School News
French Work Experience 2008
News posted: 21-01-2009
November half term, 2008 and 6 of the A2 French students find themselves on a 15 hour journey to Rouen, France for a week of work experience. Despite the gruelling journey, stopping at no less than 8 service stations, and catching the ferry in view of the white cliffs of Dover whilst half asleep, the first evening on which the group leaders took the 39 of us for a walk to a restaurant for tea we happened to pass one of the most spectacular cathedrals we had ever seen, which made up for being completely shattered. The intricacies of it were completely astounding. The next day we were all given a map and told to seek out our work placements, which were scattered across the city in which various establishments including a nursery, clothes store, chocolate shop, hotel and the French version of Aldi. We were up early in the morning, out at lunch taking advantage of the many cafes and pasta bars and doing souvenir, or clothes shopping, as the case may be, and trawling the town around the hotel for bars, clubs and late night cafes in the evenings. We all very bourgeois, sipping espressos in view of the beautiful cathedrals, of which there were many. The whole experience was invaluable, no matter how tiring working all day for 5 days solid was. I think that the culture and language shock was such that it plunged us into a world in which we just had to learn to swim. We were forced to speak French all day and it was exactly what we all needed. I found myself counting things in French in my head, and saying ‘pardon’ with a French accent to my friends, totally by accident. The city was incredible, definitely a place I would visit again if I had the chance. Its an experience I would recommend to anyone given the opportunity, as it will be so helpful, not only for you ability to cope with speaking a foreign language all day everyday, but for your understanding of different cultures. You might even gain some French (or English) friends along the way.
