Sure, to improve and accelerate the learning of a language, there is nothing better than listening. So I will share my passion for reading with you. I will register regularly a book, a poem, an article ... If you have the urge of a particular text, please tell me, comments are open  :-) or by email.
Be kind, I record with my phone for the pleasure of sharing, sometimes my tongue will pitchfork or my son will interrupt me ... Help, let's start over ... no, I'm sure you won't hold it against me...!

Whatever your level is, beginner, intermediate or advanced: LISTEN! And if you do not understand everything, it's better! Yes, yes, it's better ... All is not happening in consciousness, so let your imagination help you, it has wonderful powers! Let your brain soak, soak sounds and rhythms ... let it make its own connections, trust ...
Have faith ... have faith ... I cannot say this sentence in my head without seeing the snake in the Jungle Book attempting to eat this poor Mowgli! I promise I will not eat you ;-)
This is another extraordinary technique of memorization ... the association of images, did you know that?
You can use it in a thousand ways: Small example: lying in the dark, listening to poetry, associate images to the word you hear or to the rhythm you feel. Or combine colors, memories ... There will always be a word or a rhythm to take you somewhere ... let it happen :-)

For those who saw Antigone at the Dolphin theatre, did you notice the incredible work of Stuart / Creon? Stuart is not yet bilingual despite appearances, he began to learn French to help his children at school :-) And then he developed a passion for the language. His secret? Every night he listens to a French text before falling asleep. I worked with him for more than a year and his progress is remarkable. He understood the language's prosody, rhythm and intonation all peculiar to French. Theatre workshops have, I hope, certainly helped too ;-)
The ideal is to listen at night. You are relaxed, you do not have access to your dictionary, your relaxed brain will register more effectively the relevant information! Many scientific studies prove it. Watch this video on youtube if you're interested. So trust your brain, do not try to understand everything, keep this part for school or college and try another approach, only let yourself rock to the musicality of the language ... let your imagination do the rest ;-)

Aragon said: "Reading is dreaming about." So let's dream together to learn more!

To begin:
1. Books - entire books or excerpts of authors that I like or that you like.
2. Poems - I love poetry so why not share it ... Poems for adults and children, children love poetry. Often at night before falling asleep, I whisper in the dark in the ear of my son a poem ... He loves it!
Vary the sensations, listen in the dark or in the shower, listen very strong or very slowly ... listen eating, hear without listening, listen and repeat ... driving, running ... Have fun with words that you have heard before to seek the meaning. For us too poetry is often mysterious, that's its charm.
3. articles - of all kinds, not to be bored!

 Je vais commencer par des extraits de ce livre de Jean-Pierre Siméon : Stabat Mater Furiosa. C'est un monologue que je voudrais depuis longtemps monter au théâtre avec mes filles Ea, Hélia et Séléna. J'espère le faire un jour... Ce livre est une "prière furieuse", un cri de femme "qui refuse de comprendre", que la guerre soit encore un drame d’actualité. Nous sommes tous concernés par la guerre. La guerre, passée, présente, future, "est laide, laide comme la mort". Les femmes engendrent des hommes. Des hommes font encore la guerre sur cette terre,  des hommes violent encore des femmes et les femmes font encore des hommes, et ces hommes continuent de faire la guerre, ils continuent sur tous les continents de violer des femmes… Ils continuent de profaner ce sexe d’où ils viennent…
Ce texte est malheureusement d'une poésie cruelle. Si vous voulez vous procurer le livre complet, contacter le Forum.
Pour commencer, écoutez la 4ème de couverture... 

UNE VIE AVEC ALEXANDRA DAVID NEEL. Faites un tour sur leur page facebook si vous voulez lire l'article et en savoir plus sur cette BD.

Le sujet, les dessins, tout m'a séduit dans cet article. J'ai envie de lire cette BD. Un petit tour au Forum ;-)

Vous savez dessinez ? Magnifique, faites une petite BD sur le texte français de votre choix ! Choisissez un personnage qui vous inspire et prêtez lui votre français ;-)

Are you curious? A bit adventurous? Want to experience something different?
​Personally, I'm curious, a bit adventurous and I love off-piste! Walks off the beaten track are my favorite. We always share what one is, what one has experienced to transmit.
​My first experience of learning English has been disastrous. In France, in my childhood, bilingualism was not a topic of discussion (It is a bit more recently). I learned English at school with a teacher who I luckily forgot the name and face of, but unfortunately all the classes as well! This teacher only transmitted rejection! Why, how ... I do not know, all I know is that I hated this learning and of course this language. And I kept this feeling, inscribed somewhere in my body, this negative memory that I have spent much of my life with an almost zero level of English!
It’s not easy these days not to speak this language. I spoke Spanish, it's not bad but ... I traveled a lot, to the delight of all, for my job then and again for my enjoyment, to satisfy my insatiable curiosity ... not easy to travel without being able to align a correct sentence in English. So I developed tricks to make myself understood, I have used and abused the Body language ;-) I got out, I made wonderful encounters without words ... but what frustration for the language lover that I am ... What more frustrating than staying at the surface of a relationship ...
So of course when I had children, I have been particularly vigilant in their learning of a second language! The four are now bilingual and can speak properly in a third language.
From my side, I waited to arrive here in Perth, only to attempt a reconciliation with the English language. I had the chance to meet Geoff, a wonderful teacher at TAFE, and I spent almost a year on the benches of his class! I will not deny that my blocking is so deep that there is a barrier that I cannot cross. And then I spent so much time in my language that I'm still not bilingual, but I can follow a conversation, write and go a little deeper than the surface! This is a great victory for me.
But what interests me most in this adventure is this wonderful feeling of expanding the world. Learning a foreign language for me is looking at life from another angle, meet other ways of saying and being, it is expanding the soul ...
In French the term “langue étrangère" is really interesting. Because there is “étrange” the strange, the unknown, the different ... Acting for that language is no longer "foreign" it is a way to unite.
And some words have a much better flavour in one language than in another. I love when someone said to me, "Enjoy" and I do not want to translate it into French, it loses its taste for me ;-) Could not translate "saudade" Brazilian word that we must live to understand. Impossible to translate "con gusto" in Spanish Costa Rican ... in a “de rien” (nothing) that does not mean anything! Anyway ... every language has its treasures and I love passionately sharing mine …
All this to reach you. If you're curious, a bit adventurous and want to try something different, this should interest you: Why do drama in French?
In fact, there are so many reasons that I could not write all of them here!
The first and most important to me is that you learn a language outside its home country. It's hard not to be immersed in the language you want to learn, it can quickly become tedious and a bit too academic. It is important to find pleasure in this learning, it is important to get out of this famous comfort zone, it's important to keep in the language one of its main purpose and value: communication.
The classroom, I grant you is a must, you have to start somewhere, but unfortunately (and the teachers are the first to complain about it) the imperatives of programs and exams often prevent you from exploring the language to its fullest potential. And the oral aspect of the language is often left aside. Always the same ones talking in class, the strongest, the most extroverted, the fastest ... It takes time to start speaking, it's scary ... scary to make mistakes, scary to be wrong, scary to mispronounce ...
That's why theater workshops can be a good addition to your learning.
In the workshops there are no boundaries, limits, one enters a "magical" space where everything is possible, everything can be invented, everything can be lived. Entering a theater workshop is getting out of one’s comfort zone where one can now explore ... oneself, others, the world, languages ...
A language is alive, and words need to live. If I told you ‘I love you’, I would only be saying empty words because I never liked English ;-) Of course I know what it means, but these words are empty shells. However, when I say ‘I am sorry, I do not understand ...’ oh my god, I say something I have felt before so the words just come along , they are meaningful and all my being accepts them ;-)
A language is alive. Grammar, spelling, writing, it is important yes, but it can also block if you do not practice enough. How many of you can write properly, or read without much effort but when it comes to talking ... ouch ... it gets stuck! Your mind freezes, the words get tangled ... panic, nothing comes out or worst, it comes out all wrong!
When I asked my students: "What do these workshops have brought you the most?" They all said: "we are not afraid of speaking anymore". What great progress, what a reward ...
I will not detail you every step of this work and all their progress because everyone is different. But what is certain is that they have all found an extraordinary addition to their learning. They have all progressed through something different. For some, it is the breathing exercises that loosen deep blockings, for others it was the diction exercises, others it's the movement that liberated them, certain is learning texts by heart, others are the emotions in french ... in short there are so many possibilities ...
The purpose of these workshops is not to become a bilingual actor, but to have fun with the language so that it becomes a source of pleasure :-) It's laughter from mistakes because mistakes are wonderful inspirations, it is playing with our bodies to release tensions, it is to take pleasure in being elsewhere, in the sacred spirit of the imagination ...
The purpose of these workshops is to offer you the opportunity to practice French in a different way and help you meet "the French in you" ;-)
The purpose of these workshops is to speak French!

Approximate English version
Why do drama? Furthermore, why do drama in French? These are two questions that deserve a book ;-) To get to the point and answer the first, I would say a drama workshop is an exceptional exploration of life. We bring on stage what we learn in life and we bring in life what we learn in drama ... as a sort of communicating vase which grows!
What happens during training? We breathe, we move, we talk, we are excited or angry, we meet, we love or hate ... well ... nothing more than in life!
We breathe ... actually every single day since our first, and breathing is something so obvious that we never think about it (unless to do yoga, to be a great athlete or about to to give birth). And yet, how to calm down before an exam, how to reactivate our memory in case of panic, how to calm a laugh, how to channel various energies, how to fight against some pain, how to focus calmly, how to clearly be heard ... BREATHING. The cornerstone of all drama work. First part of the workshop.
We move ... yes of course we move all the time in life, we run, we come and go, we do our morning jogging, shopping, cleaning and what not ... but do we stop often to feel a particular muscle stiffen, a particular joint stuck? Do we have the time in real life to listen to what our body has to say? How to release these tensions before taking conscience? How to find the right rhythm, stay calm even under pressure, calm the beating foot under the table, relax the hands writhing anguish? How to help our body to express the positive of our personality? Helping our mind thanks to our bodies? Second part of the workshop.
We speak ... yes, in life we ​​talk, we talk, we talk ... but in drama, we have to know how to listen. Listen to your
partner, listen to your body, listen to your voice, listen to the public, listen to your breathing, listen to your emotions, listen to your energy ... When you know how to listen, you know how to speak. And above all, in drama classes we like words, even those we do not say. So we learn not to be afraid of them, we learn to laugh, we learn to say them anyway. We dissect it with tenderness! A word that wanders everywhere, it is not just between the teeth. Try to scream, all curled up in yourself. Have fun creating a dispute with the only insult the vocabulary of the garden, I swear ... It's very funny ... Third part of the workshop.
Emotion, anger, love, hate, meet with ... Part Four ... shh ... this is secret, you must be initiated ;-)
Tempted? Come try :-)
​
Next post: Why do drama in French !

Pourquoi faire du théâtre ? Et plus encore, pourquoi faire du théâtre en français ? Voilà deux questions qui mériteraient bien un livre ;-) Pour aller à l'essentiel, et répondre à la première, je dirais qu'un atelier théâtre est un lieu exceptionnel d'exploration de la vie. On amène sur la scène ce que nous a appris la vie et on rapporte dans la vie ce que nous a appris le théâtre... comme une sorte de vase communiquant qui fait grandir l'un et l'autre !
Que fait-on pendant un training ? On respire, on bouge, on parle, on est ému ou en colère, on se rencontre, on s'aime ou se déteste... bref... Rien de plus que dans la vie!
On respire... effectivement tous les jours depuis le premier, et respirer est une chose tellement évidente que l'on n'y pense jamais (à moins de faire du yoga, d'être un grand sportif ou d'être sur le point d'accoucher).
Et pourtant, comment se calmer avant un examen, comment réactiver sa mémoire en cas de panique, comment calmer un fou rire, comment canaliser différentes énergies, comment lutter contre certaines douleurs, comment se concentrer sereinement, comment clairement se faire entendre... RESPIRATION. Clé de voute de tout le travail théâtral. Première partie de l'atelier.
On bouge... oui bien sûr on bouge tout le temps dans la vie, on court, on va on vient, on fait notre jogging du matin, les courses, le ménage et que sais-je... mais nous arrêtons-nous souvent pour sentir tel ou tel muscle se raidir, telle ou telle articulation se coincer ? Avons-nous le temps dans la vraie vie d'écouter tout ce que notre corps a à nous dire ? Comment relâcher toutes ces tensions avant d'en prendre conscience ? Comment trouver le bon rythme, rester tranquille même sous pression, calmer le battement du pied sous la table, détendre les mains qui se tordent d'angoisse ? Comment aider notre corps à exprimer le positif de notre personnalité ? Comment aider notre mental grâce à notre corps ? Deuxième partie de l'atelier.
On parle... oui, dans la vie on parle, on parle, on parle...mais au théâtre, il faut surtout savoir écouter. Écouter son partenaire, écouter son corps, écouter sa voix, écouter le public, écouter sa respiration, écouter ses émotions, écouter son énergie... Quand on sait écouter, on sait parler. Et puis, aussi, au théâtre on aime les mots, même ceux qui ne se disent pas. Alors on apprend à ne pas en avoir peur, on apprend à en rire, on apprend à les dire de toutes les façons. On les dissèque avec tendresse ! Un mot ça se ballade partout, c'est pas juste entre les dents. Essayez donc de crier, tout recroquevillé sur vous même. Amusez vous à créer une dispute avec pour seule injure le vocabulaire du potager, je vous assure... C'est très drôle... Troisième partie de l'atelier.
Ému, colère, aimer, détester, se rencontrer... Quatrième partie... chut... ça c'est secret, il faut être initié;-)
Ça vous tente. Venez essayer :-)

Prochain billet : Pourquoi faire du théâtre en français !