Hello! Just posting to ask for a little advice.
I'm a 3rd year university student studying French and Linguistics in the UK, but am currently in the Ile-de-France region working as a language assistant for my year abroad. It's exactly 3 weeks on the dot that I've been here teaching and living in France, but I feel like my French has somehow gotten worse since my arrival.
For context, I'm not sure what level I'm at because I've never taken the CEFR, but I'd been able to confortably hold conversations in French when I first arrived. These days, I have to ask two or three times for a person to repeat themselves before understanding what I'm trying to say, when before I'd either immediately understand, or would just have to ask once. I do have auditory processing issues which also affects my understanding of English, so that might have some effect. I also was able to very easily speak fluid sentences at the beginning of the month, and while I had to offer some thought to what I wanted to say, I didn't struggle to find what I was looking for up in my brain like how I do now. I understand that occasionally speaking French in an educational context is very different to actually living and speaking in France every day, but it just feels like a part of my brain has been locked away, and it's very frustrating because I know I'm capable of more.
Is this typical? Is there anything I can do to make this easier for myself?