The French Connection

One, a language lab which will rely on volunteer help from the community, will meet Wednesday mornings from 7:30 a.m. to 9 a.m. The other, French Club, is back again from its start last year, and will meet Thursdays after school, from 3:15 p.m. to 4:45 p.m.

Both are the brainchild of middle school science teacher Raz Mason. She lived in South Africa for a year when she was 10, and she started learning French.

She’s studied a number of languages, and today she’s strongest in French and German.

The middle school years are a ripe time for learning language, she said. “Their brains will never be better at language learning than right now.”

Learning another language “makes your world feel bigger,” she said.

Interested volunteers, who must pass a background test, can contact Mason at masonr@nwasco.k12.or.us.

The language lab is particularly intriguing to Mason because it is computer-based and self-paced. It uses award winning language learning apps like Duolingo and Memrise, which allows review of information in different ways to facilitate learning.

“I love something that’s self-paced,” Mason said. She’s seen students “who don’t feel academically successful do things self-paced that are pretty impressive.”

As for volunteers, Mason said, “some people are anxious about middle schoolers but you get to see the best side of middle schoolers.

These kids are usually well behaved because they’re usually a more responsible bunch.”

She hopes to have two to three volunteers on hand per weekly session, and she’d like volunteers be able to sign up for one to two shifts a month. She has three maybes so far, and would like six to 10 volunteers to be on tap.

In its first year last year, French Club drew between five and 12 students each time, but she’s expecting more this year.

Students like Angel Oregon will be back again this year. Angel started taking French Club because his sister started going, and he went with her and liked it.

Joselyn Lopez is also returning to French Club “I just wanted to learn a different language because I already know Spanish and English – and I also went with my friend.”

But the real highlight of the French Club was the food. About once a month a native French speaker came to class and cooked or brought food. “Oh, it was so good, that chocolate stuff?” Lopez recounted with fellow French Club attendee Nathan Kirby.

Asked to speak some French, Lopez said, “Bonjour, je suis Joselyn.” She said French is a lot like Spanish.

Kirby said, “I really wanted to be bilingual and I thought it would be really cool.”

Abarca and others are already bilingual, and she is now aiming for two other languages in Korean and Japanese. She’s using the app Memrise to study, as well as the Duolingo app. Asked why she picked Korean and Japanese, she said, “I don’t know, I just thought it would be real interesting to try something from somewhere else.”

She’s also going to attend French Club.

Lopez learned English when she was 3, picking it up from flash cards. “And then I taught my mom.” She is fully bilingual, but had to learn how to write Spanish when she was 8. Corson is using Duolingo. “I do a few lessons each night. My friend’s learning German and I thought it was an interesting language. It’s similar to English but not quite, so I picked German.”

Duolingo doesn’t just stick to the languages of Earth. “You can even learn Klingon,” Kirby said, “which is the language of Star Trek.”

Mason said the language lab she hopes to have on Wednesday mornings – the school has a late start on Wednesdays, which is what makes this possible – can only happen if the community helps.

She wanted to have a morning option because a lot of athletes are busy with sports in the afternoons.

French Club has a snack every time, and about once a month, it’s a special French concoction.