My Bachelor 1 LEA English Chinese at Bordeaux Montaigne University

Introduction

In September 2023, I settled down at the University of Bordeaux Montaigne, eager to discover this institution, the student life, and to explore this language that was so foreign to me, Chinese, and all that it implies.  I imagined joining a group of beginners like me, but from the start I was surprised: my class was mainly female, and most of the students already had a solid experience of Chinese, acquired over the years, from college to university.  The few boys with whom I could have shared this linguistic adventure quickly left the ship. Thus begins the story of my year in Bachelor 1 Foreign Languages Applied English-Chinese.

An abnormal imbalance

The levels of both are unbalanced.

• It was very difficult for me to adapt to the Chinese language and to learn its basics as well as the characters that I could not remember. In addition, the Chinese and grammar courses were very fast because the majority of students already had some basis in the subject, and the teachers, at first, they did not take into account the difficulties encountered by beginners. It was only after 2 months that they realized the difference in levels between beginners and non-beginners, seeing their results during a grammar check.

The usefulness of English if you only have 3 hours a week

• When you go to the website of the University of Bordeaux Montaigne and consult the program of the English-Chinese LEA License, it is not specified that English has only 3 hours per week, while Chinese has 12. Indeed, the majority of English courses take place online on e-campus, and after a year, my level of English is always the same, which represents a considerable waste of time for my learning.

The difficulty in keeping up

You do not know where you have set foot (adapt).

• At the time I went to university, I was not told that most of the courses were online.  So I found myself two months later begging the managers of the online courses to allow me to catch up with all the courses to which I had no idea of their existence, in vain.

Do not neglect the CM (Lectures)

• At first, I attended all the CM’s (lectures) that I had, but because of health problems, I started to miss some. After 3 CM missed, I found myself with a ton of things to catch up, which only accumulated the workload and I ended up neglecting them and never catch up.

Note-taking

• When I was in high school, my teachers warned me that I had to get used to taking notes on a computer because at university, that’s what we would do. So I had prepared my notes by installing NOTION and organizing my classes well. However, when I was in class, I was listening and writing at the same time, so I wasn’t keeping up and listening to the course properly. I solved this problem by starting to take notes on paper from the second semester.

Scatter and lose focus

The regular and constant practice of Chinese.

• At the beginning of semester 1, I regularly reviewed Chinese to catch up with the others and it worked despite my shortcomings. However, I made the worst mistake of the year by going on a trip during the Christmas holidays without studying for 3 weeks, which resulted in forgetting everything I had learned so far. Health issues also made me miss more classes, and I couldn’t get back on track.

The importance of making friends to work with and practice the Chinese language

• As I said in the introduction, I quickly found myself in a classroom where I was the only boy and I had no one to practice Chinese with. I know better than anyone that it is essential to practice the targeted language orally to learn quickly, but alas, this was not the case.

Wanting to do a lot of things in these days is a poison

• When I first arrived in Pessac, I wanted to do a lot of things in a single day. I found myself attending classes from 8:30 AM to 12:30 PM and from 1:30 PM to 4:30 PM, then going to the gym for 2 to 2.5 hours per day, five times a week, from 6 PM to 8:30 PM. After that, from 9 PM to 10 PM, I reviewed Chinese characters, and then I spent time scrolling on my phone, usually until 1 or 2 in the morning. As a result, I didn't pass my first semester, which added a ton of work for me to catch up on in the second semester, so don't overwhelm your days with things that don't necessarily need to be done.

Conclusion

• When you come to Bordeaux Montaigne University or start a new year in the latter or in another, find out about all aspects of your license: whether the courses are online or not, as well as the evaluation modalities for all subjects. Write your lectures properly and learn them in the week following the course in question, because the worst thing, in my opinion, is the accumulation to give up everything. *
  

• And you, have you ever had similar experiences adapting to a new learning environment? 
• What advice would you give to someone starting in a similar situation?
  

Share your thoughts in the comments section.