The Plateau Effect

The plateau effect has been used to describe when students experience a dwindling benefit from their learning effort. For language learners, this often occurs once you've reached the intermediate level. For me, four years-in since recommitting to the French language, I definitely feel that I am plateau-ing.

While I've spent the past seven weeks growing immensely as a person: establishing healthier habits in body, mind, and spirit, a better relationship with myself, and exploring who I am and what I want from life, I've also spent the past seven weeks feeling that, at best, I am maintaining my French. I came into this program aspiring to improve my French to a level of general professional proficiency. On the ILR scale, that's a 3 or "Superior". I tested in at a 2 or "Advanced-Mid," and was hoping to reach a 2+ or "Advanced-High" by the end of my time in Gainesville.

In other words, my goal is to be able to use French in such a way that I would have little to no difficulty with complex topics in complex environments. Right now, I can discuss these topics, but my listening partner has to be patient and let me get to what I'm saying in sometimes roundabout ways. I can feel myself improving in my comfort with talking about topics I haven't necessarily discussed before, but I can't tell if my linguistic competency is growing, or just my confidence. Although I know my time here in Gainesville and soon in Dakar will catalyze immense growth in me as a person, I find myself starting to worry that I'll leave this program linguistically just as I entered.

"Growth is often messy, uncomfortable, and full of feelings you weren't expecting. But it's necessary." 

There are moments where I feel really positive. In class and in our conversation practice, we discuss topics ranging from Artificial Intelligence to gentrification to the death penalty to what happens after we die, and I hold my own.

But there's also an endless stream of words I don't recognize –– my French vocabulary list has now grown to 459 words, and that's not including the hundreds of ones I underline in our novels. I continue to make mistakes in French conjugations that I learned year 2. And I still have to watch French films with French subtitles if I want to understand more than 50% of the plot. All this is to say, I'm frustrated.

The shadow of an OPI (Oral Proficiency Exam) is looming in the near future, so catch me spending the last of my time in Gainesville flipping through flashcards and watching French newscasts religiously. I'm reminding myself to trust the process, but also not to lose my motivation to really know this language. It won't just come to me naturally. It's a continual and conscious effort of doing.