A Language Memoir and a Thesis

A Language Memoir and a Thesis

As of last September I am not only a teacher but a fully-signed up, fifty-nine-year-old, doctoral student under the supervision of Lily Robert-Foley.

On the 13th January 2025 a new remote course based on writing language memoirs opens for second-year undergraduates at Paul Valéry University.

Here is the official résumé of the thesis. The working title is : Creative Writing : Learning a Foreign Language. You can also find the French version here:

The thesis proposes a study of foreign language learning through creative writing. Using research-creation methodology, it will explore the links between the writing and learning processes in order to identify potential teaching strategies. The artistic output of the thesis will be a creative writing text: a linguistic memoir. The memoir will trace the encounter between Darija (the language being learned) and English (the mother tongue) in the French sociolinguistic context. The writing will highlight the learning processes involved, as well as the points of encounter and resistance between the different languages and cultures, through the prism of the narrator’s experience. The act of writing will be seen as itself a search for meaning in the practice of the foreign language. This creative experience will feed into the design of an online creative writing course for second year undergraduate students studying optional English as part of their human science degree. The course will require students to write their own (partial) language autobiographies. Student feedback will be used as the basis for empirical analysis of the course’s effect on student motivation and student perception of progress in language learning. The results from student questionnaires will be cross-referenced with those obtained from an analysis of student productions.The overall aim is to trace and theorize the coherence between course creation, creative writing, learning and teaching.

Here is the beginning of my language memoir:

English is my mother tongue. French is my professional tongue. This sounds like a good start. But the good start doesn’t last long because it’s just not as clear cut as that. It’s not like  English for intimate and French for business. Let me give you an example: I write work mails in both French and English. Is there rhyme or reason behind this? At a guess I would say that English gets the upper hand when I’m tired, when I’m particularly fond of the person to whom I’m writing and when I don’t feel the need to prove anything. And French? For when the person I’m writing to doesn’t understand English. Or when I have lots to prove.

And of course my business is teaching English. Often in French.

French is also the language in which I give birth. Or should that be gave? If I’m honest, despite all my best intentions, French is the language in which I am a mother. But English has always been the language for writing stories.

Darija is my husband’s tongue. This can be sweet, sexy and sharp. The use of the conjunction ‘and’ does imply simultaneity.

When people ask me where I come from my answer partly depends on who they are and what story I want to tell on that particular day. Do I think they will know where Shifnal, the town where the cottage hospital (which no longer exists) in which I was born, is? If not, I used to answer Wolverhampton. Since working at a university with strong Shakespearian links and exchange programmes I answer Birmingham. The Midlands works quite well for French friends, particularly if I draw a triangle with a dot in the middle with my finger in the air. Since Brexit I say British less and less. I say French but always feel obliged to explain.

I grew up with my two younger sisters. My older and one of my younger sisters also say they are from the Midlands. But my middle sister says she’s from Wokingham in the Home Counties which is where we lived although none of us were born there. I had always assumed that my sense of identity was a shared, family identity. I was wrong. What a difference three and a half years can make.

Ask my dad where he’s from and he’ll say Wales. He actually left South Wales when he was two. My grandad moved the family to Woverhampton to work in the aircraft factory Boulton and Paul. Wolverhampton is infamous for being the constituency of the British politician Enoch Powell – you know rivers of blood and all that.  Anyway, because they moved dad never got to learn Welsh. Despite this, when I was a kid, he taught me to say: Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch (The Church of Mary in the Hollow of the White Hazel Near the Fierce Whirpool and the Church of Tysilio By the Red Cave.). Until now I had never thought to ask who taught him that.

When dad taught me Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoh. he told me  it was the longest word in the English language. Later, when I got to know ‘The Puffin Book of Jokes’ off-by-heart I learnt he was wrong. It was ‘smiles’. Nevertheless I liked the special feeling knowing that Welsh word gave me. Next sister down didn’t know it and it represented power. The dad that taught me that word was a glamorous sort of person. He wore a sheepskin jacket with black wool lining and had a big gold signet ring on his finger. He smelt of ‘Old Spice’ aftershave, pink Euthymol toothpaste And Crimola handcream.

And here is the first story:

Mnin nti? Where are you from? منين نتي؟

About 1997. Cité de l’espoir, Montreuil. The Inner City of Hope, so named by François Mitterrand. The name is prettier than the reality. And sounds better in French than English. Tuesday afternoon and I’m back early from the Sorbonne because the translation class was cancelled. I’m preparing the competitive exam to become a teacher. Now I’m standing outside the crèche in order to pick up my three sons all under the age of three. Not yet divorced but separated, going back to university seemed a wise use of parental leave since it clearly was not going to be possible for me alone to keep down the nine-to-five job and bring up the kids. The doors aren’t open yet and I’m waiting with the other mums (only mums at this time). Trying not to look too desperate I silently observe the chatting groups of women, laughing and gesticulating, perfectly at home here. I understand about half of what is being said. This lack of comprehension is partly down to headscarves and long robes and partly down to accents and speech laden with (to me) unintelligible Arabic. Someone takes pity. Vous êtes d’où? I’m asked. My accent muffles my words but acts like a loudspeaker regarding my origins. The group crows in what I take for admiration. I don’t ask them where they are from because it would have seemed rude. Really? Or was I just incapable of engaging properly with anyone or anything outside the ken of my professional reconversion and the kids? Or was something else going on?  If so, what does this say about the not so bright-eyed me that I was back then?

The conversation continues despite me. Your kids ont bien de la chance, I’m told. I might have been down on my luck back then but I had never really doubted this.  But why did she think that? Parce qu’ils seront bilingues was the answer, eyebrows lifted. Stupid. Oh that. Eyes to concrete. Well, yeah.  So will yours. Failed attempt at eye contact. Pas pareil, she shrugged. I made saucer eyes and protested, pushing my luck. Her eyes veiled and she turned away. The crèche door opened and we all rushed towards our babies. How was their day? What did they have to eat? Did they learn (?!?) anything new? Were they normal. Please tell me I didn’t actually say that? Firing questions at the puéricultrices not listening to the answers. They were used to it and soon moved on to other mothers. I lingered, playing with my sons in the safe zone, reading them stories, drawing snails, being a public, good mother. Eventually there was only us left and it was time to go. The boys balanced precariously on the pushchair, I pushed off. Why rush home?

That all languages were not equal was the least of my problems back then even as a would-be language teacher.

But now the boys are all grown up. When I first wrote that sentence it included the word ‘safely’ but I have taken it out. It never does to tempt fate.

Now the boys are all grown up I still don’t have all the answers but I know the question I could have asked. The beginning of a conversation I could have had.

Mnin nti? Where are you from? منين نتي؟

Ana inglizia. I’m English.

W nti? And how about you?

How do I say these words? Quietly. In a whisper. Embarrassed about being misunderstood. Shameful about it having taken me this long to ask.

Thanks to Lou for winter trees photo

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