Many students have stories of downloading an app or sitting in front of a bright monitor, eager to learn and willing to put in the time only to find themselves putting their studies to the side as work, family and other obligations pile. While there are many success stories for those who study the language on their own, there are several more stories where the students fail to meet their goals. This is the reality of studying a language on your own.
Motivation can be a tricky thing to nail on your own as language learning can take many years of dedicated study to achieve and the average learner will run out of motivation before they can get to an A2 level (they get to be able to express themselves easily and understand others). For that reason alone, many adult learners tend to take classes either in person or online as a way to hold themselves accountable.
So… can you really learn French by yourself? Long story short, yes. However, motivation is a tricky thing; each person has a goal that fuels their motivation and it might not be the same for every person. One person might learn a language to keep their brain sharp, another for a personal challenge and still another might learn French for immigration. Regardless of the reason you have for learning the French Club can help you get there by providing three benefits to joining our French courses, events and workshops.
There are many people who begin their language learning journey by downloading an app or buying a textbook, which is good starting point, but that approach is limited. A student who never learned a language before or hasn’t studied a language since they were in school will have no idea how to structure their learning so they can make reasonable progress. Most students don’t even realise the wasted effort until they try to use the French they’ve learnt and find they can’t speak or read effectively.
This is why students around the world chose in-person classes and why Francois Normandeau created The French Club for students. To help eliminate learner confusion by providing clear expectations for each level. It not only takes the stress out of planning your own syllabus but it gives you updated ways of communicating with franchophones across the world.
French as a language is primarily used to communicate, yet so many students try to learn alone. Motivation can a take a person a lot of places. Everest is filled with many motivated people who make the trek each year but no one who climbs Everest does it alone. That is what’s like when you chose to learn a language on your own. The language is Everest and you are the climber who thought you didn’t need a Sherpa.
We don’t say this to discourage you but rather to let you know that you are more likely to succeed if you study the language with other people. For example, you might not understand conjugation but there might be a person in your cohort who does. You can reach out to them and ask for help and offer your own help with topics you understand as well. This support allows you both to keep making progress even when motivation runs out and there is a chance that you can even make a new friend.
When founder of The French Club, Francois Normandeau, started to learn Spanish, he read books in Spanish for about 10 years, and then, moved to Spain, only to realise that he was not able to communicate with Spaniards, since he never took formal classes or studied grammar or verb conjugation. He then understood that if a learner focuses on passive learning (such as reading or watching movies/series or listening to podcasts), but is never including active learning, then, the linguistic skills will be very uneven at best. He forgot to take into account that it is human connections that made language learning a real thing for the students.
One of the biggest concerns new french learners have, is the usability of the French they know. Typically, French taught in schools and even self-guided methods aim their vocabulary for those enrolled in university. Most adult learners do not use this vocabulary a lot and end up spending a lot of time trying to get to a point of fluency where they can communicate with others at an adult level. Some even give up in frustration because the vocabulary they learned is either outdated or irrelevant.
We do not want you to give up because of this. Here at the French Club, the vocabulary is geared towards adult learns and you are given ample room to communicate. We have various ways for you to practice your communication through events like the ‘Chat Club’ and ‘Fun French Talks’ both allow you to use vocabulary you have in different contexts and develop new vocabulary. There are also peer led groups where you can practice speaking however you like and build your confidence while making friends.
This was the human connection Francois sought to build when he realised so many French courses left students without a true human connection to the French language and many of our students feel the same.
