Traduction anglais - français

CRL Essay

Natalia Weichsel

26 février 2019

        I first heard about the CRL program at a meeting for international students in the month of September, 2018. During this time, I was just beginning my study abroad experience and was feeling overwhelmed by my environment which was dominated by a foreign language. Luckily, I was not the only student who was feeling this way. At the meeting, I was surrounded by a plethora of students from various countries who all shared the same experience as I.

        In the following weeks, I became familiar with CRL as a respectful and friendly environment which encourages language practice in a non-academic setting. I was immediately attracted to the program because I realized that this was one of the only ways I could improve my French in a unique setting outside of the classroom. As an international student, you are often subject to various mandatory language courses whose goal is to improve your grammar, writing, and translation skills. Although this is something which I value greatly, I realized that my spontaneous and casual language skills were lacking. I wanted to learn new vocabulary and expressions, French slang, and see how other students my age were expressing themselves. That being said, I found solace in CRL.

        I quickly met many students who shared the same passion for language as I. One thing that I particularly appreciated was that I was in a different faculty than these students. As a participant in the CRL program at the medical faculty, I was often surrounded by speech pathology or med-school students. This allowed for our language groups to share about our individual programs and learn from each other. Throughout this process, I was listening to vocabulary that I have not previously heard while simultaneously sharing about my specific area of study. On top of that, in CRL, we often talked about diverse and uncommon subjects. For example: I often talked about my home country of Canada. I got a chance to talk about our judicial system, our government, the high school curriculum, and even our one of a kind winter weather. Normally, these are subjects that I rarely get to talk about in French. During my individual language sessions at CRL, I often got a chance to expand my skills past that of the basic introductions and formalities.

        One thing I would have loved to see more of is a stronger involvement of international students. At the CRL in the medical faculty, I realized that there was only a small handful of us anglophones who took part in the program. The distribution of exchange students was largely focused on the program at the Tanneurs faculty. This dispersion of numbers created a very specific and often times difficult to manage environment. I was often placed in groups where I was the only English speaker in a group and our ratio was usually 1:4. I did not mind these experiences, however, I found them difficult to navigate. While being surrounded by native French speakers, I was often in the minority. I realized that when students were surrounded by a larger number of their peers, they were more shy to participate in speaking in English as they were scared of making mistakes. I found myself  having to guide the sessions, ask forceful questions, and even sit in awkward silence. Although I learned a lot of things from those situations, I think some of my sessions could have been more productive and less draining if I had not felt so spread thin with responsibility.

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