Origin Story - My Summer in Chicoutimi
After getting settled in my home stay, things improved. My stay home mom Sylvie was really nice. She patiently tried to explain to me in French the house rules and what she was responsible for in terms of meals. It took effort, hand gestures and Google Translate to communicate, but the message was eventually delivered between us.
Downtown Chicoutimi in 2014
I found the route to my school for the next day, and things went off without a hitch. There were a few people I saw on the way to UQAC and I think we were all in the program.
We were all placed in an assessment test, where we did tests on our listening, speaking and writing. It was kind of hilarious, I didn’t understand a thing in any of tests and guessed just about every answer aside from filling my name. It was funny to me because I knew this was going to happen and nothing made sense to me. I would have scored just as high if the tests were in Greek. I also had a great time with an evaluator where I said “je ne comprends pas” to him just about every question.
I got placed to class 6A. Pretty high score right? Actually class 1 was the highest, and we didn’t have a level 7. There was also 6B. My class and I thought they must’ve been worst than us, even though we had no idea if class A and B really had any difference.
The class that I was placed in were all pretty optimistic and awesome. We all knew we were starting from the beginning and here to have fun. Whatever we lacked in knowledge, we made up for in spirit. Let’s just say, we had a a lot of spirit.
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In the following weeks, we were asked to completely immerse ourselves in the experience by speaking in French. Even to each other outside of class. I was committed to see this through, and prove to myself that I could learn this language, just like I did with English in the years past. After all, French were invented by humans and not space aliens right? (sometimes I wonder if it might as well have been)
I carried a small hand notepad around me throughout my 5 weeks in Chicoutimi. And noted down every time I wanted to express something, but could not. This way, I’d have a way to look up what I want to say later, and a quick access to everything I do want to say. I was truly determined to learn, or cry trying. I practiced French everywhere I could, in shopping malls, restaurants, stores and classroom, cafeteria, that summer I did my best to do everything in French.
We studied conjugations, word genders, tenses, irregular verbs and everything in between. 5-6 hours of French education per day, seeping into the brains of my classmate and I over the course of 5 weeks. We had sports activities, drama classes, and even choir in French. I was living, eating, breathing French. I remember after several weeks, I even woke up and had thoughts in French.
I won’t describe all details of that summer in this post - it'd be too long. But it was an incredible learning opportunity and experience.
At the end of this experience, I was able to communicate with people and my Chicoutimère about basic needs, ask her questions about her day and general day to day stuff. I went from a language potato, to a refined “French fry”. I learned and spoke more French in 5 weeks, than I ever did in all 8 years of Ontario grade school education. After all, I lived in Québec and survived in Chicoutimi (I even went to the hospital myself on one occasion).
By no means have I achieved fluency, in fact I lost quite a bit of my knowledge overtime due to not practicing the language. I don’t think anyone could master a language in matter of weeks. But if I went back to high school again, I would have nailed every French assignment there was and not have stressed over anything. No questions about it. I bet I would even shock my French teachers, if I ever saw them again - not that they’d remember me.
Anyways, if you have read this far. You deserve a cookie. I hope you have enjoyed reading this, as much as I have enjoyed writing this. Drop me a note, I'd love to hear from you.