I did the program last year (19/20) at Asticou and these are some of the things that helped me. I started with no French and ended up doing well come testing time even though we had to finish the last 6 weeks of the course from home via self-study (thanks Covid).
Find simple kids’ shows or books in the beginning, stuff you enjoy. I was reading Star Wars Lego children’s books at first and watching kids’ shows: Téléfrançais and Parlez-Moi avec Sol were good ones for me. I knew them from when I was a kid and they helped quite a bit…. Be forewarned, they’re stupid... like talking pineapple stupid, but it helps.
Listen to CBC Radio in French when you can; driving to work/class etc. It will sound like gibberish for a long time in the beginning but slowly you’ll start to pick stuff up and by the Xmas break you’ll be able to pick quite a bit up. I had to limit my French TV watching since my wife doesn’t speak any and it drove her nuts, but try to watch as much French TV as possible… it makes a huge difference. I used subtitles (French) all the time at first, they won’t be exactly the same as the words, but it still helps keep up with fast dialogue. Some teachers will tell you it’s ok to use subtitles and some don’t like it, I found it helpful but you’ll need to tweak everything to suit your learning style.
Give serious thought to working with a tutor. I started working 1-on-1 with a private tutor via Skype in the second month of the course, it made ridiculous improvements to my speaking ability. It wasn’t cheap, her lesson bundles came to around 45/hour or so, but it was worth every penny. You can sign up for group classes through some tutors as well which some of my other classmates did, it’s usually a good bit cheaper. Reading and watching TV help a lot but there is no substitute for speaking, it takes a ton of practice and will really pay off come testing time. Don’t worry or stress about sounding stupid, everybody does. It will feel very disingenuous to try and mimic a French accent but once you start to copy their patterns and pronunciation, you’ll find things go much smoother and they understand you much better.
You will get frustrated; you will hate your life at times, but the juice is worth the squeeze. Our staff were great and really wanted us to succeed, I’m sure yours will be the same. They’ll tell you how to get there, you’ve just got to put in the work. You’ll get sick of your classmates, it happens. They make you discuss current events and such so it will always lead to some disagreements and debate.
Please feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions etc. There was a workbook they gave us here with 25 units (fascicules) in it that help you to learn all the Public Service Terms you need to be familiar with (lots). If you don't end up getting a copy I can flip you a soft copy of it, I've got one floating around somewhere, it's a fantastic resource. There is also an app called Quizlet, if you search 'French Public Service Vocabulary' you should find some good flashcard decks to help you learn those PS terms as well.
Best of luck.
