831 459 2630
de@ucolick.org
I am a native English speaker, born to native-English-speaking parents in the UK. I have spoken English from infancy, as my primary language. The family immigrated to the US in 1962.
I have had 16 years of formal education in the US, from grade school through a four-year University degree. This education has been conducted in English, except for foreign-language classes such as French, German, Spanish, etc.
My career has required fluency in both speaking and writing English. I have been required to participate in departmental, institutional, and inter-institutional meetings and conferences; to make formal, oral presentation of technical papers and proposals; to conduct training sessions and write materials and handouts for same; to write technical papers and documentation for publication; and so forth.
I have a strong private interest in writing and have written for publication outside my professional field. I also contribute articles to online venues such as Eurotribune.com. I have occasionally moonlighted as a copy editor, proofreader, and/or indexer.
I would describe my spoken and written English skills as "professional." For all of the above reasons, I truthfully believe that I possess a high proficiency level in English as described in the Language Proficiency Section of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's website.
I was first exposed to the French language in grade school. I had some aptitude for language acquisition as a child and studied French, German, and Spanish (only one year of Spanish) from grade school through high school. At University I continued my German studies, and took one year each of Latin and Classical Greek.
I studied French continuously from 7th grade through 12th grade. By the end of this time I was able to converse in French on non-scholarly topics, to read French poetry and literature with some appreciation, and to comprehend the content of newspaper and magazine articles.
In the ensuing 30 years I have had little use for my French language skills and they are somewhat stale. I can still read technical manuals and product literature in French, and understand most of the content of French-language news articles and web sites. I can follow most of the dialogue in French films and am usually aware of divergences between the English subtitles and the original French dialogue. I consider my French comprehension skills "Moderate," i.e. sufficient to enable me to understand and appreciate accessible literature, song lyrics, political cartoon captions and journalism, but not sufficient to read articles in scholarly journals or to appreciate the finer points of prose style, regional accents, or sophisticated humour.
My speaking and writing skills have atrophied further than my listening and reading skills. My French conversation is self-conscious and deficient in vocabulary. With a dictionary to hand I can write a decent business or social letter in French, but it could not be mistaken for the work of a native speaker. I consider my speaking and writing skills "Basic", i.e. sufficient for me to understand signage, follow instructions, find and purchase food and generally survive in a Francophone environment, but not sufficient to participate in the cultural life of a Francophone community.
I acquired my French language skills at an early enough age and was enthusiastic enough about the language that I feel it would be fairly easy to recover at least my 12th-grade level of competence, and to continue from that point. Even at my current diminished level of competence I could, with a dictionary and occasional advice from a native speaker, translate French documents into English.
For all of the above reasons, I truthfully believe that I possess a basic proficiency level in speaking or writing French, and a moderate proficiency level in reading and comprehending spoken French, as described in the Language Proficiency Section of Citizenship and Immigration Canada's website.
Signed: ___________________________ Date: __________________________