So here I am again; back in the classroom. Only it’s a new classroom, a new class, and a new teacher.
And I haven’t spoken French in four months.
I’ve also been bumped up from unit 103 to 105, and already missed the first class. So when I open my mouth all that comes out is dribble, and the five unfamiliar faces who make up my classmates — no doubt already a close-knit team who’ve been through 104 together — clearly can’t fathom what this incoherent cue-jumper is even doing in the room with them.
Basically it’s back to school. The beginner’s French lessons I began at level 101 in January have, after a long and lazy summer, resumed.
While I may be visiting Alliance Française Dubai twice a week of my own volition, it suddenly feels like school, too. The fun stuff — the “getting to know you” and “laugh at my accent” jinxes which marked the early weeks — they’re long gone. It’s all about hard work from here on in. All about figuring out when to use bel or belle or beau, or ce or ces or cet or cette. Or not, and guessing, and attracting disappointed glances from my superior classmates.
It really does feel like l’école. I approach lessons with same mix of anxiety and dread that I last felt in my teens; a sense of inadequacy, a fear of exposure, and a desire to flee — to échappe potential ridicule by bolting out la porte.
The difference is, then I couldn’t leave, but now I can. I’m a grown adult. There’s nothing keeping me in the classroom except my own dogged determination to learn this frustratingly convoluted language. And learn it I will.
• Rob Garratt is studying beginners's French at Alliance Française Dubai, a non-profit language and cultural institution established in 1982, which teaches French to more than 2,500 students every year. Find out more at www.afdubai.org.