The French invasion begins on March 7 as 22 French exchange students arrive to spend 10 days with WHRHS families. French teacher Nancy Suppin has done exchanges before, but she’s particularly excited about these French students’ visit since it gives her and her students a chance to return the wonderful hospitality they received when they visited Tours, France this past January. WHREA teacher Suppin and colleague Alicia Bosse took 13 junior and senior French language students to brave the cold in France from Jan. 11 to 21, spending two and a half days in Paris before traveling to Tours in central France where they were welcomed by their French partner school. They were overwhelmed by the warm hospitality they were shown during their visit and are planning on wining (chaperones only, of course) and dining their French counterparts to return the favor until their departure on March 17. In fact, Suppin and Bosse were complimented by the Tours school for how willing and capable their students were to communicate in French, something that the Tours high school had apparently not found in some other schools with whom they had dealt previously.
While the French students are here they will visit New York City and Philadelphia with a special tour of Chinatown by Chinese teacher Mali Ou. When WHRHS French teachers were asked what the best part of their French trip was, they did not hesitate with their answer. “It was the way the kids threw themselves into using their French, even though they were scared they wouldn’t be up to the challenge. But in two days’ time they were chatting away and thrilled by their communicative abilities. One student boasted that she was dreaming in French by the end of the trip!”
WHREA teachers of Spanish, German and Italian also run exchanges with schools in Spain, Austria and Italy. These opportunities for the students are invaluable and the WHREA would like to thank these dedicated teachers who run the exchanges entirely on a volunteer basis. For more information about foreign exchanges, contact the WRHRS World Languages Department at bcommerford@whrhs.org.
