Yes; soup is eaten with a soup spoon, which has a completely circular bowl. The soup is scooped up from the soup plate using the side of the spoon furthest from the diner; tilting the soup plate away from the diner if necessary. The spoon is lifted to the mouth and the soup is sipped (noiselessly) from the nearside of the spoon.
Oh yes 
I completely forgot that part. The most difficult thing about it is to avoid soup drippling from your lips when you remove the spoon - but can be done! 
I think that may be part of the reason why you scoop it up with the side furthest from you. Not saying it actually works - because a little drip of soup always clings to the underside of the bowl - but it would seem to be the reasoning behind the method.
Also; if you have a bread roll, you should tear it with your hands, rather than attempting to cut it with a knife; it is preferrable to tear off a small morsel of bread and butter it before eating, than it is to halve the roll and butter the whole lot.
Fork in the left hand, with its tines facing down, and the knife in the right hand. They stay there throughout the course, except when you get up, in which case you cross them on the plate, fork over knife. When finished, the knife and fork are laid parallel across the plate on a negative slope. For multi-course meals, you change utensil for each, working from the outside in, except for those made for bread, tea, and desert, which are positioned above the place-setting.
That was how I was taught in school. There was also a host of other fork-and-knife signals beyond X and \ to avoid speaking to the waiter, but I’ve forgotten them.
As for home, it was essentially the same, less the formality. Fork in left, knife in right, tines down, clean set for each course. At home, though, everything was made at once, so they weren’t so much “courses” as “different plates”. And if the food didn’t require a knife, then I’d just use a fork.
But, yeah, how do I use my fork? In the left hand, tines down.
I suppose each person can use the fork whichever way they like, while rather posessively singing that old Lindisfarne ditty “The fork and the tines are all mine, all mine …”
And I’ll get my coat.
I learned the English way - left hand curve down for fork , right hand for knife but at the end of the plateful it was OK to use the fork other way up in the right hand to scoop up any stray last bits. The fork is simply being used like a spoon. Other than that no changing of hands ever.