1. If I sometimes feel the person I’m speaking to is giving me a “your French stinks” look, I’ll work up the courage to continue speaking anyway. (It’s rare to get that look though! Ask yourself if it means something else instead, like “can you speak louder?” or “can you slow down a little?”)
2. If it’s me who’s saying in my own head “your French stinks” during a conversation, I’ll vow to worry about that later and just focus on the conversation at hand.
3. I’ll start taking myself a lot less seriously when I speak French. I know this isn’t school, and there’s no such thing as getting good marks during real French conversations.
4. I’ll focus less on perfect grammar and more on sharing thoughts and ideas. This will allow me to just chill out and let the words flow.
5. I’ll listen to French every day. Not just once a week on Sunday afternoon if I’ve got the time, but every single day.
6. I’ll take more risks with my language learning. I’ll put myself in situations that are unusual or different for me, like enjoying a coffee in a different café, joining a new club to meet people, or striking up a conversation in French with someone I don’t know.
7. I’ll get excited about making mistakes. Every time I make a mistake and realise it, I have an opportunity to improve my French: I recognise the mistake and can do something about it.
8. I’ll speak up in French, even if my fear tells me not to. I’ll do this because I’ll feel better about myself if I take risks instead of keeping quiet when I have something really damn good to say!
9. I’ll accept my pronunciation, no matter how “off” it seems to me. I’ll keep working on improving it but, in the meantime, the pronunciation I’ve got now is more than good enough for making contact with other people in French.
10. I’ll aim to form a strong bond with at least one francophone in my life, or strengthen the bonds I’ve already got with francophones.
11. I’ll make “courageous,” “adventurous” and “curious” my new favourite adjectives to describe myself in learning French, and “perfect” my least favourite. I don’t need perfect French to make contact with people and form friendships.
12. I’ll take time to savour the progress I’ve made in French, commit myself to learning more, and be grateful that I have a new year of discoveries to make lying ahead of me.
Love this post, Felix. Bien dit!
Hi I’m a teacher of french as a second language, born and raised in Paris, and I’ve been teaching french in The Alliance Française in Caracas Venezuela for 5 years now. You can’t imagine how much I agree with every point you’re stressing on here. Everytime i start with a new group, I begin explaining basicaly the same things: stop caring too much about the accent, listen to a lot of radio in french, think in french, and speak with your heart. Grammar is a tool.
I’m discovering your blog, this is the firat post I read. i already like it a lot.
Thanks
Thanks for the reminder re: courage. I still find myself passing up opportunities to practice and choosing a safe choice rather than taking a risk and speaking up. Most people are so gracious and encouraging (very few “your French stinks” looks), but sometimes it is hard to remember that!
It always amazes me to see a learner speak up even when the fear is there. We often hear people say that we shouldn’t worry about what others might think, but more often I think we shouldn’t worry about what we ourselves might think!