= Le français
au San
Antonio College =
________________________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________________________
Avant de faire,
en
entrée
et en images, un petit tour de France,
voici un mot du prof :
[a word from the teacher first and a few French
sights
then]
Students,
You have registered for "un cours de
français" with the
expectation
to reach a certain degree of mastery of and fluency in
"français."
I want to hereby encourage you to participate as
actively as possible
in all activities in the classroom. Force yourself to feel
comfortable
in the classroom and rid yourself of any feelings of shyness.
After all, who's ever learned to swim without "jumping in" at one point?
Jump in!
Listen up! Speak out! Interact in French with your
classmates,
roommates, friends, family, and you will make the vocabulary, grammar,
sentences, and
dialogs come alive! I would also like to share with you that
learning
a foreign language is much more than tedious repetitions, more than
repetitious exercises, more than exercising tests, and more than
testing grades. It is an
awakening
to a different culture and a shot at being able to ‘really’
communicate
with people from around the world.
I expect my students to take a
little
spoken French back home to their roommates, their friends, their
parents. Showcase
the little, or the lot, of French you know now! It is always a
little
more than the little French "unilingual" people know.
Speaking of which,
"unilingualism"
is said to be a 'C'urable "disease." Let it not be a 'D'urable
one!
Practice does not necessarily make perfect, but
it
certainly makes a
lot better. And, sadly, we do not have too much practice in the
classroom. Someone once said, "Today
is the
first day of the rest of your life." Make today a day
you'll
remember for all the right reasons. And
remember (!), a trip of a thousand words to France begins with one
little
"Bonjour."
Pierre Schmitz, Lecturer - French
*******
And now a "sight tour" of France:
La Seine et la Dordogne.
La Province et la Capitale.
Le dimanche matin {Bourges} et le dimanche après-midi
{Saint Tropez}.
Une prise de haut en bas {Monte Carlo} et une autre de bas en
haut
{Gordes}.
Et enfin... Villefranche à la clarté du jour et
Chantilly
à celle de la nuit.
