Parlez-vous français?
To the the above question, several Coupeville High School students could answer, “Yes†I do speak French,†or “Oui, je parle français.â€
These students exercised their acquired French language skills in a trip to France with Coupeville French professor Everett Winsberg and an accompanying group of students from Anacortes.
The students left Friday, March 25, for their 15 day trip to Bordeaux, Libourne, Sarlat, Amboise and Paris.
This trip was one of several foreign trips Winsberg has taken his language students on. Other language class trips he has orchestrated include a recent trip that several of his Spanish students took to Costa Rica.
Winsberg said he sees these trips as very important to each student’s grasp of language, context and general understanding of the culture that birthed the particular language.
“My big hope for the whole group is I want to open the door and have the students experience another culture,†he said.
Winsberg said for someone to learn a language and get to know a culture or country, they have to do it from the inside out — L’intérieur dehors.
For this reason, he said he choses to travel with Intercultural Student Experiences, an organization that coordinates home-stays for each student.
The students stayed with French families for six days. Each student had their own family and a home-stay sibling of a similar age, who took them to spend a day in a French high school.
“I’ve heard your supposed to learn twice as much just in the week that you’re there,†said junior Lillian Brunner in an interview before the students embarked on their adventure.
But before the trip, learning wasn’t the only thing on the students’ minds.
“I’m terrified of what my family is going to think of me,†junior Shannon Haskins said.
Junior Alex Platt, 16, said she thought all the students felt a little afraid of the home-stay part of the trip.
“The fear that you talk about is very normal because you’re going out of the comfort of your own home … and into something completely different,†Winsberg said.
Coupeville junior Ben Brown said he is glad the home-stay is first on their trip agenda because he said he feels a family setting is more forgiving of mistakes than city people are.
“Having Paris at the end of the trip will enable us to talk to them without causing problems,†he said.
To try to limit confusion, embarrassments or any other form of problem, students said they studied French at school, and several of them even took extra courses with Northwest Language Academy in Langley.
They all said, however, that Winsberg had attempted to give them all the tools and skills they needed to get the most out of their trip.
“Well, he’s been trying to give us every basic thing that we need to know, like the past tense, future tense, all those other verb tenses — we’ve been having to do them very quickly,†Brown said.
Platt said when the travel group did its language exercises in class, all of the other French students joined in as well so everyone benefited from the intense and encompassing language drills.
Before leaving, Brown said he felt nervous.
“It’s going to be a big shell shock,†he said.
But Brown also said he knew this trip would be well worth the momentary discomfort of nervousness because of the authentic experiences the students would have and the language skills they would acquire in such a short period.
“We can’t really learn it efficiently in this artificial environment,†Brown said.
Brown and the other travelers said they looking forward to living life like the French, even if it was just for a little while.
Bienvenue de nouveau aux amis et à la famille.