The Natives Speak

During the first, strange, I-dont'-know-what-I'm-doing-but-need-to-fake-it week, my colleague Cécile gave me a fantastic time-killer educational activity that I've put to good use in all my classes: I ask them to write for five minutes in English, open subject; I don't care what they write about, I don't care how good it is, I just want them to write. Then I ask them to write in French and answer this question: "Do you like English? Why or why not?"

The results have been eye-opening. Not only does it give me a clear idea of their strengths and weaknesses in English, but I have to be honest and say that I'm appalled at some of their French, too. Heck, my second-year students at Baker know better than to write j'ai choisit. But most of all, it's given me an insight into their personalities; ironically, the ones who tell me in French that they like English because it's easy and they're good at it have generally written crappy English compositions with painful beginner mistakes like "My name is Dubois Pierre and I have 16." And the ones who have written in shamed tones that they have great difficulty and many problems with English are generally the ones whose compositions are best. Go figure. They also all expressed an awareness that English has become a universal language, one of the most widely spoken in the world (after Hindi and Mandarin, one boy primly informs me) and essential to their future careers.

And, sometimes, they're just flat-out funny. I offer you samples:

I have two brothers, I'm seventeen, I'll want after the lycée a school of photographie at Paris. I was am passionate of gym. I have a dream, it's the decouvert of the world and civilization the travels. I'll want a better English.

I was born the 19th March 1992 in Nantes. My favourite sport is Basketball. My last holidays was amazing! I've visited NYC, Washington and Piladelphia. And the accent was complicate to understand. Your accent seems more easier than east coast accent. In my opinion.

My vacationMy summer 2009 was so banal. I wanna go to Norway but my mother don't wanted to go. The life is so unfair. In july, I was going to swimming with my friend. It was so magic. My friends has to do a big party in the night. I was We We telling all night mare. It was so terrible. I was scared.

Methinks this class will keep me on my toes. It's gonna be a long year.