Streets Full of Frenchmen. Please Advise

Sorry, Mr. Benchley.

Wednesday was my first day at L'Institut de Touraine. The Institut is a private school dedicated to the teaching of French. The school serves an international clientele with half the students from the US and the rest from Europe, Asia (Japan and Korea, mostly), and the Middle East. The students are noticeably from the middle classes and above. From what I can tell, I am the oldest and most non-traditional student here as I am by far the oldest of some 150. I should have brought that anti-wrinkle cream.

The school is scarcely a mile's walk from my home. Upon arrival at 830 we are separated into various rooms of the former 18th-Century chateau (physically not unlike the school in the French film "Diabolique") for a "diagnostic" exam that will place us in our eventual classes based on our ability in French. The test has an easy start as a teacher reads a dictation that we have to write down. After listening to French radio for three months before departure I am confident I can do this. Confidence is served well as the slowly read words seem quite easy. The next section covers grammar and while less confident it does not seem too difficult. The third section sees a teacher play a cassette tape of a speaker--while speaking we have to match the words to cartoons in our exam book. This is less easy as the voice speaks very quickly: "The goats go dressing in the river on Sunday months only three times in Switzerland"? Or so it sounded. I boldly guess which cartoon it matched. I look around at the other students and am pleased to see that they were similarly baffled. The fourth section sees a six-panel cartoon. We are supposed to make up a interesting and rich story based on that. Ah! I can finally let my creative juices flow! I crack my hands and get ready to show the Institut what I can do. However, as I stare at the cartoon that shows a woman going into a store to buy a lamp as a gift and then going to a cafe I can think of nothing (in French) that seems very rich. My finished story was probably: A woman goes in a store. She buys a lamp. She leaves the store. She has some coffee at a cafe.

My thoughts of having a good evaluation dwindled. Perhaps they have a class for the young children of foreign diplomats and executives. I could fit in there, I'd expect.

By now my morning breakfast had worn off. Our typical breakfast is very French: coffee and bread. For those of you who know me well you know what a disaster that is. While delicious, what happens is an initial burst of energy as the starch and caffeine and sugar do wonders. Soon after I am going to crash once those dissipate. The last section coincided with this crash: we had to analyze a literary paragraph chosen from a novel, "The Age of Man." I think my analysis rivaled that of my shopping story of above.

At just about this time our teacher told us we had reached our 90 minute limit. Blessed relief! I could at least go to the cafeteria for a break until our next scheduled "information meeting" in an hour. However, another teacher came in the room with an anouncement: the school was experimenting with a new type of computer-given diagnostic test and that we were "chosen" to take that very test immediately. I don't recall that we were asked but I suspect that we were chosen as convenient guinea pigs. We repaired to the next room, a computer lab, as I saw my two housemates walk off to the cafeteria to eat, no doubt.

As our test class sat in the new room much fumbling of two instructors transpired. Even I could tell what was going on...the software was not loading correctly. At least that was a universal problem I could understand even if their shouting was incomprehensible. With much waving of arms and some yelling, our test eventually started.

I was less than pleased to see that we had to answer 140 questions, all multiple choice with three choices per question. However, like the first test, it began easily enough with some basic grammar questions. I was able to ignore the growling stomach and the fuzzy brain to quickly answer the first 20 in a few minutes. Only 120 to go---soon I would be at the cafeteria. However, gradually the questions ramped up in difficulty and I was taking longer and longer for each one.

I manfully reached question 70--halfway done! The computer then instructed me to put on headphones...perhaps this was part of the experiment. Perhaps they were going to play a Mozart concerto for us and then test us on how classical music improved our test-taking skills! At least it would be soothing. Cruel disappointmont followed as a voice sounded in my ears instructing me that this was the "oral" part of the exam. What followed were incredibly bureaucratic questions (and answers) that sounded as if they came from an EU meeting in Brussels. "If Jean has to sign a contract with the butter-making syndicat in Normandy he would be best served if..." And so on. As I marked my answers, the alternating male/female voices mocked me, or so I thought, as my test-taking delirium increased. Why again had I chosen French history?

Questions 70-90 were bad. Questions 90-110 were worse. Random answers seemed best to me at this point. I was sure if the school had a mentally challenged section that I would be in the first row.

Questions 110-140 seemed to me to be like:

131: When fruit zoo time has rob various please?

and

136: Toad guppy yes no plants rgh yp) o&?

and

138: Frth thq qrtou help os rs sup ou?

and

139: zer é"'' èççéaz eu ùµ¤$£?

and, finally, blessedly, though confusedly,

140: xxxx xxx x xx xx xxxxxxxxx xx? !

Of course, by the time I finished, 90 minutes after starting, the caf was closed. Perhaps I could find an uneaten eclair in the garbage. I found out soon after that I had scored 50% on my computer test. While that may not sound totally terrible if one had just guessed randomly letter "A" one could have earned a 33%.

The next day I was assigned to the "Intermediate" level. I'd hate to see the beginners.



p.s. No computer access on weekends.