C'est la crème de la crème ! Tu la sais !

Every child pretends to know how to speak a different language, write in cursive, and conduct a band - the usual kid things to do. It just so happens that my mother was always drawn to those infomercials that advertised something with an “unbeatable value” and that allowed the person to call in with a credit card and order a specific product with “6 low, low payments of 27.75” Especially the ones right out of the 80’s. This particular one started with, “Yes, that’s French they are speaking, and no these children aren’t French. They’re American, and they have acquired these amazing new language skills from Muzzy” (British Broadcasting Company). I am not so sure what compelled her to order these video tapes, but they were pretty awesome.

Je suis un garçon, et je parle français. I am a boy, and I speak French. This was the first sentence I learned to say. They cartoons were in fact dated but they kept my attention. I learned a lot of vocabulary and, in fact, I can recall the French word for scarf, “écharpe” faster than I can recall the word in English. I still find myself at a loss for certain vocabulary words in English, especially the words I learned in French before knowing what the English word was.

Quand j’étais une école Américaine, j’étudie français pour 4 ans. Quelquefois j’oublie que tous le monde ne parlent pas français. See like I said I sometimes forget that the world doesn’t speak French. I usually almost always make grammatical mistakes when I am trying to write a test, or write things down in French because I never really had to do that. I began by learning the basics how to count, the alphabet, and colors. I understood spoken French, and finally I began to pick up and be able to speak. I had the vocabulary and basic sentence structure in the present tense before I began to take formal classes in high school.

The class began with the stuff I already knew and stayed that way for about the first semester. Many of my classmates were surprised at how quickly I was to respond in French and that I didn’t have to take the time to convert it into English, think of the answer, convert the answer back into French and respond. Over the four years that I took French in high school, I learned almost all the different tenses and the irregular verbs and many things needed to have a in depth conversation. I can read through French text about as quickly as I can read through English. And, as a matter of fact, I type on a French keyboard.

“Thanks mom, for making me look like a queer,” apparently it is unacceptable that a boy be smart in school, particularly in a language that I must admit is very feminine. But I just liked the language; it gave me a sense of privacy. The French professor and I could hold a conversation in the middle of the classroom speaking about the other students, and no one had a clue what we were talking about. The school that I went to only offered two semesters of French for credit. Nevertheless, I stayed in those same two classes all four years. The professor wrote to the school board and they ended up giving me credit for French III because they allowed it as an independent study. I just had to read books and write essays and that sort of thing.

Over the four years I formed a decent relationship with the professor and helped out in all the French I and II classes modeling and translating complicated directions. This helped me by challenging me in something that is not readily available to hear in Tennessee, and helped the others learn French faster by not speaking any English inside that classroom. Every semester the classes moved faster and faster and we formed a great system of teaching. I became skilled in the methods of teaching a foreign language, and I decided that this is what I want to someday do.

I really enjoy teaching something that people don’t already know. For the most part in school students’ move through learning every year what a noun is, what a verb is, etcetera. But a language gives you a fresh slate to work with and that is why I want to teach this. The biggest barrier is getting the students to throw their humility out the window, forget what they look or sound like while they are in the classroom and don’t be afraid to speak up.

Moving on into the future to why I am here now. “I am a French major.” What has really thrown me for a loop is telling someone my major, and they give you that look like why. I still am very much in love with the language and the culture. But how many guys do you know with this as their major? I one day want to teach French to English students but I am not so sure that this is what I want to do right when I get out of school, but I am sure it will have something to do with language.

But I sincerely thank my mom for introducing me to something that I have grown to love so much and fascinates me, to the point that I notice people that are foreigners based on the way they hold their utensils at the dinner table or count on their fingers. I listen to the way people speak and am very interested in how we all learn things from our parents, from TV, and from school and how all of it finds a way to mix together. Others go through life saying something that is totally acceptable where they live and never notice that what they are saying sounds weird to other people that haven’t grown up in the same place. I am not saying that I don’t because I do, but I know when and when not to use certain sentences and structure in spoken language. Language is probably the most important thing to everyone, they just don’t realize it.