A tiny milestone

Bonjour, comment ça va?

Back then, in March 2021, I attended an intensive French language course at my home university (ULIS-VNU) to prepare for my entrance test, which decides whether I am eligible to enroll in the graduate program. Even though there was direct admission, I still had to pass my second foreign language exam. While pursuing my undergraduate degree at ULIS, Japanese was an absolute nightmare for me despite my nice and knowledgeable senseis (Arigatou gozaimasu), so French was my best choice for another language. Initially, I thought it’d be pretty easy to acquire this whole new language, at least compared to the sophisticated characters and reverse sentence structures in Japanese. But then, after reading the book Mr. Nam at the Faculty of Graduate Studies sent me (Countdown to French: Learn to Communicate in 24 Hours), I freaked out due to the alien features in the French language: accents, genders, and so on. 

Anyway, the short course provided by our university was really helpful, although it was quite tiring and demanding (this post is not sponsored, for sure). We had to absorb nearly all sorts of basic French concepts in a short time, so it was a real challenge for a fool like me. I’m so grateful for my teachers and classmates, who helped me overcome that tough time. Before the course, I learned on my own with the help of Duolingo; so sorry, Mr. Nam, I haven’t learned much from the book you introduced. In fact, the book was well written, but I don’t like working with too many characters, as they look boring to me. I prefer something more colorful and interactive. And Duolingo can offer me those engaging elements.

There are divergent opinions on the effects of this application on its learners’ proficiency. In fact, tons of academic papers have been written on this issue, and I have read some of them. Nevertheless, these contradictory viewpoints do not affect my own perspective on Duolingo. I think the bite-sized lessons on Duolingo are quite helpful, though they can be annoyingly repetitive, which wastes quite a lot of time. But from the opposite point of view, is it a way to reinforce our memory?

Another reason for me to publish this journey of mine is that I want to encourage others, especially my students, to stay consistent and patient enough to reach our goals. It’s rather easy for me to shout out such cliches as “You can do it! Immersing yourself in English on a daily basis is simple. And it’s your way to your ideal level!” (By “ideal level”, I mean to gain a band score of at least 6.0 in the IELTS test). It’s simple because I have more than 10 years of learning English, while my students are mostly high schoolers who don’t have that much time to learn. Therefore, the gap between my students and me is the time of exposure to the new language, leading to my failure to understand their obstacles sometimes. I think I could put myself in their shoes upon learning French from scratch, giving them sounder and more practical advice. Ultimately, I hope that what I can do is testimony to the phrase “hard work pays off.” < It’s undeniable that some of my students are exceptionally good at English, but it doesn’t mean all of them are. And “being good” highly depends on several internal and external factors.>

Lemme tell you a bit about my taking the French Proficiency test. First, I was confused about choosing the DELF B1 at the Institut français de Hanoi or VSTEP at ULIS. Then, after a while of brainstorming, I decided to register for the DELF B1 on 14 May 2023. The booking cost me 1.3 million VND, which was pretty reasonable for its lifetime validity. However, I was too worried about my current level. But what could I do then? Just keep on trying.

Sadly but fortunately, at 3 P.M. on a beautiful sunny day, my classmate – Thien (Thien the Professor) – texted me, informing me that 5 P.M. that afternoon was the final deadline for VSTEP registration at my university. FYI: the VSTEP fee is free for all university students on their first time taking the test. I had no idea when the test would be, but “one star, one wish”, I jumped at every single chance I had. Thanks to Ms. Phuong, I could ride my bike fast and furiously to my school to register for the VSTEP French test.

Upon arriving, I was stunned to know that I lacked all the necessary documents: an ID photo, a hard copy of my ID card, a registration form, and all sorts of things =))) It was half past 3. Then I rushed, booking a bike instead of driving to get the notarized documents. I was blessed to have the staff there print necessary documents for me *millions thanks* Also, I got helped at Văn phòng công chứng Hoàng Giang Linh – the staff were so nice, and I had nothing but insisting them taking my Highland Coffee vouchers for the inconvenience I caused =))

Then, back to ULIS. It was over half past 4. I was later scolded for taking the outdated registration form :))))))))))))))))) Yep, the one I got printed at Hoang Giang Linh was the one I found on the Internet, and the latest version was nowhere to be found. I was shocked and choked at the same time. Like being speechless.

Luckily, the monitor of QH2021.D2 told me she had a soft copy on her phone. OMG, I couldn’t express how deep my gratitude was. She sent me on zalo, but if I got it printed outside, I would miss the deadline.

What to do then?

An idea popped into my head. Following that, I begged Ms. Ai Anh to print it for me huhuhuuuu. Millions of thanks to the sister and Ms. Ai Anh, Ms. Dao, and Dr. Huynh Anh Tuan for helping me during that tough time huhuhuhuuuu. Ultimately, I successfully registered at 5 to 5 that afternoon =)) Perfect timing.

Do you think this is the end of the story?

Not yet.

One week later, I was announced that the test date for the VSTEP French test was on the same day as the DELF B1 🙃

Wow… I felt like I was the protagonist in a movie where the main character had to endure everything until the end.

“It’s fine tho,” is what I always remind myself of when undesirable things happen.

So I had to choose. It was not a real dilemma, yet quite problematic. VSTEP is only recognized in Vietnam, while DELF B1 is a global certificate. VSTEP is free for the first time, but DELF B1 has already cost me nearly a pair of shoes =)) I didn’t know the test format of VSTEP, yet I’ve got to do some DELF practice tests (they were so freaking hard). It would be swagger if I get a DELF B1 certificate rather than a VSTEP one. The registration process for DELF was much easier than VSTEP… I don’t mean to blame anyone; don’t get me wrong. It was all my fault for careless preparation. To be exact, I didn’t prepare anything =))) By the way, the obstacles during the VSTEP registration were like bad omens, foretelling my failure in the test 🫠

To cut a long story short, I opted for my home university. I would take the VSTEP test and “convince” myself that I’ve lost 1.3 million VND =))))

On the test day, I was astonished to realize that only me and the sister (my classmate – 1 year older than me) were the “seniors” in the room, as the others were undergraduate students, taking their C1 level French test. And our target was just B1 (much lower). As expected, the test was so damn difficult, regarding all four components: reading, listening, writing, and speaking. However, the reading test was more than just reading texts with questions. There were also questions about lexical and grammatical aspects, making me feel like an idiot =))) Leaving the test room, the young students around me complained that the test was too tricky, so I thought I would fail huhuuu.

Hopefully, the writing and speaking tests were my saviors. What was a coincidence when my favorite topic – reading – was discussed in the oral test. More importantly, I was so lucky *touch wood* that I had the same favorite author (Keigo Higashio) as my examiner in the speaking test, so we had pretty much to talk about.

And this is the outcome after all:

In short, I would like to send my most enormous thank-you to all the people lending me a hand throughout the journey, including Khang – my bro sending the link to check my score 🤣

Anyway, I hope that I will be able to take the DELF B1 as soon as possible, but my current concerns are way too big. So I don’t have much time to learn French now. This can never be an excuse, and I must get back on track.

Later on, I got to know that my maternal grandmom’s granddad was a teacher of French in the 19th century. I just wonder why it took me so long to know? Perhaps my family members were afraid that I would be under pressure if I had known this fact. I’m always a great overthinker, so I’d thought I would have been my family’s shame when I fail 🤡

And here is my “summon paper” for the exam that I couldn’t take: