#middlebury language program

I decided to attend Middlebury Language Program for the French School. I am frightened by the tuition costs, but I think I can afford it and make it worth it if I use this as an opportunity to bring my French level to speaking fluency (b1/b2). It starts in mid-June and I hope to update about my opinions of the program + my progress which perhaps might help someone looking for information about Middlebury. If you are hesitant and in the position of applying within the next year, I can be your guinea pig.

I also spent around 10 hours fully subtitling Samuel (2024) so my family and friends (who cannot speak French) could watch it. I found that this was a great exercise because often with translation, you aren't trying to translate word-by-word or even phrase-by-phrase, but instead you are trying to convey meaning and story. Samuel's characters also talk incredibly different from textbook French; for example the question "Quelle musique écoutes-tu ?" might be "T'ecoutes quoi, comme musique ?" instead. So I found it very helpful to pick up some 'langage idiomatique et courant'. My pronunciation also improved marginally because I would speak the dialogue softly to myself to make sure the meaning I translated was correct.

bonus: I drew me and my sister in Emilie Tronche's style (it's so cute)

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Today I had a conversation in French with one of the Associate Directors of the Middlebury School of French; in this case it was Barbara Sicot. This is a mandatory placement conversation that you are expected to schedule a couple weeks before the program starts, alongside a mandatory written/hearing exam taken on canvas that you have to take before May 28th.

I have a very good impression of Barbara! she graduated with a doctorate from the Sorbonne and is familiar with the pedagogy of teaching French at all levels. The conversation was only about fifteen minutes, and it was structured like this:

Barbara introduced herself in English

We spoke a little in French, she will ask you to introduce yourself in French and will ask follow-up questions about the stuff you mention, why you chose Middlebury, etc. (you can kind of ascertain what she is looking for in her questions; for example, she asked "If you didn't go to Middlebury this summer, what would you have done?" which is prompting you to speak in the conditionnel tense. I kind of circumvented answering by saying, in French, that I recognized that she wanted me to use this conjugation but I just forgot how to do it, and she accepted my answer.)

She then told me about an average day at Middlebury.

She will ask if you have any follow up questions. I asked what other languages she knew besides English and French. She knows Spanish, German, Ancient Greek, Latin, Russian, and a little bit of Arabic. We also talked a bit about how many French loanwords there are in Russian and why French was promoted heavily to the intellectual class by Catherine the Great.

As for the average day at Middlebury, it seems packed! She said:

breakfast around 7 A.M. Mealtimes seem to be important times to practice casual conversation with other speakers of your language.

7:50 A.M. classes start, usually 4 classes per day, each 50 minutes with a 15 minute break in between.

lunch

around 3:00 P.M. people participate in clubs or there are sometimes mandatory cultural activities. There seem to be a lot of clubs, all held in the respective languages. I am deciding to bring my tennis racquet after I heard there are nice courts on campus.

5:30-6:00 P.M. is dinner

after dinner people work on homework or go to some of the lectures held by the professors.

So yes, I am overall very excited for the program to begin, which will be in late June. I will start a series here on this blog which will be like a little diary of my experience, and hopefully I can keep it updated.

That's the end! C'est tout.

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Hello! It is the first official full day of Middlebury's French School for me. I will inform you about the happenings/my thoughts and feelings about the environment, the people, etc. Classes have not started yet, so this will be solely about the living situation and the social vibe.

ALSO: Tomorrow I will be taking Middlebury's famous pledge, in which one cannot do ANYTHING in english until the end of the program and must only speak/read/write/listen in their target language. It may seem a bit intense or silly, but it famously works well for most. So, the following posts I make will be in French.

Okay: After I moved in (I did not have many belongings and you can purchase bedding/towels ahead of time and have them delivered to the student store), I got a sense of the campus. It is REMOTE. Middlebury is situated near the Green Mountain Range of Vermont., and is about a 1.5 hour drive away from the interstate that leads to Dartmouth. It is also BEAUTIFUL during summer; everything is green, the sky has perfect clouds. The only downside is that the weather can be sweltering at times and there is about a week or two of heavy summer thunderstorms. Pack a fan or be prepared to buy one - I believe most are not given rooms with AC.

above: photos of campus and a little drawing session I had at the library

During the first day, you will be completely free - there's just a meet and greet in the evening at 8:30. Here they have small snacks and they play music (in this case, French music). Mostly everyone stands around and chats. This is a great opportunity to meet as many people as possible, and do not worry if you can't remember everyone's names - you are likely to see them again the next day.

The next day, you will be free to grab breakfast in the morning - there's just a round of icebreakers at 2:00pm. You will go around introducing yourself or playing telephone in French, but a lot of people are still conversing in English (I think because it's not mandatory yet, most people will still feel timid about committing to French-only. This is natural). I myself ditched the second half of the activities and went with a girl I met who is a much better level than I am (I am level 2.5/4 intermediate and she is 4/4 advanced. Note: There are also masters students which are supposedly above level four) to the village of Middlebury where we got drinks at a little tea shop called Stone Leaf Teahouse. This shocked me the most - because the language program is so famous, you will find that many of the shopkeepers in the area have practiced multiple languages to accommodate your pledge! So we ordered in French from a very kind woman who was willing to speak with us (even though the pledge has not started yet.)

above: Stone Leaf Teahouse

I had a really riveting conversation with my new friend - you will find that most people here in the French program are very educated, prioritizing academia and are doing their masters or PhD in comparative literature or philosophy at the Ivy League. Demographic-wise I think it's about 80% Americans and 20% Non-Americans, and about 25% undergrads and 75% grad or older (although these are just my estimations from looking around.) It can be a little intimidating, but I can say that everyone is extremely friendly and nerdy, and since you all are passionate about language, it is not hard to find common ground. I managed to speak for nearly three hours in French about literature, history, and food! I was really glad to meet someone who was so willing to be patient when I couldn't find the right word.

I returned to my dorm afterwards and took a little nap. Now as I am writing this, there will apparently be a "Contra-Ball" at 8:30 which I am told is like French line dancing. I was told to wear something I could jump in. Very mystifying. I think the Contredanse itself shows that this is a very white upper middle class establishment, although I knew that coming in. Right now there is the sound of a virtuoso absolutely hammering the piano outside my window over the sound of chirping summer birds. I mean, what I previously knew about this program was that Hillary Hahn, the exceptional soloist, attended here twice for Japanese and German. I think that gives you the picture - it's a little out of my comfort zone.