1. I do not think the metaphor of "immersion" for David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day because there is no sense of deep involvement with any of the characters. Even though the teacher colaborates French with difficult questions, she often "publicly ridiculed [students] for [their] answer[s]" (par. 13). Sedaris is not immersed in the language-learning approach because he states that he is "not completely in the dark", meaning he is not entirely enveloped in the language he is trying to learn (par. 3).
2. Sedaris demonstrates the various students' moralities and backgrounds when asking what they love and hate. When it came to "a beautiful young Yugoslav who identified herself as an optimist, saying that she loved everything that life had to offer," the teacher immediately blurts back, "Oh yeah? And do you love your little war?" (par. 11-12). The effects this has on the reader is that he can get a sense of interregation from the teacher, and the reader more often than not relates to the story. When Sedaris discusses the quotes from other students, the initial reaction for the reader would be to feel bad for the kids. The students do not seem to understand the teacher as a person, just as much as they do not understand the language she is speaking. However, once Sedaris finds that he is comfortable with the language, he is also no longer a victim of the teacher.
1. The metaphor of "immersion" is appropriate on the level of new environments. When he moves from New York to Paris, he is deliberately placing himself in a completely different setting. Even if he knows some French, the customs and the people will still seem foreign to him. As well, he enters another new realm when he joins this French class because he seems accustomed to teachers being more considerate in their approach to educating. In these ways, he is being "immersed" into these new locales with no prior knowledge of either. The metaphor does translate through his trouble with adapting. 2. Sedaris paraphrases the statements of the other students, which puts more emphasis on his interaction as being a representative of everyone's experience. The format practically makes each student's statements as being their entire identity since the reader never learns any more information about the pupils. He also goes into great detail about his own mistakes. Without deliberately stating the fact, He expresses that everyone had trouble. In another part he more clearly displays their poor French with actual quotes to build up to the climax. He mentions how one student says "Sometime me cry alone at night" (Paragraph 24). This quote and the following one show how they have made very little progress in all their time there; however, in reality they have learned to better understand the language being spoken. In addition the fact that he presents the French in English allows the reader to feel some pity for them as well as showing that the teacher scolds too often instead of gently correcting them. The paraphrasing and substituting of English makes the story clearer and easier to follow, while making the student's feelings more relatable.
1. I do not believe that the metaphor of "immersion" is present in David Sedaris' essay "Me Talk Pretty One Day." I think that for a student to be immersed in an academic environment and thrive that he or she needs to be empowered by the teacher and the subject matter. In Sedaris' situation, he finds the class, meaning the students, teacher, and language, difficult and new. Although Sedaris has a brief French background, the other "students exhibited an ease and confidence [that he] found intimidating" (par.2). Also, the teacher frightens Sedaris by questioning every studentes likes and dislikes, which serves as "an occasion for shame" (par. 9). The students are constantly "publicly ridiculed" (par.13) which makes the desire and ability to learn even more challenging. Therefore, I do not think that the metaphor of "immersion" holds true for David Sedaris in "Me Talk Pretty One Day" because of all the negative vibes and reactions the students recieve from the teacher.
2. When the students begin to speak in French in class, most are scolded for their bad answers in the teacher's viewpoint. Sedaris can not express in French what he truly enjoys, which is "leafing through medical textbooks devoted to severe dermatological conditions," because his limited French vocabulary does not allow him to express this. Therefore, he speaks of his many dislikes, which he says incorrectly by misusing masculine and feminine words. This demonstration, along with the teacher's scolding of the Yugoslavian girl, shows that the student's French is poor and that they also need to watch what they say while in the presence of the teacher. Soon enough, Sedaris becomes convinced that everything he says is wrong and wonders if his French will ever improve. His classmate assures him, in poor French, that he will improve very soon and not to worry. There is a great sense of sympathy towards each of the students because of the horrible way the teacher acts towards them. So, when they still have hope to learn and improve, there motives are uplifting and inspiring.
1.I also do not think the metaphor of "immersion" is appropriate because the teacher has no connection with any of the students and ridicules them continuously. "Immersion" implies lots of attention from teachers and peers; Sedaris's experience is the complete opposite. He does not even fully understand the language until he can understand his teacher's insults.
2. Sedaris describes the students' dialogues as "conversation commonly heard in refugee camps," implying no fluency at all. The teacher is not helping at all either; characterized as terrifying, she just insults their personalities and nationalities when she is supposed to help them. The effect that Sedaris's presentation has is to make the reader relate to the students' predicament. It is hard to fit in a new place if you do not even know the language; Sedaris even writes that "it became impossible to believe that any of us would ever improve" (par.27). The students have a sense of hopelessness and helplessness as they cannot improve themselves and learn from a horrible teacher. The reader also gets a sense of sympathy between the students as they help and encourage each other, even though they are from very different backgrounds.
1.David Sedaris’ metaphor of “immersion” concerning the kind of language-learning approach is appropriate because he is purposefully subjecting himself to a new environment. Although he had some experience with the French culture, the teacher he had in France was on a new level. Thrusting himself into a new environment, Sedaris feels out of place among the other “young, attractive, and well dressed” students (par. 1). However he knows that they are all facing new challenges. One way that he expresses his immersion into this new language is the metaphor he uses in paragraph three, “That’s the way they do it here—it’s everybody into the language pool, sink or swim.” The teacher publicly ridicules her students, which makes Sedaris want to spend “four hours a night on my [his] homework” (par. 21). However, he realizes at the end of his class that “for the first time since arriving in France, I [he] could understand every word that some was saying,” so his immersion was a success (par.27).
2.When Sedaris presents dialogue of his other French classmates, he shows that he is not alone in his struggles of speaking the language. Sedaris was ridiculed for making mistakes in his grammar; thus, his “fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom” (par. 22). This consequence of the harsh teaching style, as well as the incompetence of the other students to speak well, shows the negative side effects of the teacher’s harsh actions towards the students. They become fearful of making mistakes rather than learning from them.
1. The metaphor of immersion is linked to like how he is thrown into a new environment (Paris) that he is not familiar with. The course that he takes doesn't just start easy and build up, but instead starts with the teacher expecting the students to know a lot already: "that's the way they do it here - it's everybody into the language pool sink or swim" (par. 3). The language pool is like the teacher, and the teacher keeps on insulting the students, pounding at them everyday. The students immersed in her intensive criticizing language pool have a goal to float to the top and out of the pool. By the end, when Sedaris realizes he understands every word someone said, he was excited and then "settled back, bathing in the subtle beauty of each new curse and insult...the world opened up" (par.28). I don't really like the idea of this immersion class, but i guess it worked for the author.
2. Sedaris doesn't present most of the dialogs of the students as actually quotes; instead he describes them, how they act and speak, and just tells what they said: "The first Ana hailed form an industrial town outside of Warsaw and had front teeth the size of tombstones. She worked a s a seamstress, enjoyed with times with friends and hated mosquito" (par. 7). Sedaris describes them uniquely but then their answers are very simple since their vocab is limited. Since the teacher is the one who has most of the quotes, it makes it seem like all the students are intimidated and more quiet compared to the loud, cruel, insulting teacher who belittles everyone.
1. Sharing the view of many of the previous people who posted their comments, I also do not believe that the metaphor is not appropriate. The students, unlike what should have happened, were not immersed in the subject because their teacher completely stifled any chance of that occurring by ridiculing them. By doing so, instead of immersing them and drawing them to the subject, she actually alienates and detaches them from the subject, making the students feel more stupid than inspired or excited about French.
2. Sedaris presents his fellow student's attempt at speaking french as tired and hopeless attempts to outsmart the teacher. After each student presented their likes and dislikes, the teacher would respond with direct attacks; however, Sedaris left the quotes alone, never directing where the attack headed necessarily, though most people assumed it was the previous person who talked. Thus, the reader ended up as the one to be attacked, having been placed in the student's shoes facing the teacher. From this, a sense of hopelessness and pity arises for the real students, who could not survive long enough to prove their own point in a french-language debate. Sedaris places the reader in the shoes of each and every student ridiculed by the professor, and forces the reader to share in the hardships of ridicule and grow a sense of pity for the students like Sedaris.
1. The metaphor of immersion is appropriate because it describes how Sedaris jumps into a new situation and is not fully prepared. Sedaris struggles to learn French under the constant insults of his teacher, but in the end, by jumping in head first, Sedaris manages to understand what the teacher is saying. The insults and abuses of Sedaris's French teacher parallel the frustration of students trying to learn through an immersion program, and Sedaris's joy at finally understanding his teacher's insults show how learning a new concept can make even ugly things, like the insults of the teacher, seem beautiful.
2. Sedaris translates the students' dialogues directly from French, preserving the structure of the sentence in French and the French grammar in order to convey how choppy and pathetic the students' French was. This also adds humor to the narrative, and shows the difficulty that the students had in trying to immerse themselves in the French language without much preparation.
1. I believe that the usage of the word “immersion” is absolutely appropriate for this passage. “Immersion” itself has a triple meaning as it could mean either a way to language teaching in which the students and the teachers only speak that foreign language in the classroom, being completely involved in something, or being overwhelmed and inundated. Considering that in the class, students were only allowed to speak the French language, the word works in that sense of its definition. I also believe that Sedaris was overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible teaching style of the professor. At the beginning of the passage, he described the class to be a “language pool, sink or swim” (379). In addition, he would devote at least fours hours every night on his homework so that he could be successful. Sedaris was completely involved in the French language. Because of his teacher’s constant insults, Sedaris begins to be more conscious and careful in his usage of the language. In his first interaction with the teacher, he did not even care that objects were given a gender, finding it to be “ridiculous” even though it was part of the French culture. Later, he comes to realize, “Before beginning of school there’d been no shutting [him] up, but now [he] was convinced that everything [he] said was wrong” (382). Now, Sedaris actually cares whether he is correct or not in speaking the language. Although he might be too afraid to speak it initially, the end of the passage indicates the progress Sedaris has achieved as he is finally able to understand the insults of his teacher. He states, “I know the thing that you speak exact now. Talk me more, you, plus, please, plus” (382). This response has a double meaning. Sedaris not only literally understands what the teacher’s insults mean but also understands the inspiration behind it. He has come to realize that the teacher was simply challenging him and the rest of the students to improve and work harder in understanding the French language. She wanted them to strive to be perfectly fluent in the French language, and she succeeded as they did.
2. The conversation hears from the student’s who try to speak French indicate how weak they truly are in their usage of the language. He indicates that the students answer very simply as they do not know the vocabulary to present their true views. He even describes one girl’s response to be one similar to a data sheet describing the Playmate of the Month. This indicates the extent of its simplicity and how the answer was completely meaningless. Later, Sedaris presents some dialogue of some students who are struggling to comprehend the language and sometimes even “cry alone at night” (382) and who desire the to “talk pretty” someday. At this point, the students feel a desperate desire to learn so that they won’t be embarrassed anymore. They want to gain the respect of the teacher, and to do that, they try to learn the language.
1. I think this specific language-learning approach, "immersion", is chosen to further develop the metaphor of a pool. For example, David describes his first day as if they just throw "everybody into the language pool, sink or swim" (Para. 3). The metaphor is that the teacher threw all the students into the pool rather harshly, as a parent might do to a child, and thereby almost forcing him to learn to swim and survive. In the end, I believe that David ends up surviving as he is finally able to understand what the teacher is saying.
2.In the beginning, David can't even understand the teacher's full sentence, but he and the students seem to communicate fine. However, as the story progresses, the student's dialogue become more and more degraded into child-speak, and the teacher's dialogue becomes more and more clear and understandable. By presenting the student's and teacher's this way, he is allowing us (the reader) to clearly observe and monitor his language maturity as he struggles to swim.
1. The metaphor of "immersion" is inappropriate for David Sedaris's essay. Although the teacher's method of teaching complies with language immersion--using the target language to teach an class of students that are on the same level, she does not exactly abide by the implications that come with the immersion method. This method implies that the teacher and the students need to have a good connection in order for the students to learn efficiently. With his teacher constantly insulting his French, Sedaris is discouraged to even try to use French outside of class, for he fears that he will be wrong (pg. 382). Also, language immersion, although the class is supposed to be taught in the target language, implies that the teacher should gradually "immerse" her students in the language. Sedaris's teacher, on the other hand, forbids the students to speak any other language but French and uses the "sink or swim" approach on the first day of school (pg. 379). Although Sedaris was able to learn through immersion, the class itself is not an example of language immersion.
2. In his essay, Sedaris presents his classmates' dialogue as a fluent French person would hear. For example, he records some of his classmates' dialogue as "sometime me cry along at night" or "That be common for I" (pg. 382). Without changing their dialogue to sentences with correct grammar, Sedaris uses pathos to tap on the reader's emotion for the students. Upon reading these dialogues in poor English translated from poor French, the reader would sympathize with the students and despise the insulting teacher even more.
!. Sedaris uses the metaphor of immersion to compare being exposed to a completely new environment to learn french and being thrown into a refugee camp. This is an apropriate comparison because both enironments are so foreign to its inhabitants and cause them torment trying to deal with their surroundings, although the refugee camp to a greater extent. Both come to despise their environment and are afraid to explore, talking only to others in the same sad situation. Comparing such an extreme envoronment as a refugee camp to merely a language immersion class magnifies Sedaris' detest for his inability to learn anddetest for his teacher.
2.Throguh the use of the students actual dialouge the pathetacy of what they were going though was exemplified. Hearing students say, "Sometime me cry alone at night" provokes sympathy for their situation but also humor at their ineptitude. Initially, when Sedaris paraphrased their introductions, only the fact that their vocabulary was limited came across. But through the use of actual dialouge placement, a whole new dimension comes through.
1. When analyzing a humorist like Sedaris, comparing his memoirs to a profound verb like “immersion” is almost impossible. Though that’s not to say that his work can’t have meaning because the premise is hilarious—“a good story is about the thing and the other thing”—it just means that whether or not there really is deeper meaning is quite arguable. In this case, I think immersion works well as metaphor because it describes the profound undertones of an ostensibly meaningless, albeit humorous, piece. The only problem is that I’ve failed at finding any textual evidence until the very end of the book, where the “other thing” becomes a little more apparent. Sedaris has a sly but sudden switch from a humorous tone to one of significance when his teacher says, “‘Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.’ And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word someone was saying…its rewards are intoxicating and deceptive” (382). Fully understanding people from a different language and culture, even if it is an odd insult, requires an immense amount of immersion in language and culture. I think this essay strives to exploit the point where the author finally realizes he is fully immersed in the language: “The world opened up” and all he wants now is more more more French. Having this “world open to him,” and feeling such “great joy,” I think Sedaris finally reaches the outcome of being immersed in a language and culture; though he suffered through classes with a crazy, sadistic teacher, he finally had so much French pounded into him (immersion at work!) that he suddenly just reached that euphoric point where he feels he is part of the French, or rather, that the French is in him.
2. There’s a writer… I forget who it is… but basically he said, “screw it, I’m writing in French!” even though he hardly knew any French. His reasoning was interesting: since he knew he could barely speak French, his prose would be simple and he could describe emotion without getting lost in choosing “the right word" or creating "lavish imagery" or dwelling over "perfect sentence structure." It makes deep moments feel plain and understated, yet strangely his literature became all the more powerful. In Sedaris' essay, simple, poorly constructed sentences like “Sometimes me cry alone at night” and “People start love you soon” evoke especially poignant feeling because they are so broken in structure and word choice that the brain registers only meaning. And, as only a writer like Sedaris could do, these deep emotions come across in a humorous manner—after all, you can’t deny that Engrish isn't hilarious! Sedaris is amazing. Too bad I can't marry him.
By the way, I want to share the love. I have a lot of his books (even the new one, yay yay yay!) except I think my copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day is lost at sea... but if you want to borrow something, let me know :)
1. David Sedaris compares the immersion approach to learning a language to being thrown into a pool; himself and all his classmates, it’s “everybody into the language pool, sink or swim” (par. 3). He is forced to adapt to the new culture and language or else he would flounder and drown. I believe the metaphor to be really appropriate for how it shows the similarities in learning to swim and speak a new language. In both, there is a time where we all struggle just to keep afloat, but after a time—memorizing vocabulary and verb conjugations, learning the different strokes—we figure out how to make it work. Also, it shows how most of the responsibility of learning comes from yourself. Sedaris’ teacher hardly seemed to do more than belittle and swear at her students, so they were forced to work extra hard to learn on their own; similarly, if you were thrown into a pool and left alone, eventually you would learn how to coordinate yourself.
2. As his fellow classmates attempt to speak French after several months of suffering under their teacher, Sedaris describes their efforts as “the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps” (par. 23). While such a description appeals to the reader’s emotions, it also shows how their teacher has brought out a streak of hard-work among her students by abusing them. One student consoles a friend by telling her that “much work and someday you talk pretty” (par. 25). It also emphasizes the close friendships Sedaris has formed with his classmates because of their mutual struggles. Sedaris puts this dialogue into the story to illustrate the point he is trying to make involving obstacles and problems: only with a lot of intense hard work and a little bit of suffering can anything worthwhile be achieved.
1. I believe that the metaphor of “immersion” is inappropriate in David Sedaris’s satirical essay, “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Because the teacher is constantly ridiculing them with ineffective insults, the students’ longing to learn the language has been squelched and replaced with anxiety. Being immersed in a language usually implies that you are coaxed along with someone holding your hand. In the end, he does feel immersed in the French language and culture - even if it was grasped through an unorthodox method of teaching and not through the more conventional method of immersion. Sedaris is hesitant and fearful to speak because he is afraid of making grammar mistakes, yet he feels he has progressed to another level in understanding the teacher. The satire being that he can now clearly understand her insults.
2. Sedaris translates the students’ comments directly from French, keeping the same French sentence arrangements and the limited amount of vocabulary in each sentence with the intention of portraying their dismal attempt to speak the language. This helps evoke sympathy from the reader because most of the students’ emotions are very understandable, especially after being harshly scolded from a rude teacher. One student states, “Sometime me cry alone at night” (par. 24). This induces a feeling of pathos from the reader towards the student. It also shows that the students feel very bonded with each other and that they each understand the other student’s feelings, allowing the reader to also feel the bond.
"Immersion" implies that even though the teacher begins speaking frnech completely and the students don't understand any of it, eventually they are able to understand more and more until they become fluent. However, i think the metaphore is inapropriate in this case. even though by the end of the story David Sedaris understands what the teacher is saying, he is totally unwilling to try to speak french because he is scared he will be critisized. he has not really been immersed into french culture or french life because he is unable to interact with anyone else since he is scared of making a mistake or being critisized.
When David Sedaris first encounters the other students he is shocked by thier french, saying, "Regardless of thier nationalities, everyone spoke what sounded to me like excellent French" (par 2). However, as the story goes on, he finds the other students struggling with the language. as a result, the reader realizes taht even the best students have lost thier confidence in the language becasue of thier harsh teacher since they no longer speak with the fluency they had at the beginning.
I. While technically this metaphor should work out, in David's case it does not. David is living in France and is speaking only French; this could easily be considered immersion. However, it isn't, because David refuses to speak French with any natives besides his teacher, which ruins the entire process. The point of immersion is to surround the student with the language so that they absorb it by being in such close contact with it for long amounts of time. However, David isolates himself from all of the natural French speakers and only communicates with his abusive teacher and his equally uncommunicative classmates.
II. David is writing to an audience who in all likelihood knows no French, so the inclusion of any actual French at all would be pointless. What he does is much more effective. By translating what the students say and leaving in all the errors, it gives the audience a good sense of how tenuous the students grasp of the language is. He uses a similar technique with the teacher's lines: he translates them but replaces the words he did not understand with incomprehensible gibberish, which is what he heard. This helps the reader step into his shoes and feel his confusion, as well as understand his relief when he finally understands all she says. - Chase "Danger" Wheatley
1. The way that French is the only language spoken in the class is a metaphor showing that not only is he being forced to speak the language and only the language in class, but also outside of class in everyday conversation. There is no escaping the unfamiliarity of this new culture as he is trapped within French, confining him to vending machine cuisine and feigning deftness. He is literally “immersed” in French, drowning in its difficulty and confusion, and it is not until the end of the story, when he explains how, “for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every work that someone was saying,” where he can come up for a much needed breath of air (Paragraph 30, Sedaris).
2. The jumbled and broken words of the students’ attempts at French show a lot about the success of the French teacher. The teacher obviously opened up lines of communication that would have been impossible before the class as no one had a common language. To be supportive of their fellow classmates, the students do their best to console and cheer up (with the little knowledge they know) their friends in need. By doing this, Sedaris displays the true, raw kindness of humans at its finest as people are doing whatever they can to help other people feel better. Also, it shows what obtaining knowledge in other languages can achieve people, opening lines of communication and in turn making someone’s day a whole lot better with the support of others. -Brewer-
1. I feel that the metaphor of "immersion" is appropriate and evident in Me Talk Pretty One Day. The idea of him diving into this kind of situation begins at the start of the story when he tells the audience that he is "forty-one...and returning to school"(par 1). His discomfort is evident when he describes how everyone is much younger, even more attractive. His description establishes the idea of jumping into this situation fully; and even the way he handles the insults, with almost a desire to understand what the teacher was calling him, shows his will to stick with the language because he made a commitment. By the end he realizes that the insults don't bother him anymore, but had helped him improve and left him wanting more.
2. The dialogue between the students demonstrates how, even with broken French that's almost too hard to understand unless you see it written down, they still communicate deeper feelings to each other. They still find a will to practice and improve, because that's the only way people can understand them as more than just students. Beyond the teacher's abuse, the students want to be better because they want to understood and recognized as more than what she makes fun of them for.
1. The metaphor of "immersion" to represent the kind of language-learning approach in this essay is appropriate. Sedaris is being "immersed," or thrown right into another country that he is unfamiliar with. Instead of simply taking a French class in New York, as he did before, Sedaris is actually going to Paris to learn. He doesn't simply try to learn the language: he immerses his entire life into learning French by going to France. His French class is full of people of different nationalities. Thus, they have all moved from their homes to come to France, and by doing so, they have fully immersed themselves in the French culture, of which the French language is a huge part of.
2. Sedaris presents the dialogue of the students who attempt to speak French by writing the literal translation of what they are saying in French. In other words, the students are speaking French that is not grammatically correct. The effect of this dialogue is illustrating how the struggle to learn French has brought these students together. They all come from different backgrounds, and though they cannot speak French well, they are all working hard to learn. Their mediocre French-speaking skills is actually what links the students together and opens an opportunity for them to communicate with each other. In addition, their poor grammar contributes to evoking sympathy for the students who are subject to an abusive teacher. One of the students says, "Sometime me cry alone at night" (382). If worded with correct grammar, the reader might feel sorry for the student for crying. But the poor grammar furthers this sympathy by making the student seem even more helpless because he can't even speak well.
1. Calling this style of learning "immersion" very acceptable metaphor to use. To immerse someone is to completely surround them in something, This is exactly what happens to Sedaris. With no way of communicating with others except by speaking French, Sedaris is completely surrounded by the language. This metaphor brings to my mind the image of someone or something being plunged into water, since the word “immersion” is often used in relation to water. This metaphor works very well because Sedaris is like a sponge dropped into a bucket of water. He absorbs the French language very quickly; that idea of absorption and the word immersion’s association with water make this metaphor absolutely perfect.
2. The way Sedaris presents the speech of the other students is primitive. This is because their dialog is directly translated from French, showing that although the students grasp the basics they lack refinement. Sedaris keeps the mistakes in their speech to illustrate the fact that he is not alone in his struggles, but also to subtly show that even in such a short time (Sedaris says that fall has just arrived) the students have gone from knowing next to no French, to being perfectly able to communicate their points and ideas.
1. The idea of immersion as a learning technique for languages is typically successful. Even when one combines immersion with a bad attitude and the exploitation of others' feelings as Sedaris' teacher does, the outcome proves a success. The idea behind immersion is that by surrounding oneself by a new culture, the culture will soon become second nature to the "immersed" person. Because Sedaris lives in Paris, he eats, breathes, and sleeps the culture. Also, his teacher comes off as a terrible person; however, she is able to teach her students in the end. After taking so many insults from her in French, and not knowing how to respond fluidly in the language, he eventually picks up and responds perfectly. WIthout the constant ridicule and habit of speaking French regardless of anyone's ability to understand, the teacher is able to force the language onto her students. It is ultimately effective.
2. By denying the audience any direct quotations from the students, Sedaris makes his point of the student's silence clear. Because the student's have become fearful of making mistakes while speaking French, they have given up altogether and substituted the possibility of failure while expressing their opinions for silence. They are forced into tranquility when their teacher ridicules them, and that carries on into their daily lives. Fear gets the best of the students, and in time silence becomes their safety net. While Sedaris limits quotations from the students, he describes their speaking of the language as "the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps" (par. 24). By doing so, Sedaris portrays the way that native speakers of the language hear them. While almost all of the students in the class are well educated and smart, when speaking a new language, their sentences appear broken and grammatically incorrect. He likens the speech of newcomers in a language to the speech of a foreigner who has landed in an unfamiliar land whose language he can not comprehend.
1. I'm not really sure what metaphor the question refers to, and judging by the different responses I've read, no one seems to know what metaphor they're talking about. Many people have responded to how immersion worked or didn't work as a tool of learning, but I think that only a few people actually responded to whether not an actual metaphor (comparison without using like or as) was being used. Hopefully, in class I'll be able to decipher what metaphor was actually being used and form a better opinion on it than writing a long excuse for not answering the question.
2. Since not everyone is a completely proficient french speaker, you never get to have a complete view of their actually trying to say. When they do speak, its only tidbits of what they actually want to convey. With this technique, Sedaris is able to show how vulnerable we are if we do not have a strong hold over language. Since they are not completely adequate french speakers, the students are left defenceless when attacked by the french teacher.
1. "Immersion" gives the impression of something being consumed. Sedaris found himself in the middle of French society, surrounded from all sides, kind of how a body is surrounded by water when it jumps into a swimming pool -- or in this case, the "language pool" (par. 3). He describes the class as being "sink or swim," but in this particular pool the "lifeguard" -- the only one able to save Sedaris from drowning in the French language and culture -- ridiculed the class and refused to be of any help, and Sedaris was left to drown. When "fall arrived and it rained everyday," Sedaris shows that even though he has been in France for a while and is working hard, he is still wet and almost drowning (par. 27). No matter what happens, he's always under water in the pool of foreign languages.
2. David Sedaris is making the whole process of learning French sound like a terrible and painful ordeal by likening the conversations that take place in the classroom as being similar as to what would be "commonly overheard in a refugee camp" (23). He makes the class seem like complete hell, which adds to the humor of the class -- the reader enjoys his comical misery. The dialogue makes the characters seem so miserable and like such victims, which is most likely an exaggeration that Sedaris uses to blow the whole adventure of learning French way out of proportion. He makes everything seem awful, which, in turn, makes everything funny.
1. I believe the "immersion" is not a sustainable metaphor for Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day". This is because immersion means deep mental involvement. This is proven wrong in two ways. The teacher has a very distant relationship with the students by grilling them that first day " She'd shaken us up a a little, but surely that was just an act to designed to weed out the deadweight" (para:18). Also the fact that in the beginning Sedaris can not fully understand the teach, he cant become deeply involved.
2. Sedaris presents the dialogue of the other students in which a way that he selective picks the information in which to tell. He put more words and descriptions that in a way makes them look bad. The argentine said, " making sex with the women of the world" and he also points out what the teacher decided to attack that person bout, "...yugoslav who identified herself as an optimist, saying that she loved everything that life had to off" ( para 14). It seems that he wanted to point out the weaknesses of each person in order to make the attack made on him look less harmful.
1. This metaphor of "immersion" applies pretty well to to Sedaris' French class. Immersion is commonly associated with water, and he often appears to be drowning in the language. In the language pool at his school, it was "sink or swim," and by the way Sedaris describes his absolute terror of speaking French in public, it seems as if he drowned. The metaphor extends the notion of a pool (or water in general) and how its easy to flounder and sink.
2. By describing the absolute misery of the students and the hostile attitude of the teacher, Sedaris makes us laugh. It's human nature to laugh at others misery (or cruelty) and he exploits this. Sedaris also presents the student's dialogue in comic ways to further prove his point that the immersion class was a bit like a "refugee camp."
1) The metaphor of immersion is in no way inappropriate to the essay. The focus of the essay is on the rigors of the author's intense French course and his endeavors in a French country with a limited vocabulary. The author immerses the reader in this aspect of his life, for I am sure that other things happened in France besides his struggle with the language, therefore immersion is a good metaphor.
2) The effect of the broken dialog is to, obviously, first and foremost, to show that the author and his peers cannot speak fluent French. The words on paper are intended to look as if the person speaking it is unintelligent or uneducated. This impression is also encouraged by the teacher, who constantly insults her pupils. Another effect of the broken "French" is to force the reader to exert his or her thought process on decoding the awkward phrasing; as a result, they focus more on these passages.
P.S. im not in this class or school but i want to contribute.
The metaphor of “immersion” is referring to the complete dominance of a second language in one’s academic life. Literally, the student is completely immerged in this second language because it is a part of their entire academic structure. The use of “immersion” is appropriate because Sedaris’s teacher exposes him to so much French that he becomes obsessed with mastering French or at the very least impressing his teacher. The immersion ends up successful because Sedaris is able to comprehend every word of spoken French by the end of the passage.
32 comments:
P.S. Don't panic about the practice quiz; we will go over SLIDD TOP in class.
1. I do not think the metaphor of "immersion" for David Sedaris' Me Talk Pretty One Day because there is no sense of deep involvement with any of the characters. Even though the teacher colaborates French with difficult questions, she often "publicly ridiculed [students] for [their] answer[s]" (par. 13). Sedaris is not immersed in the language-learning approach because he states that he is "not completely in the dark", meaning he is not entirely enveloped in the language he is trying to learn (par. 3).
2. Sedaris demonstrates the various students' moralities and backgrounds when asking what they love and hate. When it came to "a beautiful young Yugoslav who identified herself as an optimist, saying that she loved everything that life had to offer," the teacher immediately blurts back, "Oh yeah? And do you love your little war?" (par. 11-12). The effects this has on the reader is that he can get a sense of interregation from the teacher, and the reader more often than not relates to the story. When Sedaris discusses the quotes from other students, the initial reaction for the reader would be to feel bad for the kids. The students do not seem to understand the teacher as a person, just as much as they do not understand the language she is speaking. However, once Sedaris finds that he is comfortable with the language, he is also no longer a victim of the teacher.
-Lauren Taniguchi
1. The metaphor of "immersion" is appropriate on the level of new environments. When he moves from New York to Paris, he is deliberately placing himself in a completely different setting. Even if he knows some French, the customs and the people will still seem foreign to him. As well, he enters another new realm when he joins this French class because he seems accustomed to teachers being more considerate in their approach to educating. In these ways, he is being "immersed" into these new locales with no prior knowledge of either. The metaphor does translate through his trouble with adapting.
2. Sedaris paraphrases the statements of the other students, which puts more emphasis on his interaction as being a representative of everyone's experience. The format practically makes each student's statements as being their entire identity since the reader never learns any more information about the pupils. He also goes into great detail about his own mistakes. Without deliberately stating the fact, He expresses that everyone had trouble.
In another part he more clearly displays their poor French with actual quotes to build up to the climax. He mentions how one student says "Sometime me cry alone at night" (Paragraph 24). This quote and the following one show how they have made very little progress in all their time there; however, in reality they have learned to better understand the language being spoken. In addition the fact that he presents the French in English allows the reader to feel some pity for them as well as showing that the teacher scolds too often instead of gently correcting them. The paraphrasing and substituting of English makes the story clearer and easier to follow, while making the student's feelings more relatable.
1. I do not believe that the metaphor of "immersion" is present in David Sedaris' essay "Me Talk Pretty One Day." I think that for a student to be immersed in an academic environment and thrive that he or she needs to be empowered by the teacher and the subject matter. In Sedaris' situation, he finds the class, meaning the students, teacher, and language, difficult and new. Although Sedaris has a brief French background, the other "students exhibited an ease and confidence [that he] found intimidating" (par.2). Also, the teacher frightens Sedaris by questioning every studentes likes and dislikes, which serves as "an occasion for shame" (par. 9). The students are constantly "publicly ridiculed" (par.13) which makes the desire and ability to learn even more challenging. Therefore, I do not think that the metaphor of "immersion" holds true for David Sedaris in "Me Talk Pretty One Day" because of all the negative vibes and reactions the students recieve from the teacher.
2. When the students begin to speak in French in class, most are scolded for their bad answers in the teacher's viewpoint. Sedaris can not express in French what he truly enjoys, which is "leafing through medical textbooks devoted to severe dermatological conditions," because his limited French vocabulary does not allow him to express this. Therefore, he speaks of his many dislikes, which he says incorrectly by misusing masculine and feminine words. This demonstration, along with the teacher's scolding of the Yugoslavian girl, shows that the student's French is poor and that they also need to watch what they say while in the presence of the teacher. Soon enough, Sedaris becomes convinced that everything he says is wrong and wonders if his French will ever improve. His classmate assures him, in poor French, that he will improve very soon and not to worry. There is a great sense of sympathy towards each of the students because of the horrible way the teacher acts towards them. So, when they still have hope to learn and improve, there motives are uplifting and inspiring.
1.I also do not think the metaphor of "immersion" is appropriate because the teacher has no connection with any of the students and ridicules them continuously. "Immersion" implies lots of attention from teachers and peers; Sedaris's experience is the complete opposite. He does not even fully understand the language until he can understand his teacher's insults.
2. Sedaris describes the students' dialogues as "conversation commonly heard in refugee camps," implying no fluency at all. The teacher is not helping at all either; characterized as terrifying, she just insults their personalities and nationalities when she is supposed to help them.
The effect that Sedaris's presentation has is to make the reader relate to the students' predicament. It is hard to fit in a new place if you do not even know the language; Sedaris even writes that "it became impossible to believe that any of us would ever improve" (par.27). The students have a sense of hopelessness and helplessness as they cannot improve themselves and learn from a horrible teacher. The reader also gets a sense of sympathy between the students as they help and encourage each other, even though they are from very different backgrounds.
--Emily L.
1.David Sedaris’ metaphor of “immersion” concerning the kind of language-learning approach is appropriate because he is purposefully subjecting himself to a new environment. Although he had some experience with the French culture, the teacher he had in France was on a new level. Thrusting himself into a new environment, Sedaris feels out of place among the other “young, attractive, and well dressed” students (par. 1). However he knows that they are all facing new challenges. One way that he expresses his immersion into this new language is the metaphor he uses in paragraph three, “That’s the way they do it here—it’s everybody into the language pool, sink or swim.” The teacher publicly ridicules her students, which makes Sedaris want to spend “four hours a night on my [his] homework” (par. 21). However, he realizes at the end of his class that “for the first time since arriving in France, I [he] could understand every word that some was saying,” so his immersion was a success (par.27).
2.When Sedaris presents dialogue of his other French classmates, he shows that he is not alone in his struggles of speaking the language. Sedaris was ridiculed for making mistakes in his grammar; thus, his “fear and discomfort crept beyond the borders of the classroom” (par. 22). This consequence of the harsh teaching style, as well as the incompetence of the other students to speak well, shows the negative side effects of the teacher’s harsh actions towards the students. They become fearful of making mistakes rather than learning from them.
1. The metaphor of immersion is linked to like how he is thrown into a new environment (Paris) that he is not familiar with. The course that he takes doesn't just start easy and build up, but instead starts with the teacher expecting the students to know a lot already: "that's the way they do it here - it's everybody into the language pool sink or swim" (par. 3). The language pool is like the teacher, and the teacher keeps on insulting the students, pounding at them everyday. The students immersed in her intensive criticizing language pool have a goal to float to the top and out of the pool. By the end, when Sedaris realizes he understands every word someone said, he was excited and then "settled back, bathing in the subtle beauty of each new curse and insult...the world opened up" (par.28). I don't really like the idea of this immersion class, but i guess it worked for the author.
2. Sedaris doesn't present most of the dialogs of the students as actually quotes; instead he describes them, how they act and speak, and just tells what they said: "The first Ana hailed form an industrial town outside of Warsaw and had front teeth the size of tombstones. She worked a s a seamstress, enjoyed with times with friends and hated mosquito" (par. 7). Sedaris describes them uniquely but then their answers are very simple since their vocab is limited. Since the teacher is the one who has most of the quotes, it makes it seem like all the students are intimidated and more quiet compared to the loud, cruel, insulting teacher who belittles everyone.
1. Sharing the view of many of the previous people who posted their comments, I also do not believe that the metaphor is not appropriate. The students, unlike what should have happened, were not immersed in the subject because their teacher completely stifled any chance of that occurring by ridiculing them. By doing so, instead of immersing them and drawing them to the subject, she actually alienates and detaches them from the subject, making the students feel more stupid than inspired or excited about French.
2. Sedaris presents his fellow student's attempt at speaking french as tired and hopeless attempts to outsmart the teacher. After each student presented their likes and dislikes, the teacher would respond with direct attacks; however, Sedaris left the quotes alone, never directing where the attack headed necessarily, though most people assumed it was the previous person who talked. Thus, the reader ended up as the one to be attacked, having been placed in the student's shoes facing the teacher. From this, a sense of hopelessness and pity arises for the real students, who could not survive long enough to prove their own point in a french-language debate. Sedaris places the reader in the shoes of each and every student ridiculed by the professor, and forces the reader to share in the hardships of ridicule and grow a sense of pity for the students like Sedaris.
1. The metaphor of immersion is appropriate because it describes how Sedaris jumps into a new situation and is not fully prepared. Sedaris struggles to learn French under the constant insults of his teacher, but in the end, by jumping in head first, Sedaris manages to understand what the teacher is saying. The insults and abuses of Sedaris's French teacher parallel the frustration of students trying to learn through an immersion program, and Sedaris's joy at finally understanding his teacher's insults show how learning a new concept can make even ugly things, like the insults of the teacher, seem beautiful.
2. Sedaris translates the students' dialogues directly from French, preserving the structure of the sentence in French and the French grammar in order to convey how choppy and pathetic the students' French was. This also adds humor to the narrative, and shows the difficulty that the students had in trying to immerse themselves in the French language without much preparation.
1. I believe that the usage of the word “immersion” is absolutely appropriate for this passage. “Immersion” itself has a triple meaning as it could mean either a way to language teaching in which the students and the teachers only speak that foreign language in the classroom, being completely involved in something, or being overwhelmed and inundated. Considering that in the class, students were only allowed to speak the French language, the word works in that sense of its definition. I also believe that Sedaris was overwhelmed by the seemingly impossible teaching style of the professor. At the beginning of the passage, he described the class to be a “language pool, sink or swim” (379). In addition, he would devote at least fours hours every night on his homework so that he could be successful. Sedaris was completely involved in the French language. Because of his teacher’s constant insults, Sedaris begins to be more conscious and careful in his usage of the language. In his first interaction with the teacher, he did not even care that objects were given a gender, finding it to be “ridiculous” even though it was part of the French culture. Later, he comes to realize, “Before beginning of school there’d been no shutting [him] up, but now [he] was convinced that everything [he] said was wrong” (382). Now, Sedaris actually cares whether he is correct or not in speaking the language. Although he might be too afraid to speak it initially, the end of the passage indicates the progress Sedaris has achieved as he is finally able to understand the insults of his teacher. He states, “I know the thing that you speak exact now. Talk me more, you, plus, please, plus” (382). This response has a double meaning. Sedaris not only literally understands what the teacher’s insults mean but also understands the inspiration behind it. He has come to realize that the teacher was simply challenging him and the rest of the students to improve and work harder in understanding the French language. She wanted them to strive to be perfectly fluent in the French language, and she succeeded as they did.
2. The conversation hears from the student’s who try to speak French indicate how weak they truly are in their usage of the language. He indicates that the students answer very simply as they do not know the vocabulary to present their true views. He even describes one girl’s response to be one similar to a data sheet describing the Playmate of the Month. This indicates the extent of its simplicity and how the answer was completely meaningless. Later, Sedaris presents some dialogue of some students who are struggling to comprehend the language and sometimes even “cry alone at night” (382) and who desire the to “talk pretty” someday. At this point, the students feel a desperate desire to learn so that they won’t be embarrassed anymore. They want to gain the respect of the teacher, and to do that, they try to learn the language.
R.B. Puri
1. I think this specific language-learning approach, "immersion", is chosen to further develop the metaphor of a pool. For example, David describes his first day as if they just throw "everybody into the language pool, sink or swim" (Para. 3). The metaphor is that the teacher threw all the students into the pool rather harshly, as a parent might do to a child, and thereby almost forcing him to learn to swim and survive. In the end, I believe that David ends up surviving as he is finally able to understand what the teacher is saying.
2.In the beginning, David can't even understand the teacher's full sentence, but he and the students seem to communicate fine. However, as the story progresses, the student's dialogue become more and more degraded into child-speak, and the teacher's dialogue becomes more and more clear and understandable. By presenting the student's and teacher's this way, he is allowing us (the reader) to clearly observe and monitor his language maturity as he struggles to swim.
whoops forgot my name again
-Alan Tuan
1. The metaphor of "immersion" is inappropriate for David Sedaris's essay. Although the teacher's method of teaching complies with language immersion--using the target language to teach an class of students that are on the same level, she does not exactly abide by the implications that come with the immersion method. This method implies that the teacher and the students need to have a good connection in order for the students to learn efficiently. With his teacher constantly insulting his French, Sedaris is discouraged to even try to use French outside of class, for he fears that he will be wrong (pg. 382). Also, language immersion, although the class is supposed to be taught in the target language, implies that the teacher should gradually "immerse" her students in the language. Sedaris's teacher, on the other hand, forbids the students to speak any other language but French and uses the "sink or swim" approach on the first day of school (pg. 379). Although Sedaris was able to learn through immersion, the class itself is not an example of language immersion.
2. In his essay, Sedaris presents his classmates' dialogue as a fluent French person would hear. For example, he records some of his classmates' dialogue as "sometime me cry along at night" or "That be common for I" (pg. 382). Without changing their dialogue to sentences with correct grammar, Sedaris uses pathos to tap on the reader's emotion for the students. Upon reading these dialogues in poor English translated from poor French, the reader would sympathize with the students and despise the insulting teacher even more.
Derek Lee
!. Sedaris uses the metaphor of immersion to compare being exposed to a completely new environment to learn french and being thrown into a refugee camp. This is an apropriate comparison because both enironments are so foreign to its inhabitants and cause them torment trying to deal with their surroundings, although the refugee camp to a greater extent. Both come to despise their environment and are afraid to explore, talking only to others in the same sad situation. Comparing such an extreme envoronment as a refugee camp to merely a language immersion class magnifies Sedaris' detest for his inability to learn anddetest for his teacher.
2.Throguh the use of the students actual dialouge the pathetacy of what they were going though was exemplified. Hearing students say, "Sometime me cry alone at night" provokes sympathy for their situation but also humor at their ineptitude. Initially, when Sedaris paraphrased their introductions, only the fact that their vocabulary was limited came across. But through the use of actual dialouge placement, a whole new dimension comes through.
1. When analyzing a humorist like Sedaris, comparing his memoirs to a profound verb like “immersion” is almost impossible. Though that’s not to say that his work can’t have meaning because the premise is hilarious—“a good story is about the thing and the other thing”—it just means that whether or not there really is deeper meaning is quite arguable. In this case, I think immersion works well as metaphor because it describes the profound undertones of an ostensibly meaningless, albeit humorous, piece. The only problem is that I’ve failed at finding any textual evidence until the very end of the book, where the “other thing” becomes a little more apparent. Sedaris has a sly but sudden switch from a humorous tone to one of significance when his teacher says, “‘Every day spent with you is like having a cesarean section.’ And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every word someone was saying…its rewards are intoxicating and deceptive” (382). Fully understanding people from a different language and culture, even if it is an odd insult, requires an immense amount of immersion in language and culture. I think this essay strives to exploit the point where the author finally realizes he is fully immersed in the language: “The world opened up” and all he wants now is more more more French. Having this “world open to him,” and feeling such “great joy,” I think Sedaris finally reaches the outcome of being immersed in a language and culture; though he suffered through classes with a crazy, sadistic teacher, he finally had so much French pounded into him (immersion at work!) that he suddenly just reached that euphoric point where he feels he is part of the French, or rather, that the French is in him.
2. There’s a writer… I forget who it is… but basically he said, “screw it, I’m writing in French!” even though he hardly knew any French. His reasoning was interesting: since he knew he could barely speak French, his prose would be simple and he could describe emotion without getting lost in choosing “the right word" or creating "lavish imagery" or dwelling over "perfect sentence structure." It makes deep moments feel plain and understated, yet strangely his literature became all the more powerful. In Sedaris' essay, simple, poorly constructed sentences like “Sometimes me cry alone at night” and “People start love you soon” evoke especially poignant feeling because they are so broken in structure and word choice that the brain registers only meaning. And, as only a writer like Sedaris could do, these deep emotions come across in a humorous manner—after all, you can’t deny that Engrish isn't hilarious! Sedaris is amazing. Too bad I can't marry him.
By the way, I want to share the love. I have a lot of his books (even the new one, yay yay yay!) except I think my copy of Me Talk Pretty One Day is lost at sea... but if you want to borrow something, let me know :)
Sarina
1. David Sedaris compares the immersion approach to learning a language to being thrown into a pool; himself and all his classmates, it’s “everybody into the language pool, sink or swim” (par. 3). He is forced to adapt to the new culture and language or else he would flounder and drown. I believe the metaphor to be really appropriate for how it shows the similarities in learning to swim and speak a new language. In both, there is a time where we all struggle just to keep afloat, but after a time—memorizing vocabulary and verb conjugations, learning the different strokes—we figure out how to make it work. Also, it shows how most of the responsibility of learning comes from yourself. Sedaris’ teacher hardly seemed to do more than belittle and swear at her students, so they were forced to work extra hard to learn on their own; similarly, if you were thrown into a pool and left alone, eventually you would learn how to coordinate yourself.
2. As his fellow classmates attempt to speak French after several months of suffering under their teacher, Sedaris describes their efforts as “the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps” (par. 23). While such a description appeals to the reader’s emotions, it also shows how their teacher has brought out a streak of hard-work among her students by abusing them. One student consoles a friend by telling her that “much work and someday you talk pretty” (par. 25). It also emphasizes the close friendships Sedaris has formed with his classmates because of their mutual struggles. Sedaris puts this dialogue into the story to illustrate the point he is trying to make involving obstacles and problems: only with a lot of intense hard work and a little bit of suffering can anything worthwhile be achieved.
1. I believe that the metaphor of “immersion” is inappropriate in David Sedaris’s satirical essay, “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Because the teacher is constantly ridiculing them with ineffective insults, the students’ longing to learn the language has been squelched and replaced with anxiety. Being immersed in a language usually implies that you are coaxed along with someone holding your hand. In the end, he does feel immersed in the French language and culture - even if it was grasped through an unorthodox method of teaching and not through the more conventional method of immersion. Sedaris is hesitant and fearful to speak because he is afraid of making grammar mistakes, yet he feels he has progressed to another level in understanding the teacher. The satire being that he can now clearly understand her insults.
2. Sedaris translates the students’ comments directly from French, keeping the same French sentence arrangements and the limited amount of vocabulary in each sentence with the intention of portraying their dismal attempt to speak the language. This helps evoke sympathy from the reader because most of the students’ emotions are very understandable, especially after being harshly scolded from a rude teacher. One student states, “Sometime me cry alone at night” (par. 24). This induces a feeling of pathos from the reader towards the student. It also shows that the students feel very bonded with each other and that they each understand the other student’s feelings, allowing the reader to also feel the bond.
-Angela
"Immersion" implies that even though the teacher begins speaking frnech completely and the students don't understand any of it, eventually they are able to understand more and more until they become fluent. However, i think the metaphore is inapropriate in this case. even though by the end of the story David Sedaris understands what the teacher is saying, he is totally unwilling to try to speak french because he is scared he will be critisized. he has not really been immersed into french culture or french life because he is unable to interact with anyone else since he is scared of making a mistake or being critisized.
When David Sedaris first encounters the other students he is shocked by thier french, saying, "Regardless of thier nationalities, everyone spoke what sounded to me like excellent French" (par 2). However, as the story goes on, he finds the other students struggling with the language. as a result, the reader realizes taht even the best students have lost thier confidence in the language becasue of thier harsh teacher since they no longer speak with the fluency they had at the beginning.
I. While technically this metaphor should work out, in David's case it does not. David is living in France and is speaking only French; this could easily be considered immersion. However, it isn't, because David refuses to speak French with any natives besides his teacher, which ruins the entire process. The point of immersion is to surround the student with the language so that they absorb it by being in such close contact with it for long amounts of time. However, David isolates himself from all of the natural French speakers and only communicates with his abusive teacher and his equally uncommunicative classmates.
II. David is writing to an audience who in all likelihood knows no French, so the inclusion of any actual French at all would be pointless. What he does is much more effective. By translating what the students say and leaving in all the errors, it gives the audience a good sense of how tenuous the students grasp of the language is. He uses a similar technique with the teacher's lines: he translates them but replaces the words he did not understand with incomprehensible gibberish, which is what he heard. This helps the reader step into his shoes and feel his confusion, as well as understand his relief when he finally understands all she says.
- Chase "Danger" Wheatley
1. The way that French is the only language spoken in the class is a metaphor showing that not only is he being forced to speak the language and only the language in class, but also outside of class in everyday conversation. There is no escaping the unfamiliarity of this new culture as he is trapped within French, confining him to vending machine cuisine and feigning deftness. He is literally “immersed” in French, drowning in its difficulty and confusion, and it is not until the end of the story, when he explains how, “for the first time since arriving in France, I could understand every work that someone was saying,” where he can come up for a much needed breath of air (Paragraph 30, Sedaris).
2. The jumbled and broken words of the students’ attempts at French show a lot about the success of the French teacher. The teacher obviously opened up lines of communication that would have been impossible before the class as no one had a common language. To be supportive of their fellow classmates, the students do their best to console and cheer up (with the little knowledge they know) their friends in need. By doing this, Sedaris displays the true, raw kindness of humans at its finest as people are doing whatever they can to help other people feel better. Also, it shows what obtaining knowledge in other languages can achieve people, opening lines of communication and in turn making someone’s day a whole lot better with the support of others.
-Brewer-
1. I feel that the metaphor of "immersion" is appropriate and evident in Me Talk Pretty One Day. The idea of him diving into this kind of situation begins at the start of the story when he tells the audience that he is "forty-one...and returning to school"(par 1). His discomfort is evident when he describes how everyone is much younger, even more attractive. His description establishes the idea of jumping into this situation fully; and even the way he handles the insults, with almost a desire to understand what the teacher was calling him, shows his will to stick with the language because he made a commitment. By the end he realizes that the insults don't bother him anymore, but had helped him improve and left him wanting more.
2. The dialogue between the students demonstrates how, even with broken French that's almost too hard to understand unless you see it written down, they still communicate deeper feelings to each other. They still find a will to practice and improve, because that's the only way people can understand them as more than just students. Beyond the teacher's abuse, the students want to be better because they want to understood and recognized as more than what she makes fun of them for.
--shayma
1. The metaphor of "immersion" to represent the kind of language-learning approach in this essay is appropriate. Sedaris is being "immersed," or thrown right into another country that he is unfamiliar with. Instead of simply taking a French class in New York, as he did before, Sedaris is actually going to Paris to learn. He doesn't simply try to learn the language: he immerses his entire life into learning French by going to France. His French class is full of people of different nationalities. Thus, they have all moved from their homes to come to France, and by doing so, they have fully immersed themselves in the French culture, of which the French language is a huge part of.
2. Sedaris presents the dialogue of the students who attempt to speak French by writing the literal translation of what they are saying in French. In other words, the students are speaking French that is not grammatically correct. The effect of this dialogue is illustrating how the struggle to learn French has brought these students together. They all come from different backgrounds, and though they cannot speak French well, they are all working hard to learn. Their mediocre French-speaking skills is actually what links the students together and opens an opportunity for them to communicate with each other. In addition, their poor grammar contributes to evoking sympathy for the students who are subject to an abusive teacher. One of the students says, "Sometime me cry alone at night" (382). If worded with correct grammar, the reader might feel sorry for the student for crying. But the poor grammar furthers this sympathy by making the student seem even more helpless because he can't even speak well.
Audrey Virginia Proulx
1. Calling this style of learning "immersion" very acceptable metaphor to use. To immerse someone is to completely surround them in something, This is exactly what happens to Sedaris. With no way of communicating with others except by speaking French, Sedaris is completely surrounded by the language. This metaphor brings to my mind the image of someone or something being plunged into water, since the word “immersion” is often used in relation to water. This metaphor works very well because Sedaris is like a sponge dropped into a bucket of water. He absorbs the French language very quickly; that idea of absorption and the word immersion’s association with water make this metaphor absolutely perfect.
2. The way Sedaris presents the speech of the other students is primitive. This is because their dialog is directly translated from French, showing that although the students grasp the basics they lack refinement. Sedaris keeps the mistakes in their speech to illustrate the fact that he is not alone in his struggles, but also to subtly show that even in such a short time (Sedaris says that fall has just arrived) the students have gone from knowing next to no French, to being perfectly able to communicate their points and ideas.
Shani Gilmour
Panic! I had a typo in my first sentence!! There should be an "is"!! Woops
1. The idea of immersion as a learning technique for languages is typically successful. Even when one combines immersion with a bad attitude and the exploitation of others' feelings as Sedaris' teacher does, the outcome proves a success. The idea behind immersion is that by surrounding oneself by a new culture, the culture will soon become second nature to the "immersed" person. Because Sedaris lives in Paris, he eats, breathes, and sleeps the culture. Also, his teacher comes off as a terrible person; however, she is able to teach her students in the end. After taking so many insults from her in French, and not knowing how to respond fluidly in the language, he eventually picks up and responds perfectly. WIthout the constant ridicule and habit of speaking French regardless of anyone's ability to understand, the teacher is able to force the language onto her students. It is ultimately effective.
2. By denying the audience any direct quotations from the students, Sedaris makes his point of the student's silence clear. Because the student's have become fearful of making mistakes while speaking French, they have given up altogether and substituted the possibility of failure while expressing their opinions for silence. They are forced into tranquility when their teacher ridicules them, and that carries on into their daily lives. Fear gets the best of the students, and in time silence becomes their safety net. While Sedaris limits quotations from the students, he describes their speaking of the language as "the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps" (par. 24). By doing so, Sedaris portrays the way that native speakers of the language hear them. While almost all of the students in the class are well educated and smart, when speaking a new language, their sentences appear broken and grammatically incorrect. He likens the speech of newcomers in a language to the speech of a foreigner who has landed in an unfamiliar land whose language he can not comprehend.
-Emily Ottke
1.
I'm not really sure what metaphor the question refers to, and judging by the different responses I've read, no one seems to know what metaphor they're talking about. Many people have responded to how immersion worked or didn't work as a tool of learning, but I think that only a few people actually responded to whether not an actual metaphor (comparison without using like or as) was being used. Hopefully, in class I'll be able to decipher what metaphor was actually being used and form a better opinion on it than writing a long excuse for not answering the question.
2.
Since not everyone is a completely proficient french speaker, you never get to have a complete view of their actually trying to say. When they do speak, its only tidbits of what they actually want to convey. With this technique, Sedaris is able to show how vulnerable we are if we do not have a strong hold over language. Since they are not completely adequate french speakers, the students are left defenceless when attacked by the french teacher.
1. "Immersion" gives the impression of something being consumed. Sedaris found himself in the middle of French society, surrounded from all sides, kind of how a body is surrounded by water when it jumps into a swimming pool -- or in this case, the "language pool" (par. 3). He describes the class as being "sink or swim," but in this particular pool the "lifeguard" -- the only one able to save Sedaris from drowning in the French language and culture -- ridiculed the class and refused to be of any help, and Sedaris was left to drown. When "fall arrived and it rained everyday," Sedaris shows that even though he has been in France for a while and is working hard, he is still wet and almost drowning (par. 27). No matter what happens, he's always under water in the pool of foreign languages.
2. David Sedaris is making the whole process of learning French sound like a terrible and painful ordeal by likening the conversations that take place in the classroom as being similar as to what would be "commonly overheard in a refugee camp" (23). He makes the class seem like complete hell, which adds to the humor of the class -- the reader enjoys his comical misery. The dialogue makes the characters seem so miserable and like such victims, which is most likely an exaggeration that Sedaris uses to blow the whole adventure of learning French way out of proportion. He makes everything seem awful, which, in turn, makes everything funny.
Simon Hochberg
1. I believe the "immersion" is not a sustainable metaphor for Sedaris' "Me Talk Pretty One Day". This is because immersion means deep mental involvement. This is proven wrong in two ways. The teacher has a very distant relationship with the students by grilling them that first day " She'd shaken us up a a little, but surely that was just an act to designed to weed out the deadweight" (para:18). Also the fact that in the beginning Sedaris can not fully understand the teach, he cant become deeply involved.
2. Sedaris presents the dialogue of the other students in which a way that he selective picks the information in which to tell. He put more words and descriptions that in a way makes them look bad. The argentine said, " making sex with the women of the world" and he also points out what the teacher decided to attack that person bout, "...yugoslav who identified herself as an optimist, saying that she loved everything that life had to off" ( para 14). It seems that he wanted to point out the weaknesses of each person in order to make the attack made on him look less harmful.
Matt Dawes (above)
1. This metaphor of "immersion" applies pretty well to to Sedaris' French class. Immersion is commonly associated with water, and he often appears to be drowning in the language. In the language pool at his school, it was "sink or swim," and by the way Sedaris describes his absolute terror of speaking French in public, it seems as if he drowned. The metaphor extends the notion of a pool (or water in general) and how its easy to flounder and sink.
2. By describing the absolute misery of the students and the hostile attitude of the teacher, Sedaris makes us laugh. It's human nature to laugh at others misery (or cruelty) and he exploits this. Sedaris also presents the student's dialogue in comic ways to further prove his point that the immersion class was a bit like a "refugee camp."
-Carole
1) The metaphor of immersion is in no way inappropriate to the essay. The focus of the essay is on the rigors of the author's intense French course and his endeavors in a French country with a limited vocabulary. The author immerses the reader in this aspect of his life, for I am sure that other things happened in France besides his struggle with the language, therefore immersion is a good metaphor.
2) The effect of the broken dialog is to, obviously, first and foremost, to show that the author and his peers cannot speak fluent French. The words on paper are intended to look as if the person speaking it is unintelligent or uneducated. This impression is also encouraged by the teacher, who constantly insults her pupils. Another effect of the broken "French" is to force the reader to exert his or her thought process on decoding the awkward phrasing; as a result, they focus more on these passages.
P.S. im not in this class or school but i want to contribute.
The metaphor of “immersion” is referring to the complete dominance of a second language in one’s academic life. Literally, the student is completely immerged in this second language because it is a part of their entire academic structure. The use of “immersion” is appropriate because Sedaris’s teacher exposes him to so much French that he becomes obsessed with mastering French or at the very least impressing his teacher. The immersion ends up successful because Sedaris is able to comprehend every word of spoken French by the end of the passage.
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