The French language courses are much different then the language courses in the United States. It's more than how the professors run their courses that makes it so different, but your classmates and the fact that you are in France.
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| Our end of the year party with our professor (: |
I would first like to explain how the professors run their courses. Every professor does their class differently but I will give you some general guidelines on how classes are run over here as well as my experiences. Probably the newest thing to get used to is having your grade and your level known to the class. At the end of the year, the professor will tell everyone his or her grade.
When giving an oral presentation, they will ask the class, “Was this a good presentation?” They will also let the class know what they did wrong. I actually prefer being corrected, so I like this aspect of the courses. What I love most about the courses in France is how professors allow and encourage discussions. For example, a student will bring up a question or a statement and it transpires to this long discussion or debate. I love the freedom of the French classroom. Another beautiful thing is that they love mistakes and questions. In America some professors make fun of your mistakes or don’t like questions; in France you really have a great atmosphere to learn French.
Another cool thing about French classroom is you’re in FRANCE, learning French. I know when I was in America I had the roadblock to my French language because I couldn’t use French outside of the classroom. That is not the case here, you have so many opportunities to use French outside the classroom. You have the locals, your homestay family, and French friends. I can put all my effort into learning French and don’t have to worry about other courses like science, math, business, education, any other courses. I only have to worry about improving my French.
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| We had thanksgiving dinner with all our friends and were 10 different countries and 8 different languages :) |
Another awesome part of the classrooms here in France are the students. You will most likely have students from all around the world. In my class we have Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Spanish, Mexican, and Australian. However, there are so many different nationalities in the school! This is very cool because it allows you meet people from across the globe. Studying here forces you to speak French because it might be the only common language you have with others. Having students from across the globe makes the classroom interesting.
Brooke Begich is the Spring 2016 CEA MOJO Blogger in Aix En Provence, France. She is currently a junior at Iowa State University.