In the beginning I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to study abroad. I found the idea incredibly intimidating. I waffled back and forth on the subject for a full semester. The final straw, what finally decided me into going, was a presentation I had to give in a Francophone literature class. After stuttering and stammering through that presentation, I was more than a little disappointed with myself. I knew the words; I had a fair understanding of the grammar. Yet, for whatever reason, most of it seemed to get lost on the way from my brain to my mouth. I finally decided that if I was ever going to get passed that sort of mental block, I was going to have to really push myself. What better way to do that than enter into an immersion program?

The first week in La Rochelle, I was nothing but a tightly wound ball of nerves. It felt like that disaster of a presentation on repeat for days. I was terrified of saying something wrong; I had a horrible feeling that I’d somehow been mistakenly placed into classes a level or two too high; all the other students around me seemed so at ease with speaking the language. And there I was… 

Michèle, my host ‘mom’, is a very nice lady but that first week with her scared the crap out of me. Every evening, she would make dinner and we’d sit down together to eat and talk. If there’s anything that I’ve learned so far, it’s that the French do not rush through meals. So, these talks (of course all in French because… ‘immersion program’) would go on for an hour or an hour and a half, sometimes longer. Michèle would listen and make corrections. Sometimes, she’d have me repeat a sentence I’d totally butchered. But gradually I noticed that it was getting easier. Having her stop me to make a correction or tell me she hadn’t understood a word of what I’d said and to try again didn’t scare me quite so much.

In general, the French tend to be very forthright anyway. And they are not shy about telling you when you’re wrong. After the first two weeks, I began to get more comfortable with the idea that I would make mistakes and that someone was going to correct me. It’s inevitable when you’re learning a language. And it’s been one of the hardest things to make peace with and try anyway. I’ve found that making mistakes really is one of the best ways to learn…once you allow yourself to relax enough to take the corrections as constructive criticism.