For my STEP Signature Project, I participated in an OSU-approved study abroad program. For the Autumn 2023 semester, I was in Nantes, France for a French immersion language and area studies program. There, I lived with a host family, took courses in different subjects in French, and met both other Americans studying French as well as other French students.
Going into this program, I was feeling very unsure. While studying abroad was always something that I had planned to do, I was suddenly aware that I was going to another country where I would know no one and would be speaking only my second language. My self-confidence was somewhat low when I arrived. However, when I left this last week, I realized something. I was elected class president for the program within the first month, my host family became a second family to me, and I made dozens of friends – both French and American. These are feats in themselves but the grand realization came when I realized I did all of that in French. Not only had I accomplished all the things I wanted to while abroad, I accomplished them with the added difficulty of doing it all in French. Thus, both my language skills and my social skills and self-confidence truly transformed. I realized that I was far more capable than I gave myself credit for.
So much happened that I’m not sure where to even start, but I suppose the best place is with my host family. My host family is who I lived and spoke with the entire time I was in Nantes. I lived with them, my host parents, and their three daughters for nearly four months. While it is not a given that students become close to their host families, it was the case for me. I ate dinners with them, shared sleepy coffees on the kitchen island before leaving for class, played with their cats, learned how to bake French treats, and came to my play for my theater class, flowers in hand. It was with them that my French language skills really improved because I spoke with them about everything I would with my family at home in English. I spoke with them about who was in love with whom in the program, what I learned in my history class, the French friends I’d made – everything. The consistent speaking with them fast-tracked my French skills. For my self-confidence, they also had an effect. I was unsure of how I would be able to comport myself and get across my happy, eager-to-learn personality to a group of total strangers, but my host family truly took me in, accepting me and being proud of the things I was accomplishing. They consistently reminded me that learning French is hard and that they were seeing progress. They made me realize I was always doing better than I thought I was and not to put so much pressure on myself to be perfect at French and to take breaks from my busy schedule.
The actual classes and program of IES Abroad deeply transformed my self-confidence and my language skills as well. We quickly became a tight-knit group of 43 Americans, 5 French staff members, and 4 French tutors. Being forced to speak French in our IES Center created a safe space to make mistakes and truly try to improve our skills. The staff was so patient and so proud of our progress, always generous with their time allowing us to figure out exactly how to say what we were attempting to say. This was also a huge tool for improving my French, I finally had a place to practice with native speakers as well as others trying to learn. Within the first month, we had elections for student body president. At the last minute, I was convinced by my peers to run. I was still unsure of myself and where I fit in socially with the other Americans, all of us coming from different universities. My friends that I had made assured me that others would vote for me as I had already bonded with many of the other students. I won by a landslide, making me realize that maybe I should be more sure of myself and not worry so much about what others think of me because being myself was enough. After all, over 30 people trusted me enough to be the go-between for staff and students for the semester.
Lastly, I want to touch on how taking a course at the local university transformed my self-confidence and my French skills. I took a course called Traduction (translation for publishing between French and English) at Nantes Université. The challenge here was not only that it would be a course taught in French, but a course where I would be one of the only non-French students. This meant new social challenges of making friends and succeeding in class with a language barrier. I was nervous, but I forced myself to speak, usually starting with “Hi, I’m American, my French isn’t great!” To my surprise, I could speak well, communicating my interests and my background to interested French students my own age, resulting in lots of new friends I plan to keep in touch with. Overall, through everything I experienced, I realized I was capable of so much more (in French or otherwise) than I knew, making me so glad I took the leap to move to another country.
If I had never gone to Nantes, my French skills would’ve been stagnant for a long time. Forcing myself into a French-only environment where I would have to use French to go through my daily life was the only way I could move forward in my skills. My confidence in French never would’ve changed and I would’ve continued to stay quiet instead of trying to speak knowing I’d make mistakes. Taking the jump to go to another country meant that I realized I could do hard and uncomfortable things. This will only help me in my French classes back at OSU where I hope to become fully fluent so I can potentially become an interpreter for refugees from Francophone countries. Professionally, this has always been a goal of mine but fluency in another language has always been a personal goal as well, making this experience truly invaluable to me.