The Learner Interview
by Kenneth Sélin
Dedication
This assignment is dedicated to all French woman, two of whom have been very prominent in the French-Canadian subconscious psyche: Joan of Arc and Thérèse de Lisieux.
Marine, Severine et Sophie, je vous dédie cet ouvrage.
Introduction
For my assignment I invited Marine, Severine, and Sophie to participate in my learner interview. I had made their acquaintance in the residence cafeteria. At my first meeting with them, I had learned that they were in the final year of university studies in business on an exchange programme that brought them to Carleton University.
The interview focused on their previous experience of learning foreign languages while in France in contrast with their assessment of going abroad and crossing the Atlantic to find themselves in a new land and taking a different approach to learning a foreign language: immersion. In brief, they reported that their English immersion cultural experience was more than they had expected in terms of being a stimulating and invigorating experience. They even admitted to being partial to Canadian culture.
An aside: As a Franco-Ontarian I find this very reassuring as we believe inherently that living
in English is not a threat at all to the francophone identity and culture, but au contraire helps francophones realize that they are different AND THAT'S GOOD, not bad. The Franco-Ontarian sense of propriety, their world view and
their sensibilities are distinct from their anglophone compatriots not to mention their sense of humour which
often infringes on the anglophone boundaries of what is perceived to be right and politically correct whether it be in the arena of self-expression or in dress or in their cohesive collective
manner of addressing and communicating with others that acknowledges the French-Canadian common *lemming* rootedness when we meet and talk among ourselves. Compared to anglophones, it seems that we have a certain native independent rebelliousness. Perhaps we are a little wild. :-) I do feel quite at home among English-Canadians and with French-Canadians, I resonate and feel at home and I can be myself. But I do not feel the need to live in a 100% environment, otherwise I think I would suffocate. But I know where I feel at home, most definitely in a French-Canadian setting like the one where I came from in Northern Ontario where the blueberries are devine and the pine trees are in all their splendor in the Winter.
Participants' Background
While Sophie is a true blue Parisienne, Marine and Severine are from Britanny
whose cultural celtish roots are by the way the same as those of the Scots, the Irish, and the Welsh. They live within a 30
mile radius of Brest: Marine lives on the coast. These young women are about the same age in their
early twenties. Only Severine has interrupted her studies to work as a marketing promotion agent
for the well-known French cosmetic company, Yves Rochon.
English for Future Careers
While Marine and Sophie would like ideally to work in the human resources department of small to medium size company, Severine is still unsure as to where she wants to end up professionally. It was precisely their professional concern that provided them with the needed impetus to cross the great Atlantic Ocean and brave the *New World*.
All three agree that there is no escape from the invasive presence of English in the daily affairs of French business whether it be dealing with customers at the counter, over the phone, or completing a simple business transaction such as ordering supplies.
Once they return to France, they plan to continue extend their knowledge of English by listening to the BBC and by making many more English-speaking friends. If they could continue their studies one more year, they said that they would want to do it in English to be sure. Sophie and Severine agree wholeheartedly with Marine when she says: "I appreciate English more now than [ever] before."
Though the wonders wrought by language immersion are definitively many, but most important one I feel is that it puts the target language -- at least psychologically-- within easy grasp by virtue of its imminent presence and easy access in an immersion setting as opposed to it appearing to be a very distant object that lies just out of the person's reach.
Why Canada,
Carleton U. for English?
Given their choices to study abroad, they chose Canada as the middle ground between Europe and America preferring Canadian culture to the American because of its French-Canadian component and seeing Canada as a more country, provincial place to be.
Carleton University was their preferred choice because of its pastoral location by the Rideau Canal. And as we say in business the most important feature of a business is location, location, and location: they all agree.
How do they feel about their choice now? They are delighted with the University
and their fellow students. It appears that Canadians are great people. Sophie had the advantage
of checking out the Canadian university scene with friends who had attended Sir Wilfred University
to learn that they had been *needlessly* overworked. However, they had no complaints regarding their
current workload, though they are kept fairly busy preparing ahead of time for class.
Multilingual at University
While they each have four courses, interestingly one is a another foreign language course. Marine is currently taking a third year Spanish, Severine, third year German, and Sophie, second year German which she finds fairly easy.
Surprisingly, they are in the process of mastering three languages with French being their first language, followed by English, and then their other foreign language elective. Admittedly, they are very surprised at the speed with which they are mastering English from day to day. They attribute this to their culturalimmersion. Apparently, their speed of acquisition has a positive spillover effect into their other foreign language at university and on all their courses as well as their confidence level is extremely high. The proof is that they are doing so very well that they are not worried whatsoever of not being able to satisfactorily complete any of them.
French Canada
Since arriving, they have been over the river on the Quebec side to see a French movie and to visit Gatineau Park about 10 miles away from their campus. And as all true French blooded women who come to Canada they felt that they had to visit Montreal.
When asked for their impressions of Ottawa, they reported that they liked the Parliament buildings, that the city is quiet, the province beautiful, the people friendly, and that Ottawa reminds them of a typical town setting you would find en province -- a truly, very nice complement.
It is also obvious that they feel secure. I believe part of that security stems from the subconscious fact that their native French language is part of the Canadian decor and also because the City of Ottawa is by and large bilingual and French-speaking Quebec is just across the river behind the Parliament Buildings, 5-miles away.
They are quite sympathetic to
Canadian francophones judging from the reception I receive and feel quite at home here though they are abroad. I believe their positive disposition
and comfort level helps them to more readily acquire English as they are better prepared mentally to switch back and forth cognitively between French and English in
their new academic environment while mastering new university subject matter.
Impressions of Canada: Before and Now
It is not surprising when asked to evaluate their current impression of the Canadian people and culture prior to their arrival to America with the one they share now on a plus and minus scale with 0 as the starting point, Sophie gave a plus five (+5), Severine, a plus eight (+8), and Marine, a plus ten (+10). Remember Sophie was the most realistic of the three about Canada at the outset as she consulted friends who had been here.
They heartily agree that taking the jaunt across the Atlantic, Sophie's dream, had paid big dividends especially in their exponential consolidation of their level of proficiency in English including the stimulation derived from the hands-on exposure to another culture and how things are done in another country which is inevitably compared to how it is done back home even when it's a simple thing like going to the pool for a swim.
Citizens of the World
They derive great enjoyment from the *international cachet* that they are giving to their personality, their new perspective on things, and their enhanced world view in general: they belief that many more vistas have been now opened to them than they had ever imagined previously.
An aside: Becoming a citizen of the world is a great antidote to ethnocentricity. In fact, many people, myself included, believe *ethnocentricity* to be a very real affective block to appreciating other cultures and learning other languages. (I'm truly of the view that by appreciating each other from different cultures we overcome our incestuous ethnocentricity to become truly citizens (and costodians) of the world. (Krashen's explanation would be that it's caused by the affective filter of the maternal tongue that hinders foreign language acquisition. I believe it is more a question of developing a *positive regard* for the *prestige* of the targetted language culture if the person does not at the outset have one in order to *value* its acquistion.)
English, the Other Language
Before Coming to Canada, English:
friend or foe?
It turns out that English is a good friend according to these three young women though they did *not* share that view prior to coming to Canada. In fact, Severine preferred her German largely because of the very competent male German teachers she had and Marine *always* disliked learning English while Sophie was only had a lukewarm regard for English.
Now at Carleton University
Now, all that has changed. To hear them tell it, English is numero uno.
What has made the difference? Most assuredly, foreign language immersion where there is easy access to native speakers is the singular best environment in which to acquire a foreign language, they said adamantly in chorus.
Regrets? They have none. Every day is a
day of discovery and one more notch in their bow on the road to mastering English.
Prior Linguistic Competence
For a linguistic profile, I asked them questions regarding how they perceived the the development of their linguistic ability to learn foreign languages over time.
It really seemed for Marine when she was in elementary school(more than any of the others) that studying another language was really nothing short of an invasive foreign linguistic intrusion and as such was not welcomed by her. She first started to learn English at 12 years of age and Spanish, two years later when she was 14 years old. She really hated learning English right off and that dislike did not diminish until the end of her teen years.
However, in the case of both Sophie and Severine, they started to learn German first rather than English at 12 years old. It was only at 14 years of age, two years after they had started to learn German, that they first began to learn English. Initially, Sophie was very "happy and proud" to learn English.
Unfortunately, just after one year, she became disappointed in how it was taught as there was no practice outside of her class at school and because it did not seem practical for her to learn English. Like Sophie, Severine welcomed English as she saw it as being easier to learn in comparison to German: there are hardly any declensions to speak of in English, she remarks.
The Perspective
from their French Classroom
When asked how their respective classes in France viewed English, Severine
reported that her class appreciated learning this third language. The same is true for Marine's class
though she personally strongly disliked learning it. And Sophie explained that the "low academic
status" of English was due to the fact that it was bundled with physics and mathematics, the "secondary subjects" along with all the other foreign languages.
English and French:
a Good Combo?
They now see English and French as being somewhat complementary. For example, Sophie recognizes that that many English words have a lot in common with similar words in French and finds English grammar to be somewhat simpler than in French. Marine and Severine agree.
The Key: Speaking
Sophie devides her language acquisition experience into three developmental stages: writing (as the grammar-translation method was the initial one she was exposed to), understanding, and speaking.
The most effective stage for acquiring language fluency has been by far speaking. On this point they all overwhelmingly they are in agreement.
Marine likes picking up her English "at the caf" as she declares bursting out laughing in her relaxed matter-of-fact manner. She admits that she finds the writing in English easier than speaking English which she see as a more formidable lingusitic task.
Marine contrasts her current situation where she has an unlimited opportunity to speak English with the one when she was in France. She explains: "spoken English was [always] difficult" in France as they were not provided with much opportunity to speak a foreign language as the emphasis is mainly on developing a passive knowledge of the language.
Now that she is speaking the language a lot, she affirms: "I now like English as much as Spanish". Severine now believes English to be "very melodious" and only now prefers it to German. She remarks: "I prefer English to German. It is easier to speak." She openly expresses her enjoyment at being able to speak English casually.
Sophie seconded everything that Severine said saying that she had nothing else to add.
Poor Language Teachers = Poor Command of the Language
They all attribute their retarded English proficiency (right up till the age of 18 in the case of Marine and Severine and right up till the age of 15 in the case of Sophie) to their French-speaking teachers's dreadfully poor English accents. They all agree that once they had qualified English teachers, it "made a big difference" (in Severine' words) to improving their overall fluency.
They all qualify their mastery of English in France as being "sporadic" and limited mainly to the classroom environment. However, having been immersed in an English-speaking setting has helped them to the point that they believe that their fluency is increasing immeasurably at an unbelievable exponential rate: they admit that their rate of English language acquisition has been dramatically speeded up.
The Answer:
Visit the Country
They qualify their learning experience prior to coming across the Atlantic as "bad" and now claim that it is "very good". In fact, it is so good that all three would be willing to learn another foreign language: the immanent a priori proviso is that they be in a natural cultural setting with free access to native speakers.
Their conclusion regarding their foreign language learning experience in Canada is if someone wishes to learn another language, they strongly recommend to that person (and they said this in unison) that the best way is: "Go to the country and visit the people."
Verbal "Fast-food"
Their speedy acquisition of English seems every bit like a "fast-food experience": English is almost unconsciously seen by them as a consumable tactile thing to be ingested. This similie perhaps renders a new twist on how to view effective and efficient second language acquisition (SLA). This appears to be true for Marine who uses the reference to her preferred place to pick up English as being being "at the caff (i.e. outdoor café)".
I believe this manner of seeing foreign language acquisition as a process of object usage (consumption) and interrelatedness as being fairly in line with the whole new approach to computer programming known as object-oriented programming.
Their Suggested Language Instruction Approach
Asked how would they teach English as a foreign language, they said they would use a mixed-basket approach: for example, they would teach different kinds of spoken English such as slang expressions and they would do this in a fun, entertaining way such as using improvisation preferably in a comfortable, casual setting.
Language Strategies
Their current learning strategies consist mainly of availing themselves of opportunities to talk to Canadians whenever the opportunity presents itself. They unhesitatingly ask their university friends to please *repeat* and sometimes to even spell the word for them when necessary.
To help them to learn English better, they'll make a mental note of the new words they come across and will even transcribe them in the evening. The one who uses this technique the most is Marine. Sophie and Severine tend to do it less often.
Variable Language Difficulty
When asked to evaluate the level of difficulty they're experiencing in their three business courses given in English, all three agree that the most difficult is the one where there are a lot of group discussions especially with the 14 people speak who speak English as a foreign language. Luckily, they say that they can understand the prof's summaries of the group discussions.
Believe it or not, their least difficult course is the one that is textbook-oriented for which they can prepare for ahead of time in order to be able to participate more fully in the classroom deliberations derived from the textbook readings. So it would seem to them that a mental preparation a head of time of the topic to be discussed is a big help as it would be probably with their other subjects as well.
The Linguistic Benefits
Before coming to Carleton University they considered their way of learning English back in France to be rather "exacting". In the immersion programme at Carleton University they have a much more favourable impression of English. Their conclude by saying: "English is [seems] more friendly, before it was boring."
They expressed the hope that in the near future their level of English proficiency will be nearly as good as their native French. To achieve this goal, they plan to continue taking advantage of every opportunity to speak English and to make new English-speaking friends by traveling to English-speaking countries, by availing themselves of English media, etc.
No Cross-Over Effect
Has learning English noticeably improved their mastery of French in some minor way or has it given them a greater insight into their own French culture? They respond with a categorical and emphatic "no". Though they report that there is no obvious cross-over benefit to their maternal language, the benefit has been more spatial linguistically speaking as they sense a greater degree of rapproachment between these two languages exists than had thought.
For example, they now realize just how small the world is and how close to them Canada and the USA are. This new perception of spatial closeness has definitely altered their world view. Though they are frequently making comparisons with how things are done back home and though many things about the Canadian way of life seem "strange"to them, they are *not* intimidated by the differences knowing that the geographical distances separating the two cultures is *not* as great as they had once thought.
Foreign Language Benefits
All three believe the number one benefit to be derived from foreign language acquisition in general is both: "open-mindedness [and] easier communication (in that receptivity facilitates the speech act in general.)" They claim that their enhanced social consciousness derived from acquiring a foreign language in turn augment their level of receptivity to learn yet another.
The Language Challenge
When asked what they find to be the most difficult part of learning another language, they all agree to the main elements but not agree as to which has greater priority: For example, Severine believes that the most important element is vocabulary while Sophie and Marine believe it to be grammar. Yet, they all agree that it is basically a combination of the two.
Conclusion
How do they feel all-round regarding this new foreign language immersion experience? In one word: happy.
Why? They are achieving their principal goal of English fluency at an incredibly fast rate that they
never thought was possible. This has had the net benefit of boosting their morale and overall confidence in their
ability to successfully complete their university business programme. At the same time it confirms that the decision to take the risk of studying abroad across the Atlantic was indeed a very profitable one.
To them I say "thanx" for the interview and "bonne chance" (good luck)!
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Updated: January 14, 1999