Coucou les French learners,

C’est le début de la semaine, it is the start of the week and to start off on the right foot, pour commencer du bon pied, RELAX!

The Affective Filter

Noam Chomsky, the American linguist (also philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist!) calls the “language acquisition device“, the part of the brain responsible for language acquisition. Last week, I explained that acquisition is very different from learning. We, as human being, are good at acquiring but we struggle to learn.

Stephen Krashen explains in the Fundamentals of Language Acquisition that “if the acquirer (in that case yourself) is anxious, has low self-esteem or does not consider him or herself to be a potential member of a group that speaks the language, s/he may understand the input, but it will not reach the language acquisition device, a block called the “Affective Filter” will keep it out.”

That is why, it is so VERY important to relax and trust the process. It does make me sad when I see some of my learners being so stressed out during a session. Acquiring another language is stress-free and effortless. The job of the teacher (I prefer to call myself a facilitator) is to make the process stress-free and effortless.

Encore en Bretagne !

Beniko Mason invented Story Listening because she has always been looking for the most efficient way for learners to acquire another language. Story Listening allows you to relax. When you listen to a story, your are stress-free, your only goal is to understand the story. My only goal as the facilitator is to convey the meaning of the story using words, NOT teaching the words.

This week’s video is not Story Listening. it is a guided tour of a beautiful Medieval castle in Brittany. Not only is the castle beautiful, its surroundings are amazing too! Relax & enjoy the tour of the castle!

You can also listen to a podcast by Français Facile (along with the script) about this part of Bretagne, le Morbihan.

I love hearing from you so let me know in the comments if you like l’Histoire, History and especially le Moyen-Age, the Middle-Age?

Tomorrow is day 15, we are already halfway down the journey!!! Do let me know how the May challenge is going for you. Share and/or leave a comment with #coucou

Happy French acquisition!

P.S. Got friends, family, colleagues or clients who want to become fluent in French? Share this with them, they’ll thank you for it 🙂