Student Spotlight - Greg Lenne

Monday at OISE Oxford is always a very special day as this is when the new students arrive. At 7:55am they are huddled outside the entrance waiting for the doors to be opened at 8am sharp. They are then assessed on their written and spoken English and placed in their Quatorial groups (classes of 2-4 students max). Some stay for 1 week, while others stay for up to 1 year. 

When I first met Greg a week ago today it was clear that he had a very sporting physique, shoulders twice the size of mine and big arms dropping down by his side. I assumed he was a rugby player, but soon found out that his main hobby is French boxing, which he assured me was very different from any other type of boxing. I thought it would be interesting to do a mini student spotlight to hear more:

Q - Good morning Greg, thanks again for taking the time to speak with us today. Could I start by asking what is your occupation and why you need to improve your English? 

A - Well I am currently studying for a diploma at a special state school in France where we study and work. As part of my work, I do military service and I also help to teach other students. As part of the diploma, we must also reach a certain level of English, which is why I am here at OISE Oxford.

Q - I remember you told me the other day that one of your main hobbies is French boxing. When did you start?

A - Well, I started 3 years ago. It was just for a bit of fun back then, but now I am taking it more seriously and starting to compete.

Q - What is the difference between French boxing and traditional boxing?

A - There are many differences, the main difference being that the objective is not to hurt the opponent. That is to say that when we throw a punch or kick we must aim to only touch the opponent's body. If there is too much force used you get penalised.

Q - You mentioned that you can kick as well?

A - Yes, this is another difference. In this respect it is a bit like kick boxing, but again without the force. When the sport first started, no gloves were used and instead of using knuckles the fighters would use the palm of their hands, like slapping.

Q - Do you see yourself turning professional in the future?

A - If I continue to improve, yes! Last year I was injured, so let's see what happens next year.

We wish Greg the best of luck with this boxing career, and look forward to saying to our future students that a French boxing champion attended our school!

Let's analyse who you are and how we can help you!

This blog has now been up and running for approximately one month and we have had a total of 3,200 views. What we, the staff at OISE Oxford, find particularly interesting is not the quantity of views the blog gets, but where you, the people viewing the blog, come from. Blogger (ran by Google) very kindly provide the owners of their blogs with the nationality breakdown. Excluding the English fan base we seem to have acquired (mainly from Burton-on-Trent and Leicester FYI), please see below a list of the top 8 nationalities to view this blog:

Russia - 24%
France - 21%
Spain - 14%
Italy - 13%
Japan - 10.5%
Turkey - 7%
Germany - 6.5%
Czech - 4%

You might be asking yourselves what is the point in us telling you this information. The answer is simple. Every so often we are going to pick one of the top viewing nationalities of our blog and briefly discuss one of two specific difficulties that this particular nationality has when learning English. We figured that this would be an effective way to interact and provide relevant information to our readership.

We will start with France. I asked two of our highly experienced tutors to pick one difficulty each:

1) The Present Perfect
The French sometimes struggle to comprehend the unique nature of bringing past and present actions together in one present perfect continuous tense. For example the French would say 'I am studying English since two years' instead of 'I have been studying English for two years'. In English, the logic is this; I started to study English two years ago. I am studying now = I have been studying for two years.

2) False Friends (Les faux amis)
There are many words in English that resemble French words and vice versa, but that have completely different meanings. Here is a list of some of the most common French false friends:

to control = diriger, maîtriser * contrôler = to check
deception = tromperie * délais = time, time-limit
to demand = exiger * demander = to ask
deputy = adjoint * député = Member of Parliament
eventually = finalement * éventuellement = perhaps, possibly
to resume = recommencer * résumer = to summarise, to sum up
sensible = sensé, raisonnable * sensible = sensitive
to support = soutenir * supporter = to stand, bear, put up with

If you are a teacher or a French student and can think of any other specific difficulties that the French have when learning English, please feel free to comment below!

Next time we will focus on the Russians! If you are a Russian learning English, or have experience in teaching Russian students English, please let us know the difficulties you think Russian students have while learning English.

Are the French hopeless at languages?

Till Gins, director of Oxford Intensive School of English, is adamant that this is not the case. He claims they are no worse than anyone else, rather they are victims of an education system which will not accept its failings. The French-Brit has been director of the first language school in Oxford for 40 years and has seen millions of students come and go, attracted by his intensive, ‘one to one’ teaching method. He explores what lies behind the cliche…

Born to a French father and an English mother, Till grew up with dual heritage. After graduation, he came to Oxford to write a memoir on John Locke and it was then that he began to give individual lessons. The more he taught, the more he realised the effectiveness of tutorials, a teaching method specific to the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Dublin. He concluded that the best way to master a language was to have ‘one to one’ classes which enable the teacher to tailor their teaching to the student.

The school’s programmes are first and foremost aimed at executives and business managers. But we also welcome students and prépa students (students preparing for entrance examinations to the Grandes Écoles).  Whatever the age of the pupil, it is difficult to undo the damage done by their education and culture.

Of all the students OISE receives, Till believes that the French have the most inhibitions. They are not bad at languages, as we often hear, but they are afraid of making fools of themselves and this psychological block is so deeply rooted in their national mentality that they have real difficulty taking risks. They would prefer to calculate what they are going to say beforehand or just remain quiet rather than make a mistake, the result being that they cannot communicate spontaneously in a foreign language.

Till traces this mental block back to the way many French children are brought up. For example, if a child is given a sweet and does not say thank you, their mother would often say to them ‘What do you say? What do you say?’, giving them the sense that they have done something wrong. According to Till, the French education system only reinforces this idea, meaning that many French children are afraid to try for fear of making a mistake.

Consequently Till felt that his role was not so much to teach English but eloquence. That is what makes the difference, whether you have mastered the basics of a language or not. Many French students have spent years learning English grammar and vocabulary in school but still do not know how to use it spontaneously. Till considers risk taking and engaging in debate to be a much more effective way to learn.

Summarised by OISE Oxford's in-house French linguist, Joanna Shaw

Click here to read the full article in French.

L’anglais, c’est super cool!

English has, for several decades now, been an important language in the world of international business, trade, politics, and law, and consequently, is the most taught language in European schools. Unsurprisingly, English words and phrases have started to see use in other languages, and France is one country that has experienced first-hand the rise of Anglicisms in its national language, primarily by young people through use of technology and exposure to the pop cultures of English-speaking countries.
Le Dark Knight and Les Avengers

We can start by looking at the influence of English-language film and television in France. If you go to the cinema in Paris, you might even see some familiar titles, since two of this year’s highest grossing films worldwide, The Dark Knight Rises and The Avengers, did not translate their titles for the French market. (Interestingly, though, The Dark Knight Rises was translated as L’Ascension du Chevalier Noir for the Quebecois market – perhaps a sign of their fierce desire to maintain a Francophone identity in English-speaking Canada.) But if one looks at each of these titles individually, the vocabulary is relatively complicated for the average French young person. So why not translate the title to make it understandable for everyone? The answer: English sells. Living in a world where you can carry the Internet around in your pocket, there is little worry that French teenagers won’t figure out that The Dark Knight Rises is the next installment of the Batman series, nor is there any real need to understand what an ‘avenger’ is.

That said, it is not uncommon to change the title of English-language films to simpler English. Interesting examples are The Hangover and No Strings Attached, released in France as Very Bad Trip and Sex Friends respectively. We see the same phenomenon here, but because these film titles use idioms and do not already belong to an easily identifiable series, the titles are changed to more aptly describe the film, but maintain the cool-factor of English.

English represents something young, modern, and fun, and would you really want to see a film called La Gueule du Bois anyway?
English: reinterpreted and redefined

There are several well-known English words that have been used in French for some time. Le week-end has long been used in place of la fin de la semaine, and le sandwich has always been known by its English eponym, but it is interesting to also see how certain brand names have influenced the French language too. The American Scotch tape, synonymous to Sellotape in the UK, has also made its way into the French lexicon. Shortened to le scotch (not to be confused with le Scotch), French has taken this word one step further to create a verb, scotcher, the French for ‘to tape’. Likewise, the French term klaxon derived from the Klaxon brand of horns used in cars, and the verb ‘to honk one’s horn’ is klaxonner.

However, French has also taken English phrases and given entirely new meanings to them. One such phrase is ‘fashion victim’, which, in English, is a derogatory phrase used to describe one who has fallen victim to the fashion industry. Cross the Channel, and you’ll find the term is used positively to describe someone who dresses well and has great style. Though the English word ‘victim’ is virtually identical to the French victime, there is nothing in the meaning of the French fashion-victim to imply victimization at all, rather, it is an English phrase that has found new meaning.

There are other English words that have lost their original meanings in French. Le brushing, coming from the English ‘to brush one’s hair’, means ‘blow dry’ when translated back into English, and le living was shortened from the English ‘living-room’ to mean just that in French. The verbs ‘to brush’ and ‘to live’ are translated as brosser and vivre in French, so the concepts of ‘brushing’ and ‘living’ being used in these contexts does not seem strange for a French speaker. They are, quite simply, words of English origin that have migrated and developed new meanings in a new language.

As well as giving new meanings to English words, there are also instances where English words have been entirely invented for the French lexicon. Le fooding, a term coined in 1999 by two French journalists as a portmanteau of ‘food’ and ‘feeling’, is the name of the current food movement happening in France. One of the journalists behind the movement described it as ‘a new element of design, a new element of casual yet serious food. The old choice between la cuisine de bistrot and la grande cuisine française was ending.’ They wanted a word to give the movement a more modern, contemporary voice, to show how the landscape of French haute-cuisine is keeping up with the rest of the culinary world, and le fooding did what no French word could.

L’Académie française and the fight against Franglais

Unlike for many languages, French has an official authority to monitor and regulate its language. L’Académie française was established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, and re-established in 1803 by Napoleon Bonaparte. It is one of the longest standing authorities in the world that deals with matters pertaining exclusively to the use of language. Over the course of its existence, members have included Victor Hugo, Voltaire, and Louis Pasteur.
Unsurprisingly, the Académie does not promote the use of Anglicisms, which it sees as a threat to the purity of the French language. In response to the rising use of Franglais, the Académie has devised a list entitled dire, ne pas dire, literally, ‘to say, not to say’, in which it offers acceptable, and in some cases, official, French alternatives to Franglais words and phrases. The word ‘email’ is a classic example. Although the English word is used across the world, including in France, the Académie has decided courriel should be used in its place (a mélange of courrier and électronique). To take the place of ‘prime time’ in France, the Académie suggests les heures de grande écoute. One should use l’entraîneur instead of the English ‘coach’, and the list goes on.

It is unlikely that the Académie’s French alternatives will gain much traction. Even to say something is great, commonly used phrases among French young people are c’est top and c’est classe. English prefixes ‘super-’ and ‘hyper-’ frequently preface adjectives to add emphasis. English is ubiquitous in France, and is too prevalent in popular culture not to have any influence over language.

At this point, I recall my time in Paris, teaching English at a lycée in the 16th arrondissement. In my last lesson with a sixième class, I asked what they liked about studying English. Without hesitation, and without a hint of irony, one boy yelled out:
"L’anglais, c’est super cool!"


Source: Oxford Dictionaries