'Communicative approach' helps in minding your French

By Emilie Sueur

JAKARTA (JP): Remember those endless language courses and repeating "Whose umbrella is this? It's John's umbrella" for hours at a time?

After having ascertained the ownership of the umbrella, cat, car, house or whatever object comes to mind, you would continue on to the next exciting grammar lesson.

Fortunately, the French Cultural Center (CCF) -- apart from scheduling cultural activities -- provides an alternative method to learning French free of those painful experiences.

At its Jl. Salemba and Jl. Wijaya centers, 80 teachers (90 percent are local) convey their proficiency to just over 3,000 students.

Some of the students are still in university. Their reasons for studying French include both their personal pleasure and in expectation of future careers.

Yuyun, 21, currently studies tourism at Atmajaya University in Jakarta and is planning to be a tour guide.

She said the ability to speak French well may enable her to get a higher salary and better position.

The career track is also the motivation of people already employed who are studying at CCF.

Ermy, 35, is an interpreter and secretary in Jakarta. She speaks English and Mandarin, but believes "in five years, Indonesia will be completely involved in the globalization process and will be fully open to international trade".

She said she decided to take the initiative in learning French because employers will soon expect workers to be at least trilingual.

Women make up a whopping 70 percent of those studying at CCF. The director of the courses, France Ray, has two explanations for this disproportionate representation.

He said many students were secretaries seeking better wages through language skills. And he said the other reason was the "feminization" of the teaching profession, as more women than men opt to teach.

For others, learning French is a necessity. Johanes, 36, is a computer professor from Jakarta. To stay informed of the latest developments in his field, he has to be able to read French journals as "France is one of the most innovative countries in computer technologies".

Learning the language can also be for personal satisfaction. When asked to describe France, most of the students mentioned romantic notions. Dwi, a 25-year-old secretary at the Shangri-La Hotel, said "it is very sexy for a woman to speak French".

The CCF offers different programs tailored to varying abilities and objectives of students.

The regular course formula is ideal for those wishing to study progressively, with 84 weekly four-hour lessons.

More motivated individuals may choose the semi-intensive courses whose aim is to enable the student to speak French within a year. This goal can be achieved thanks to six hours of French lessons per week.

True-blue French lovers will devour the 10 hours a week of the intensive program. After eight weeks of this tough diet, they should be able to deal with professional situations or to understand straightforward written documents.

The CCF also offers elective courses for businesses wanting French lessons for their employees. The place, date, hours and content of lessons are at the convenience of the client.

The CCF also gives 600-hour linguistic preliminary training for Indonesian scholarship holders before they leave to study in France.

Beyond the great diversity of programs, the special quality of CCF French teaching lies in its method.

France Ray and educational counselor Deddy Prayitno have set up a specific teaching method they call the "communicative approach". Its principle could be succinctly described as: "We don't teach anymore, we make people learn".

The traditional way of teaching languages is centered on the institution, but their method focuses on the learner.

"The teacher is an animator, his mission is to create the optimal environment so that the learners can develop their attainments by themselves," Deddy said.

This method is applied from the first lesson which consists of learning how to introduce oneself and someone else. The lesson is led like an open discussion.

The teacher introduces himself in French and through gestures gets the students to understand the meaning of his sentences. This method appeals to the students' intuition and deductive reasoning abilities.

Unlike traditional teaching which imbues students with an abstract knowledge of the tongue, the communicative approach is aimed at leading to everyday use of the language.

Speaking French, as with any language, doesn't only consist of saying words. Communication also encompasses the gestures and attitudes that students must acquire.

Introduction to French culture thanks to audio and video cassettes, newspapers or CD-ROM is of great help in completing the apprenticeship of communication.

The CCF recruits teacher with specific qualities to put it into practice. "To be a teacher for the CCF," Deddy says, "one must have qualities of innovation, openness of mind and abilities to enliven the communication in a class".

The prototype of the teacher who will never pass the gates of the CCF is what Deddy calls "the press button teacher", the kind who comes, sits, teaches a class no different from the one taught the first time and goes home.

The CCF has developed a comprehensive recruitment strategy to weed out this type of teacher. After sending in a resume, the applicant is interviewed and, if judged suitable, has a three- month internship.

Obstacles

On completion of this class observation training, the applicant returns a report aimed at evaluating whether he has the necessary qualifications to be admitted to CCF's teaching team.

Teachers admit facing two snags. "Indonesians do not dare asking for information when they don't understand something," Deddy lamented.

"But we found how to overcome this. We systematically ask the students to reformulate the main ideas of the lesson so that we know if they have really understood it."

The second obstacle is transformation of "short memory" to the "long-lasting memory". This transfer requires the students to work at home and not only in the classroom.

For their part, CCF students also have some suggestions. Some students wished the classes were more standardized, including in age groups. Ermy doesn't always feel at ease in a class made up of younger students.

"If the students were all the same age in one class, it would be easier to find conversation topics that fit everybody's centers of interest," she said.

Classes with standard knowledge levels were another request. Johanes said proficiency evaluation tests should be more stringent.

"When students in the same class have different levels, it is sometimes difficult to have enriching conversations. Some will not participate because they feel lost."

Except for those gripes, nearly all of the students praised the CCF method for its refreshing approach. "It is better to learn from the very beginning how to express oneself," said student Valerina.