Welp, folks, seems like it's official - I will be
déménaging to
the world's strongest softest power in just about 60 days. I've been accepted into my (dream) program (<-- THIS BIT HERE IS STILL UNREAL) and I'm about to send them confirmation of my attendance - I just figured I'd wait a bit, since normal people usually don't email back at 4:24 am.
I'll keep program details concealed for the sake of anonymity, since it's quite a small school with a very niche following but a very strong name. Considering I was already prepared to accept defeat, THIS IS NUTS.
SO! I'll be doing some posts on what I've learned throughout this process, since I've been itching to put all of my thoughts on this in writing. First off, AFATT / artificial immersion / whatever you want to call it
works. I do have to thank the planets for aligning just so that my preparation year coincided with a particularly exciting election season
and that I happen to love French elections, so there was no shortage of material to keep me engaged. I also benefited from several key opportunities and circumstances, like having the funds to spend three weeks in France and pay for online tutors, being able to engage with francophone friends, freedom from nearly any family obligations, etc - definitely checking my privilege here just to underscore that I recognize I was fortunate in many ways, and that saying "if I can do it, anyone can" would be tone-deaf at best.
However, if you, too, happen to have 8-10 free hours a day at your disposal every day for about 10 months straight, you, too, can go from B2 to C2ish
For me, the keys to success were:
1. Never consuming material I found boring, always hunting for new material that would keep me engaged. Whatever I had lined up next in French always seemed more appealing than the alternative (like a show in English), so I had no reason to stop.
2. Sticking French into literally everything I did whenever possible - I was collating handouts at work a few weeks ago and had my headphones on with the news for the 8 minutes that took or whatever.
3. Index cards - this was a very last-minute addition to my "routine" and only for the interview portion, but I prepared several "trajectories" of where I thought the interview could logically go and wrote the notes for each bit out thematically on several index cards. So, for example, I'd have 3 "intro" cards that would have key bullet points on things I could/should talk about in my intro; 4 "projet professionnel" cards where I wrote out the different ideas I had for career development; 4 cards on my current role and job functions; etc. Then I practiced - and recorded myself until I got each one perfect - different "trajectories", like going from the intro straight into the projet professionnel, or going from current role to why this school, etc. This gave me a "bank" of elegant phrases to work with. This is the first time I've ever prepared for an interview like this, and I quite liked it.
4. Knowing what works and what doesn't. This is going to sound nutburgers, but I've written about this before, I think - my speaking skills get enhanced considerably after 4-5 hours of either Macron or a specific list of vloggers
en boucle. I could watch 4-5 hours of documentaries and my speaking skills would stay the same; put me in front of 5 hours of Macron and I'm suddenly blazing through. I have no idea how to explain this, except that it might have something to do with me gravitating towards specific rhythms of speech and then having an easier time mimicking that? Who knows. In any case, whenever I needed to speak, I usually turned on someone I knew would get me speaking.
5. Taking advantage of the enormous amount of school-focused material on Youtube. For those of you who might be considering higher education in France, whatever your field of interest, search for student vlogs, videos by various
prépas, Campus Channel videos for programs similar to what you might like, etc. These are majorly helpful in figuring out what top schools look for, how to prepare for an interview if you need to, and even for building academic vocabulary you might not have come across otherwise.
6. Pretend-"vlogging" - a.k.a. talking to myself/my cat about the day's news items or matters of concern or whatever. A low-impact way to identify gaps in vocabulary and, conversely, to gain confidence when an elegant phrase develops itself seemingly of its own volition.
7. Twitter, which helps train automation and quick responses.
So that's about it for now, I'm going to go roam my apartment for the next few hours and try to gather myself, but I do plan on continuing this log to actually track how the process of getting educated in France goes. Thanks for all your support around the forum!
