Back to the Classroom, Sorbonne-Style
I have enrolled in a year of French classes at Sorbonne Nouvelle — officially Université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris 3). It’s one of the cheapest language courses in the city (compared to private institutions) and has very limited places. Hopefully the 16 hours / 8 classes per week heavy-duty schedule will bring my French to the next level!
16 Hours a Week: How It's Structured
One of the objectives of my French classes at Sorbonne Nouvelle is to prepare foreigners for a French university education. As a result, the classes cover more than just the standard grammar, oral, and pronunciation subjects. They also cover how to write academic papers, analyse articles, and present and defend a thesis orally. Lasting two semesters, of which I just finished the first one (September – December), each student has to sign up for a total of 8 classes, totalling 16 hours per week. 4 of these classes are compulsory, while students choose the subjects of the other four themselves.
History, One Dictée at a Time
In the first semester, one of the compulsory classes was French history. We learned about key events from 1870 to 1969 (the 3rd to the 5th Republic). I like this class because Monsieur Carré’s narration beats poring over thick history books. He skilfully condensed the essence of 100 years of French history into 10+ weekly two-hour sessions.
In this class, we were not required to read up on any history books. Monsieur Carré would orally summarise the history, highlighting the key events. At the same time, we would write down what he told us. He would narrate in complete grammatically correct sentences (vs. oral French) and we would jot down, word for word. This method ensures that we pay attention to what the teacher is saying in class. It also helps us practise our listening and writing skills. A history and dictation class!
The only drawback of this class is that it starts at 8am, for both the first and second semesters. As a result, I have to wake up at 6.15am every Monday morning to catch the 6.56am train. In the last four months, I finished classes on Mondays at 4pm, followed by 3 hours of English teaching. By the time I got home, it was 9.30pm. A 14-hour work day!
Decoding Manon Lescaut
It was not really a literature class as we only read one book over the three months. In fact, the title of this class is “Lire Un Roman,” literally translated as “Read A Novel.” The novel we selected is Manon Lescaut, a French classical novel that Abbé Prévost wrote in 1731. Imagine throwing old French language and an unfamiliar 18th-century France into the mix – what’s the outcome?
In this class, we analysed the different themes, the significance of each word, each expression, each object (e.g. What is the implication of the candle used in this dinner setting? What is the candlelight trying to say to the readers? Are there similar scenes in other parts of the book? Why does the author use exclamation marks? Why does the author switch the narration from the first person to the third person?). The class brought back painful memories of gnawing on Romeo & Juliet for two years before my Cambridge O Levels.
Borrowing Someone Else's Voice
It’s a class combining creative writing based on the novels written by non-French natives who write in French. The two slim books we chose are Le Bleu des Abeilles by Laura Alcoba from Argentina and Mitsuba by Aki Shimazaki from Japan. Both these stories are simple to read (well, at least compared to Manon Lescaut!) and give me hope that perhaps I can write fluently in French, as a non-native, un jour! There were several opportunities to write in this class. In each session, the teacher would give us a topic relating to one of these two books to write about.
Why I Love Writing (Badly)
I like writing; I like being able to juggle different words and express coherent thoughts on print. What I like – writing – doesn’t mean I’m good at it, especially in a language I’m not as familiar with.
A Small Victory, Word by Word
Writing in French is a three-step process. First, I get my plot ready in English (unfortunately this is still the language of my reflection, hopefully to change to French soon). Then I search for the right words or expressions to capture the essence of my thoughts (online translation dictionaries are my best friends), before shuffling them around to find correct sentence structures. As a result, it is time-consuming, back-breaking work. Writing a French paragraph takes at least three or four times longer than writing its English equivalent. However, the satisfaction of seeing a seemingly coherent piece of French writing is inexpressible. Coherency is only in my eyes, before a correction pen massacres the writing.
Word-Hunting, My Favourite Rabbit Hole
Oh, another thing I enjoy about writing in French is poring through the online translation dictionaries to find the right word or expression.In fact, this part of the process is like a visit to a flea market – one never knows what treasure one will find among the piles of knick-knacks.
At times, while searching for a French word, I might come across another usage or meaning for the same word. Or one or more synonyms. Other times, I might accidentally bump into an unfamiliar word (it sounds funny), which sends me searching for its meaning. This, in turn, might lead me to different usages or meanings of that word – and the process continues. The result is a collection of new French words, rather than the single one I set out to find. And I will add this collection into my Excel spreadsheet. Have I mentioned my huge Excel spreadsheet of French vocabulary?
The Two I Liked Less (But Learned From)
Two other French classes at Sorbonne Nouvelle were less interesting, but I still managed to learn quite a lot from both. The first was Discourse Analysis (e.g. identification of anaphors (pronouns, lexical), theme-rheme patterns (constant, derived, linear), and types of texts (narrative, descriptive, argumentative, etc.)). The second was Writing methodology and analysis of documents. It never crossed my mind that one could actually break a sentence down in different ways. When I write in English, I just write, only making sure that my sentence is functional, grammatically correct. I never knew that I could vary my presentation across various sentence structures. Maybe that’s why I am not a poet or a writer! The knowledge from that first course is technical linguistics – interesting, but not something I’ll use often in real life.
The second class would be useful if I do indeed sign up for a French university degree. The objective of this class is to do a “Synthèse,” which is something like summarising 2 or 3 articles into one short text. It’s not really a summary, since you’re not supposed to present the text in the order it was given. Instead, you extract the essence of the different texts and fuse them. You start with a “phrase d’accroche,” a catchphrase, and finish with an “ouverture,” a question opening onto a new topic! I have summarised lots of articles – both in school and at work, but never a “Synthèse.”
Juggling Class, Work, and a 3-Hour Commute
There is still another semester to finish. I will try to pack all my French classes at Sorbonne Nouvelle into 3 days, leaving 2 free days to work. This should help minimise the drop in income! Studying and working at the same time is hard work. Including my daily long commute (minimum 3 hours to-and-fro Paris), I am practically working more than the standard 40 hours. However, I find that studying gives me a meaningful focus, that life is more than just working. Though I often whine about my exhaustion (as my other half can attest), I’m glad I enrolled in the course. The tricky thing is that I need to find another anchor, once the course finishes in 6 months time!
A Street Art Detour in Belleville
I will stop now. Too much rambling, and no photos for one post. An antidote for insomnia. Wait, I just remembered I took some photos for my oral class. For our oral presentation, my group members and I had to talk about one aspect of Belleville. It is a Parisian neighbourhood which lies in 4 arrondissements. We picked Street Art in Belleville as our presentation topic. Here are some of the art we saw during our exploration of this neighbourhood.
