That’s the Limit, the Last Straw!

For the past couple of weeks, James an I have been trying to find the audio videos of Campus Direct on its web site (we had been told those were useful tools in preparation for the oral test)… Civil servants under’going language training can ask for an ID number in order to access all the activities provided on that site. Of course, James had logged in his account many times in the past months in order to practice both reading and writing tests (personally, I do not see the purpose of doing it since they became obsolete with time). Yet when we tried to find the audio videos, we had no luck!

Finally, yesterday morning, he met with Alice who told him exactly what to do in order to access them… I must say nothing is made easy for those who are learning French as a second language within the Public Service of Canada! In case there would be some people out there who cannot figure how to do it, here is a quick tutorial on how to get there:

1. Log in your Campus Direct account
2. Click on “Browse the catalog”
3. Click on “FSL Acquisition A-B level” or “FSL Acquisition C level”
4. Pick a course and click on it (e.g. C214 Mini-épisodes au ministère de l’Habitation)
5. Pretend you are a customer and click on “Add to cart” (there is no fees for civil servants)
6. You will see all the “free” learning activities you added to your cart appear under your name
7. Click on “Access the Activity” (never click on “Complete this course/activity” before you are done with the 48 episodes, otherwise you will never be able to go back!)

L‘enfance de l’art quoi!… Once you know it!

Actually, James was thrilled yesterday afternoon to try this new modern tool thinking it would give him a better idea of what is coming up soon. First of all, you have to know that the proposed audio videos do not reflect anything close to the tapes you will be listening to during the oral examination. In the actual test, candidates for the B have to listen to two very short voice mail messages followed by two very short phone conversations… all they have to do is summarize them in their own words. Candidates for the C also have to listen to a much longer conversation between two people with different opinions on a given topic… afterwards they have to answer opinion questions on what they heard.

Right from the beginning, I was suspicious (my deep nature I guess!)… but hey! I decided to be fairplay and I sat with James in front of the computer…

The second we started the first audio video, I realized there were subtitles… useless to say that I made them disappear quickly! I never allow my trainees to turn on the subtitles function while watching a movie… why? Because the purpose is to try and understand what is going on! Not to read!… Then, on the right, I saw the question “Lequel des trois énoncés suivants décrit le mieux cette conversation?” followed by three short statements… My first reaction was “What is that???”… Of course, it was impossible to turn them off! Therefore I asked James to sit on the other side of the desk (so he could not see the computer screen) and listen to the whole thing (almost 2 minutes!) while taking a few notes on what was said… afterwards I asked him to summarize the conversation. As usual, he started to give me a detailed description! I stopped him right away and asked him to give me a general summary: in other words, one sentence! When we got to the fourth episode, he knew exactly how to summarize what he had heard… I do not remember how many of those audio videos we listened to, but personally I thought there were too many! I was exhausted… and bored!

Most of the conversations were pointless and shallow… the only ones of some interest were the ones about work because they provided useful vocabulary…

That being said, here is my personal opinion on this type of exercises… since James has to prepare for his oral exam, I told him not to listen to those audio videos on his own because it does not help him to word his answers correctly… the format is similar to the reading comprehension test format: the text has been replaced with a dialogue (that you can also read if you want subtitles!) yet the questions and the multiple choice answers are the same… questions of interpretation rather than questions of comprehension. I always had a hard time to do the comprehension reading test precisely because it is not clear… unless you proceed by elimination or always choose the most general answer… and, unfortunately, once you have found the trick there is no need to understand. Besides, at his oral interview, James will not be provided with a written list of multiple choice answers where he will have to write an X in the appropriate box!… “C’est une chose de comprendre un dialogue, mais encore faut-il être en mesure d’en faire un résumé de vive voix!”  Excuse my language, but… he will have to spit it out in a coherent manner!

I told James to move on with his routine: listening to the radio (Radio-Canada), watching TV and movies, talking with his French speaking colleagues, writing emails in French, etc. I am not saying that I will rule out those audio videos (some are interesting in terms of vocabulary), but I will use them wisely (and certainly not with beginners like Seema!)…

I truly believe that learning a language goes through communication… not through memorization and made up situations. Life in the workplace provides us with enough real situations to deal with, consequently there is no need for any kind of simulation… Teaching is not about brainwashing people! It is about helping them to learn, step by step… No one can learn a language without starting from the beginning… Would you throw your kids in the middle of the ocean before teaching them how to swim?… I guess not! It would be mere cruelty!… Well… I would not present my students with materials that is way beyond their understanding because it would be the most bitter experience of their lives… and… learning a new language is something wonderful when it is done the proper way… because it opens doors on a world of discoveries…

“Je n’ai rien vu de grand dans la vie que la cruauté et la bêtise.”

Paul Léautaud