GapBreak update: France Language Immersion

COUNTRY: France
PROGRAM: GapBreak
PROJECT: Language Immersion
WRITTEN BY: Allie Boyd

It's been another great few weeks here in France. After spending time settling in and getting to know our families, Holly and I finally met up in Le Mans and got to know each other’s families. This was after I moved to Christine's house, who is our in country partner and who is good friends with Muriel, Holly’s host mother. Holly had been very busy going to Muriel’s school to help with English lessons.

When the students learn English, they can learn business vocabulary and English useful for working in retail. Holly also got to participate in the lesson by pretending to be a customer and had to ask questions about the products at the school store. Muriel and Eric’s two children, Romane and Lucas were absolutely adorable (and a bit shy) and Holly would ask them simple questions about their days and what they did at school to increase their vocabulary. The kids would also ask what some words were in English.

“Muriel works in a vocational (agricultural) school in Brettes-les-Pins. Students go there to learn either nursing, selling food products or selling garden products. The classes had prepared questionnaires for me about life in Sydney and were very interested in driving licenses & school, especially the school uniform! “- Holly

We were both so happy we had finally met up so we could talk about what was going well, how we were doing, any concerns we had (there weren’t many really) and shared ideas about lessons or games for our English tutoring.
Because of our families’ busy schedules we had a lot of time to ourselves and met up a lot during the following weeks. We were also lucky that we had the same days off from school so we could go out and explore. We went to some fun places! One of my favourite memories was going to L’Arche de la Nature, which, like the name suggests, was a nature park not far out of Le Mans. It was so pretty and we walked a lot. It was absolutely beautiful and it gave us a chance to actually get to know each other. It was so calming and peaceful and we got some amazing photos.

We also had some interesting experiences here… I touched an electric fence and got electrocuted. Holly got zapped too. It was quite shocking! We learned all about bee keeping and were proud that we could read the information in French. We wandered through a forest and got attacked by a swarm of flies.
Holly faced her fears and climbed this giant ropes course all the way to the top! She was much braver than me. I only made it to the first level and got too scared.

Le Mans is such an incredible place and everything is so close and easily accessible. Getting to the city centre walking along the Roman wall was also enchanting because it’s so old and it still holds strong. The old town was amazing to walk through and was like being in a different century. The Saint Julian’s Cathedral (top picture) was so impressive and no matter how long you looked it didn’t even look real but at the same time looked perfectly in place.

Some of my favourite parts of this experience have been meeting new and amazing people and one Saturday we got to meet other exchange students. Christine organised for every student to make a speciality from their country for the party. Holly made ANZAC biscuits, I made a meat pie and together we made lamingtons (picture second from top). We were very proud of our creations as we didn’t have the regular ingredients like self-raising flour and had to use substitutes. The party was at one of Alain’s factories and we helped decorate the party room with balloons and flags from all over the world. When everyone arrived we had the fun of greeting them at the door and tried to speak some French as we knew everyone would be speaking it. We got to mingle with the other families and spoke, what we liked to call 'Franglais', which was not quite French but not quite English.

If this trip has taught me anything so far its that sometimes all you need is 20 seconds of bravery and sometimes, insane courage to get something done. Whether its meeting someone for the first time and being scared of what to say, or having to speak another language when ordering something to eat or even admitting you’re lost and need help, they are the times you remember because it was a personal triumph were you pushed past the fear of embarrassment and just had a leap of faith that it would all work out.