An ode to my French teachers

Je m'appelle Babette

I was 7 years old when I first heard French. I had just started in yet another primary school when a grey haired lady, probably in her ‘60s, started coming into our class every week.? She used a selection of plastic fruits as props to introduce us to the pronunciation. But the first thing she did was to give us French names.? I loved being Babette for 40 minutes.? I couldn’t understand everything she said but I was desperate to say the words.? I felt short-changed by the fact that orange was spelt the same but pronounced differently.

The tweedy Miss Norris

Oh dear.? All I can say here is the our French O level teacher at secondary school was a serious spinster dressed in tweeds.? We struggled through La Famille Bertillon and Alain’s job at Orly airport. Ecoutez et répétez! Needless to say, I was not a motivated student and I scraped a grade “C” at O level. It was exactly what I deserved.

Adult Education with Maryam

In a moment of intense professional boredom, ?I subscribed to a French GCSE course at my local college of knowledge.? Maryam was a gifted teacher in the classroom. Each week she would bring us news article headlines.? I learnt the term “authentic materials” much later during my CELTA course. ?She found us interesting and occasionally silly things to do, like try to translate UK headlines into French (we did this for A level). I’m still in touch with Maryam who was almost brought to tears by my A* grade and my fluent anti-Brexit speech.

Alone in France

Living and working in France meant becoming proficient in the shortest possible time. What to do? Having signed up for the DELFB2 course I had to find the right teacher.? I ended up with two teachers over the following years:

Vivienne was a grammarian who was prone to fainting fits if I didn’t conjugate the verb correctly. ?I thank Vivienne every time when French people compliment me on my grammar.

Patricia was an expatriate herself so we had a lot to talk about.? Patricia brought spontaneity to my speaking. She also prepared me for the DELFB2 exam, which took place in an airless room in Montpellier with no air conditioning, in full Covid mask.?

Vivienne gave me the structural grounding and Patricia gave me confidence.

All of these teachers were highly experienced and with the exception of Miss Norris, great fun to work with.? It is a sign of experience when the lesson progresses fluidly through the stages designed to build structure and confidence.? Each teacher was not afraid to show their personality and of course, they used different teaching techniques.

I will always be learning French and I will be forever thankful to my teachers, nearly all of whom were native speakers. Oh, I forgot to mention that native speakerism isn’t nearly as big an issue for FLE** as it is for EFL. Therein lies a very long discussion to be had because French is spoken as an official language in 27 countries, with a geographical extent over 60 countries.? There is no Academie Anglaise marshalled by august academics arguing about the next loanword. English is built on loanwords and calques. And it is all the richer for it.? But to speak French is a joy – where else can I practice those nasal vowels and be taken seriously?

*names have been changed

** Fran?ais Langue étrangère

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territories_where_French_is_an_official_language