't see the speaker. Madame plays recordings and I get maybe one word in five. Actually, that's being too generous. One word in ten is more like it. And those words are usually the nouns. I can't "hear" the verbs when they are spoken. I've got some podcasts but have the same problem with them. Can't figure out a damned thing they are saying. If they talk really slow and I can replay it, I can figure it out. If I can read a script while listening to a recording, I can figure it out (still need to replay it a few times). But just straight listening? Not so much.

Ah well. I've been told that levels 3 and 4 of the French classes are taught by a different teacher and involve a lot more conversational exchanges. I suppose I should focus on grammar and vocabulary and let the rest come as it will.

All of this was put in a new light by a training class I attended last week for work. I am going to be teaching a geology flagship class to new Saudi geologist starting Saturday. They were selected back when they were in high school and sent to the US, UK, or Australia to get bachelor's degrees. Therefore they can speak English but it isn't their first language. During our training class to prepare us for teaching these courses, I was teamed up with a colleague, a Chinese guy, a petrophysicist, who will be teaching the petrophysics flagship. He and I thought it ironic that we had a weakness in common: language. His accent is extremely thick and you have to listen to him carefully to understand him. I speak American English at light speed and drop word endings and vowels liberally. When speaking formally I can avoid colloquialisms but I probably won't be able to keep that up for two weeks, the duration of the course.

Communication. Language. Being a teacher and being a student. These concepts have been occupying my thoughts the past few days.