Marseille is a very nice multicultural port town with the most beautiful church I’ve ever seen (so far).

But just one thing before I leave France — something I’ve noticed. I have discovered that I can read and understand French quite well, thank you very much, which comes from my years of learning it in school. But when it comes to speaking or listening, I’m a goner. I know that most of my classmates are the same. Why is that? After all, usually when someone moves to a foreign land, they learn to speak first and then maybe to read/write. Children are the same. It seems speaking is more natural than reading or writing. So what gives? One reason, I think, is that Ontario school system (and likely others) emphasizes testing, not learning per se, and since reading and writing are easy to test, that is what we learned. A very similar thing happens in math classes. We need to stop worrying about marks!