Foreign Language Trips to France, Spain Deepen Students' Learning

There is no substitute for experience, especially when studying foreign language. Being immersed in the culture and language of a foreign country makes the learning process resonate that much more and two groups of Rivers students were able to experience that over the summer.

Students of both French and Spanish were offered the opportunity to participate in trips that would send them to each language’s European home. The French trip, part of an exchange program with Lycée International Georges Duby, went to Aix-en-Provence while the Spanish group ventured to Cádiz for a cultural and educational experience.

The French exchange’s American leg got off to a less-than-perfect start as the students from Aix arrived on Patriots Day weekend, just days before the tragic Boston Marathon attacks. That Tuesday was to be their introduction to the Rivers community, but instead the students experienced the memorial ceremonies held at the school and got a unique portrait of American life.

“The French students had never seen anything like that, it was so unique,” French teacher Sarah Klein recalls. “They were extremely moved by the ceremony.”

The visiting students were afforded many experiences of daily life in Massachusetts, visiting Copley Square and the Prudential Center as a group while some students went on trips with their host families to regional landmarks like Fenway Park. They also spent some time at Community Servings – a community service organization in Jamaica Plain – packaging meals for distribution to the families it serves.

"Service learning isn't as prevalent at schools in France as it is here, so this was a very special part of the French students' experience at Rivers, " said Elisa Goldsmith, who helped to organize the trip but did not travel to France. "Their general feeling was that this was the most interesting part of their visit."

The second leg of the exchange sent Klein and the Rivers students to Aix after school in America had ended. They arrived in time for the last day of classes at the Lycée in Aix and spent the rest of the trip visiting the more scenic and culturally important areas of the region, including Marseille, Cassis, and Avignon.

With a comfort level already in place, the second part of the trip was an easy adjustment for the Rivers students, said Bryan Cleveland ’15.

“The biggest thing we had to adjust to was how fast they spoke and the slang they used in France,” Cleveland said. “If we wanted to say something was cool we would say ‘chouette’ because that is what is in our books, but they would look at us like we were crazy because that’s so formal. It’s basically the equivalent of saying ‘neat’ in English.”

Their Spanish counterparts had a different experience in Cádiz staying with families who opened their homes to them. This element of the trip forced students to really immerse themselves in both the language and the culture.

“They were living with their families and those families might not know very much – or any – English at all,” said Spanish teacher Tara Ann Sujko. “They would have breakfast, either eat lunch with the family or have a lunch packed for them, and then they would eat dinner with their family. Some of our students have allergies so they always had to make sure they were doing a good job communicating during those times.”

The only time the students were speaking English was during morning check-ins before their days began.

“It was interesting to watch because for the first week they were trying to adjust and were a little panicked, but on the way back they were frustrated because they started thinking and dreaming in Spanish,” said Spanish teacher Feryal Sacristan, who also went on the trip to Cádiz.

The academic portion was important – students took an exam at the end of the program and received a grade for the experience – but so too were the cultural experiences the students had throughout their immersion experience in Spain.

Among those experiences were trips to the Roman ruins in Bolonia, Gilbraltar, and the Alhambra, as well as lessons in traditional Spanish cooking and dancing. The program offered students plenty of opportunity to explore Cádiz through walking tours and a scavenger hunt that led students to Spain’s original constitution, which was signed in  Cádiz in1812.

Both trips were once-in-a-lifetime experiences that helped the students deepen their learning and grow as individuals while offering an experience that truly has no substitute.