Goodbyes

Today, during our regular chapel time, we had graduation for the students who are finishing this semester. Two of the students took their test early, and have already left. The other four are pictured here with our teachers and some of the school administration.

There are many goodbyes in missionary life, but the exciting part is that we know so many people all over the US and the world now.

After graduation, we had our last test of the semseter. (It was a little weird to have graduation first. All four of the graduates in the picture took the test at the same time I did.) It is a relief to have all of the tests over, and all of our paperwork for the semester completed. We have a few days off, and we will begin the next semester on Monday.

Sugar Shack

In March, Stephen and I had a field trip to a Sugar Shack. This is the name of a place where they get the maple sap from trees and make maple syrup and other things. In a small "shack" they have maple sap that has been boiled and refined. Some one pours some on snow or ice. You can use a wooden spoon to pick up the hardened syrup and eat it like a popsicle.

Caleb is ready to eat.

This is cold!

After the syrup, we went for a walk in the woods. We got to see the buckets they have attached to the tree to gather the sap. Caleb mostly enjoyed walking in the mud.

Update

Wow... it has been over a month since I last posted. I didn't realize how much time had gone by. We have all been doing well, but just busy. Since spring break, we have had lots of test, projects, etc. Our biggest challenge was a presentation in chapel this past Wednesday. It was 20 minutes... in French. We breathed a big sigh of relief once that was over!

Now we have another small presentation for class (5-10 minutes), the usual homework, and tests. I will be posting more and catching up on pictures. I just need to upload the pictures from the camera first...

Right now in class we are studying reflexive verbs. There is a lot of new vocabulary as well as a lot of rules (and of course exceptions to all of the rules, then some exceptions to the exceptions.) They can be very important to get right. If you read Stephen's post about smelling bad instead of feeling bad, you will understand.

French Phrases

We studied weather terms in class and learned some interesting phrases that are used here in Quebec.

1) Il fait un froid de canard.
This means that it is the cold of duck. It means really cold, and I think it has some thing to do with the birds migrating.

2) Il fait un temps à ne pas mettre un chien dehors.
This means that it is so cold you would not put your dog outside.

3) Il fait un vent à décorner un boeuf.
This means that it is so wind would blow the horns off of a cow. Of course, after living in Browning for four years, we don't really think that it is that windy!

Our Almost Super Bowl Party

We weren't able to get the superbowl game on TV here. None of us have cable, but some of our neighbors had a party. We had pizza, and and lots of other yummy food, and just enjoyed spending some time together.

Pictures from Campus

Stephen was able to get some pictures around campus on a foggy morning. By the last picture most of the fog was gone.

Tests

Here are the tests that we have:

1. Dictee (spelling tests)
Every Wednesday we have a dictee. We started with 100 words. They are cumulative, so we have to keep studying the words from the beginning as well as the new ones. Some of the challenges are the accents, remembering which nouns are masculine or feminine, and trying not to use English spelling. I was never that great at spelling, and now my English spelling is getting confused as I learn the French spelling.

2. Dialogue.
On some Thursdays, we have to say a dialogue that we have memorized. These have been fairly easy.

3. Verses
For our Bible workshop we have to learn a verse every week. We say these in our regular class every day, and by ourselves in class on Friday.

4. Mini-tests and Tests
On Fridays (except field trip days) we have a mini-test (quiz) or a test. These are either over one chapter/ section (mini-test) or over everything we have studied to that point.

5. Mid-terms
We just took our mid-terms this week. We had oral exams scheduled individually on Tuesday and Wednesday, and our written exam on Thursday. Then we had Friday off! (Our teacher is gettting married on Saturday, and she needed the time to prepare.)

6. Bible Workshop Test
We have our first test for our Bible workshop on Tuesday (at the end of our regular class.) We have to write 2 verses, say 2 verses and take a test on certain vocabulary words.

We stay pretty busy studying for these!

Homework

Each week, in addition to our classes, we have homework to complete. Between classes, kids, and all those other tasks that are part of life we manage to squeeze in the following:

1. The most time consuming part of our homework is Rosetta Stone. We were required to purchase the software as part of our school program. We have to do 67 hours of labs by the end of the semester. This works out to just over 5 hours per week. There is a four part section where we see and hear french words and pictures, and section where we practice speaking, and a section where we practice typing. We use a French keyboard on the computer, and now my English typing and spelling are very confused.
The program is not hard to do, but it is hard to fit in time wise. I usually try to do at least one hour when Caleb is napping, but on Wednesday we have a different schedule. So far we have both been able to keep up with our work.

2. We have had a few oral assignments where we had to ask someone certain questions. For one of these we had to ask a francophone (someone whose native language is French) 5 questions about themselves. The students who are attending the Bible school here were all very patient with those of us who stumbled through the questions and tried to understand the answers!

3. We have written assignments to go along with what we are learning in class. We usually start these in class so that Kathleen (our teacher) can see if we understand the concept before we do the whole exercise wrong.

4. Of course, we are constantly trying to review and study. I will do a post tomorrow with the tests that we have every week. We are also studying to be able to speak and understand, not just pass a test or quiz.

5. We turn in a paper every week with our "listening" and "social activities." We have to listen to 5 hours of French. This can be TV, radio, music, movies, etc. We have to go to one social activity where people are speaking French. This can be something as simple as going out to eat, or going to a children's storytime at the library.
After our break (next week) we will also have to include reading in French and French conversations.

6. We are required to meet with one of the Bible students for one hour a week (in at least 3 separate meetings). We read Bible verses to them, and they correct our pronunciation. The Bible school students each have a personal devotional book (culte personel) that they complete as part of their assignments. We have a copy of this as well, and take our Bible reading from the passages there.
This has been a great opportunity to get to know one of the students. I practice French conversation with my student. She speaks English quite well, is very patient, and is a great teacher. We end up meeting 3 times a week, and usually read and talk for 30-45 minutes each time.

7. We turn our "Culte Personel" books in each week to show that we have done our reading. We are supposed to try to write something each day to practice our French writing.

French Numbers

Learning French feels much like being back in Kindergarten. We learned the alphabet- same letters as the English, in the same order, but different pronunciations. It was funny to have our class of adults saying the alphabet together, over and over.
We also learned the days of the weeks, months of the year, and other things that reminded me of the things that you would learn in Kindergarten (or pre-school.) One of the things we learned was numbers. We started with the numbers 1-31 so that we could do dates. Then a few weeks later, we learned the rest of the numbers up to 100.
The numbers are similar to ours at the beginning...
1-un
2-deux
3-trois
etc, etc,

But some of the higher numbers are a little different. The word for 60 is soixante. When you get to seventy, instead of a seperate word, you say soixante-dix (60-10) then you keep going
soixante et onze (60 and 11)
soixante et douze (60-12)
soixante et treize (60-13)

When you get to 80 it is quatre-vingts (4-20s)...
quatre-vingt-un (4-20-1)
quatre-vingt-deux (4-20-2)

As you get higher and higher, the numbers get longer. You end up with
99-quatre-vingt-dix-neuf (4-20-10-9)

This makes sense if you think about it- four twenties plus ten plus nine is ninety nine. It just takes a little getting used to! The first few days after we learned the numbers, we took turns counting in class... Anna, you count from 51-60, then David, you count from 61-70, and so on, until everyone had a turn. It was quite amuzing!

More field trip pictures

More from the field trip

This was our very patient guide on our tour. He spoke very slowly and repeated things several times. You can see the confused looks on some of the students faces.

After our tour, we had a chance to play on the playground while we waited for lunch. As you can see, most of the class enjoyed the time!

Our Field Trip

Field trips are not just for kids. Our language school took a trip to an apple orchard. All four of the classes went (2 beginning, 1 intermediate, and one advanced). There are over 30 students total, and some of the people brought their spouses and/or children. We were quite a crowd!
We had a chance to listen to some information about the orchard and the history of apple orchards in Quebec (all in French, of course!) We also went for a tractor ride, had lunch in the cafe, and got to pick apples from the trees.
This trip is part of our "Conversation in Context" grade. We have two more trips throughout the semester. The two teachers from the language school, as well as two volunteers made sure that we all had a chance to speak in French throughout the day. Some of the students in the advanced and intermediate classes can carry on a conversation quite well. Most of the beginners still can't say very much. But I did now how to say, "Tu aimes manger des pommes?" ("Do you like to eat apples?") I made sure I asked that to as many other students as I could so that I could practice the little bit of French that I do know. I still messed up, and half of the time said "Do I like to eat apples?" but people got the general idea.
Today I also learned that you do not say "I am full." in French. I didn't get the exact meaning but it is like saying "I am a pregnant cow." Instead you say "I ate well." At least I was only talking to one of the teachers and one of the other students when I said that!
Ian and Isabelle were in school, but Caleb got to go with us. He was so excited. As soon as he got up he was ready to go on the field trip. He kept saying, "We are going to an apple church today." He really enjoyed the day.

Our classes

It is hard to see the building from this picture, but this is the building in which we have our classes. I was sitting on the front steps of our apartment building when I took the picture. As you can see, we have a very short walk to go to class.
I have the morning class, and Stephen has the afternoon class. We each have six people total in our class. Having a small class size helps with learning. (There are a little over 30 students in the language school and 12 are beginners.)
We have an average of 15 hours per week of class, about 5 hours each of grammar, dialogue, and conversation. On Wednesdays we have one hour of chapel, one hour of small groups (the men and women meet separately), and a one hour Bible Study.
I have class from 8:30-11:30 on Monday, Thursday, and Friday. Tuesday is 8:30-12:30. Wednesday I have class from 10:30-12:30.
We started with phonetics. That part was very hard! We will be working on phonetics/pronunciation all semester. Now we have memorized some basic dialogue. We started on grammar with nouns. Last week we moved into verbs-- conjugating, etc.
Our teacher, Kathleen, is very nice, and incredibly patient. She seems to have a good sense of how to explain things. When someone is having trouble understanding, she always thinks of another way to explain it.
At the beginning she spoke mostly English to us. Now, she will speak mostly in French, but if we really are not understanding, she will use English. She is really good at making sure everyone understands completely before we move on to something else.
The Wednesday morning chapel service is from 8:30-9:30 and is completely in French. All of the students from the one year Bible Institute, the language school, and all of the staff attend. The next hour (9:30-10:30) the women and men of the language school meet separately for small groups. This time is not required, but is nice to get to know the other students.
The Bible study on Wednesday is from 1:30-2:30. That is a time with all of the language school students. We are only required to go to 5 in a semester. We have just have one of those so far, and we went over some of the songs that we sang in chapel. The teacher says everything in French, and then in English to make sure we understand. We go very slow, and things make more sense to me. We also did a short Bible lesson/sermon this week, point by point. It was exciting to be able to understan some of the things from French. I think it gave us an idea of what we are working toward.
Anyway, this is a lot of typing. Next time I will just put some cute pictures of the kids.

Starting School

We have all started school now. I will have to do some catch up posts with the rest of our trip and moving into our apartment. We were able to see friends from our church in Baltimore and spend one night with Stephen's Aunt Lois and Uncle Bill.
Today, I am just going to talk about the kids school, and I will try to do other posts of our school, our apartment, the campus, and the area around us.
Ian and Isabelle are both in the Lennoxville Elementary School, which is about 5-10 minutes from our apartment. It is an English school technically, but it is about 1/2 English and 1/2 French. Ian started Tuesday, and Isabelle started Wednesday. (The kindergarten students come one day later, and their parents get to stay for the first hour.)
There are two Kindergarten teachers, and the 2 classes rotate between them. One speaks all English to the class, and the other all French. They are both very nice, and Isabelle has been very happy so far.
The third grade has an English homeroom, and a French homeroom. Ian is in the English homeroom, but has the French teacher for French, social studies and science.
One thing that is different is that they have shoes they keep at school-their inside shoes-- and shoes they wear home, and out to lunch and recess. Both kids have gym clothes that keeps at school (Ian brings his home to wash on the weekends.) They both have an our for lunch, in which they eat and then play on the playground. Ian signed up for an intermural soccer league that plays Wednesday during lunch.
The school bus stops right in front of our building, and once we get their bus passes they will both ride the bus. (It takes awhile for the paperwork to go though.) They are both really excited about riding the bus. Right now I am enjoying picking them up from school, so I don't really mind if the paper work takes a little while.
As for Caleb, he is stuck at home with his parents. The language school had enough beginners for 2 classes. I go to the morning sessions and Stephen to the afternoon. I will write more about that later. We may put Caleb in day care on Wednesday because there are a few things we both have to attend, and it would be good for him to be around other French speakers some.