Getting back on track

Read regular guest posts about a Kiwi living abroad in a non-English speaking country.

Holidays in France have been over for a while and everyone is well back into the swing of things. It’s odd because in France, the big work and school holidays are around June or July. Christmas and New Year is just another little holiday, so coming back to work or school doesn’t seem to have that “fresh start” feeling that I used to get in New Zealand – you know, when you’ve spent a nice chunk of summer days on the beach recharging your batteries and feel ready to throw yourself into the adventures of the next year.

Nonetheless, it is New Year, and time to reflect on what we want to get out of 2011, I suppose! This weekend I realised that I need to come back to the reason I am in France – ideally, to become a fluent French speaker. Lately I have been feeling a bit disconnected from French life, for whatever reason – I have been idly surfing the internet, and doing a lot of knitting, but I haven’t spent much time speaking or writing in French. And yet given the choice, I know I’d rather bring back awesome French skills from France than awesome knitting skills.

I’m not really surprised I’m feeling a slight disenchantment with my French progress – it’s probably part and parcel of a new life in a foreign country. Any French study I do is self-directed, so it’s hard to motivate myself sometimes, but I really do want to capitalise on being immersed in the language.

I’d be interested to know what you do when you are feeling that familiar lack of self-motivation in learning . How do you motivate yourself to get to the next level? And, equally importantly, how do you know when you have reached the next level? Personally, I think I will have reached an important level when I can open my mouth and just speak, without thinking too much about how to formulate what it is I want to say. There are brief times when I feel that’s what I’m doing, and I have this great feeling of being “in flow”, but those times are oh so brief!

Bon courage in your language pursuits. I’m off to sign up to the French Scrabble club.

Mihiata  – Saint Nazaire, France