Mastering French: Quick Guide

1. How to learnFrench A quick guide

2. Learning a foreign language can be a daunting task for someone who has never learnt one before or whose experience of learning one as a child was not successful. There are faster, more effective ways to learn languages as an adult but some principles need to be understood beforehand. The aim of this quick guide is to equip you with these principles in little time.

4. Learning a language is like learning how to drive Learning a language involves a lot of skills; it is somehow similar to learning to drive a car. You need to learn some theory but it is better to do so as you practise driving.

5. Grammar is to languages what mechanics is to driving You do not need to have the level of understanding of a mechanic to drive a car but it helps to understand why you need to press the clutch pedal to change gears for instance; likewise, you do not need to know the intricacies of every single grammar rule but being able to understand the past tense for example will certainly help you produce your own sentences.

6. Develop a strategy

7. It is essential for you to be proactive in your learning. Make sure you can respond to these questions: • WIIFM (What’s In It For Me)? Be clear about what learning French will do for you. How will it improve your work or personal life? What will it enable you to do?

8. Goal? As in any form of learning, setting a goal is vital because it focuses the mind and sets direction. What are you hoping to achieve? How will you know when you have achieved it? Once you have identified a suitable goal, you can then develop a strategy with your tutor.

9. Use your diary to plan your learning. Allocate specific time slots for learning French (as you do for business or personal appointments and meetings). Plan days off and include rewards into your learning plan too! • Break down the learning content into bitesize chunks.

10. Make it relevant

11. Throughout your learning process, check how what you are learning will help you get closer to your goal. Sometimes, your tutor may set some activities that are not immediately relevant to you; if you cannot see the relevance, check with your teacher how you will apply what you are learning to your future post or to pass the exam.

12. Make it interesting

13. The brain is always curious. Learning happens when we question things. Feeding your brain with questions generates interest. Interest is a great source of motivation to learn and helps remembering the material.

14. Here are 6 essential questions: Who? (Who is involved in this matter?), What? (What happened exactly?), When? (When did this happen?), Where? (Where did this happen?), Why? (Why did this happen?) and How? (How did this happen?)

15. Make it fun!

16. How can you make learning a foreign language fun? What can you transfer from your mother tongue to French to make learning French more fun? It could be reading a magazine, devising a game to learn new words or using existing games, joining a bilingual meet up group or learning about specific topics you have an interest for.

17. Know your learning preferences

18. Are you rather visual, auditory or kinaesthetic? Take a test to identify your preference (here is one: http://www.businessballs.com/freepdfmaterials/vak_learning_styles_questionnaire.pdf) and use it as your forte. Then make sure you spend enough time developing the other styles; this is very important in a foreign language as you need to be able to process audio information as much as visual ones.

19. Use a variety of tools and techniques

20. Every little helps! Make sure you take every opportunity to listen, read, watch, speak or write French. At first, it is important to focus on what you know or understand; it may only be a word here and there – Keep at it anyway! It is also a good idea to play French in the background (radio, music, TV) so that your brain ‘tunes in’ at a subconscious level.

21. Test yourself regularly (on vocabulary and grammar for example) but make sure you set yourself a target before you start the test. Nurture a sense of achievement. This will boost your motivation. Set aside a short time every day for learning words, phrases and structures – little and often is the most effective way. Context is essential: imagine using the new words in different contexts or situation.

22. Mind-mapping: it is considered as one of the most powerful techniques to learn and remember information. Use colour, images, branches, key words, codes, spaces and even personal events to make them more memorable. (http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Mind-Map) Use sticky notes around your house to learn new words and small cards that you can take with you everywhere. You may use software to learn the vocabulary. Here is one: https://www.memrise.com/

23. Record yourself saying new words, phrases and whole sentences onto your smart phone, tablet or computer and play them back several times. You can play again materials you learnt some time ago as a refresher too! Set you browser’s homepage to a French, content-rich website such as www.linternaute.com/ or www.yahoo.fr

24. Use visualisation techniques: research demonstrated that they improve performance by 15%. See yourself make whole sentences, hear yourself speak French. Make up your own sentences in your mind as you are on a bus or train. Feel the meaning of the words as you visualise them, e.g. lourd (heavy) – how does it feel to you when you hear the word in your head?

25. Also, remember mistakes are part of the learning process. They give you feedback on the state of your learning. Be positive about these mistakes: use them only as feedback to improve your learning.

26. A little bit more … The Institut français has a wealth of resources to help you learn and become familiar with the French language.

27. La Médiathèque: your enrolment to one of our courses entitles you to a 1-year free membership to our media library which offers a wide range of books, newspapers and magazines as well as CDs and DVDs. • Ciné Lumière: enjoy great films sitting comfortably and relaxing. Receive two complimentary tickets when you sign up for the media library (free with your enrolment to a French course)

28. Online resources too Culturethèque is the Institut français’s online platform for a wide selection of resources in French (newspapers, magazines, books, videos …). Check it at: http://www.culturetheque.com/EXPLOITATION/GBR

29. In a nutshell, make your learning experience a rich, multisensorial one with lots of relevant, interesting and fun resources, content and activities.

30. Enjoy learning French with us! INSTITUT FRANÇAIS Language Centre13 Cromwell PlaceLondon SW7 2JN www.institut-francais.org.ukwww.culturetheque.org.uk