French and AV

Mlle. Sasha Rose, my French teacher, one time begged our Principal and Headmaster to screen a movie in French for us so as to improve our listening skills. They allowed it, for some reason. And so we sat and watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s. In French but with English subtitles and we were supposed to remember at least 10 dialogues from it. Remember and note down, I think.

Which is how Audrey Hepburn’s face/voice saying, “Quelle nuit!” is burned in my memory. It means “What a night!” and this is nice because I don’t remember any other French at all from my one year haphazard French lessons with Miss Sasha. I lie. I remember like three (ish) other phrases: Je m’appelle Esther, Comment ça va? (Ça va bien!), and C’est la vie. Maybe we can add Tres bien! to the list. Ooh. Also that it is spelled Lion but pronounced Leo. Like the zodiac sign.

Miss Rose’s idea was something practiced where she was from. I never bothered to ask. She was white and she was American is all I ever knew. She’d tell us how she once spent a year in France where everyone told her how atrocious her French accent was. She said: they’re not very forgiving if you mispronounce French and act like you know French. I find that interesting. 

I think Indians in general are much more accepting if you butcher their language as long as you can communicate, however broken. Very appreciative, too, which is nice. Atithi Devo Bhava and all that, maybe. Mizo again, however, are not accepting. But we don’t get mad. We just laugh mercilessly at people who butcher the language. And then mockingly mimic them. Not very nice but it is what it is.

In my old school Sacred Heart School in Lunglei, we had these classes too. AV Class, it was called. For Audio-Visual. This was how I watched The Lion King, Dunstone Checks In, Home Alone and some other kid friendly movies. The teachers would give us few questions. Easy ones. Maybe something like: what is the name of the monkey? Or the lion? Or what is the name of the director? Something easy. Something a kid could get. We watched the movie and kept an ear out for these details. 

It is a very effective teaching method, especially in the listening part because English is not our first language and they were teaching us in English, however different the accents were. Also this listening of dialogues teach kids colloquial usage which, I find, is never redundant. It trained me to listen and pay attention to details. I don’t know if other schools currently are doing this but they should. It is entertaining and useful, both.

AV Classes are over now, my French lesson way more over. Any French these days is much less AV than it is somatic, to be sure. C’est la vie, indeed.