CHS senior Mary Salisbury’s favorite part of spring break was going to school. “I really enjoyed going to school… It was really different. I liked it but it was more like college,” said Salisbury.
Salisbury, along with seven other French students and two teachers, spent months preparing for their spring break trip to France. They split up for the first five days, each living with a French family and going to school. They then spent five days in Paris.
Staying with a host family was an eye-opening and exciting experience. “[It] was such a different situation that you’re thrown into and you kind of don’t know what to do.” said junior Heather Grifka. “[School] was really strict compared to here. In English class, the teacher… gave them a test because one person didn’t know the answer to a question.”
In the French schools, students had all of their classes with the same group of students. Salisbury also found the teaching style different. “It was just the teachers talking and the students taking notes instead of interacting.” Salisbury felt that, despite the differences, she had a lot in common with the people she met. “Teenagers are teenagers, ” she said, “We watched a lot of American shows but dubbed in French. “How I Met Your Mother”, “Glee” and “Cougartown” were the three big ones.”
Grifka agreed. “Classes, people, talking. I mean there were still cliques and stuff, people hanging out with their own group,” she said.
The family stay was also a time for intensive language immersion. “[I was surprised by] how much English my host sister spoke… for the first couple days we spoke in English because I couldn’t remember anything because I was so nervous, but then we switched back and forth between French and English…. [I improved a lot at] feeling comfortable when I speak,” said Grifka.
Salisbury felt her casual and formal French complement each other. “In restaurants I would hear the same sort of things that my host mom would ask me at dinner… my comprehension is a lot better” said Salisbury. “Textbook French is really broken up but in France there is a lot of slurring words together and dropping words that aren’t really necessary.”
Sarah Keller felt that her study of French at school prepared her to use context clues to pick up colloquial phrases. “They have a lot of slang words and things that they say and ways that they say them that just isn’t textbook French. It’s really interesting to learn,” said Keller.
The students then had five packed days in Paris. “I would love to have a little bit more down time just to chill but then we wouldn’t get to see as much,” said trip co-leader Liz Stern. The guided bike tour of Parisian attractions was a highlight for Keller. “I just got to see a lot of Paris in a really short amount of time, and that was nice,” she said.
Other favorites included the Musee d’Orsay, Montmartre, Notre Dame, the Pantheon, shopping and the food.
Stern “saw students really grow in their language from the beginning to the end where, at the beginning students were kind of tentative about even ordering food and by the end they just said ‘of course I can do this get out of my way!’… I also felt like the kids actually looked different after we picked them up. They had their scarves on and just looked more French.”
