Most years our French immersion trip to St. Donat, Québec runs in February. St. Donat is in the Laurentian Mountains not far from Mont Tremblant. Students don't necessarily have to know how to ski or snowboard already, but they should be interested in learning! Many other outdoor as well as indoor activities will also be done while we're in St. Donat. These include skating, snowshoeing, singing, and visiting the famous St. Donat bakery. Students will get a lot of practice speaking and listening to French, and they will learn a lot about Québécois culture.
https://perspectives-edu.com/destinations/st-donat
We normally run a trip to France every couple years, sometimes in conjunction with International Languages. Paris and another region of France are usually explored and often paired with regions in Spain, Italy or Switzerland.
Chef à l'École will ignite a love for learning the French language while supporting your curriculum goals. The program is an interactive hands on experience for students to expand their current French vocabulary while preparing recipes with a story based lesson in French Canadian culture.
Since 2003, thousands of students and hundreds of schools have experienced the Chef à l'École program. The program is an in-school field trip experience for your class to enjoy. Their chefs help students learn to appreciate French beyond the classroom experience without ever leaving their school. Chefs will provide an atmosphere of the French Culture represented in language, food, music, instruments, storytelling and classroom set up.
It is their goal is to make each visit unique while continuing to live up to the high standards and consistency that schools have come to expect. Programs are suitable for every age, ability and language level.
Twice a year (once every semester), the FI geography classes spend one night camping at the Pinery and explore the beauty, geographical importance, and formation of this provincial park's oak savannahs and sand dunes. The next morning, after a guided tour of the dunes, students are then taken to Grand Bend to explore the unique natural and urban characteristics of this lakeside community.
Explore culture, cuisine, cinema, and language with other like-minded francophiles and bons vivants. The French Club is a great way to apply, expand, and use concepts learned in various FI courses.
From trips to the cinema, to the ROM or to FI elementary schools, there are various activities in and around London that enhance the French Immersion experience that Banting offers. These are announced well ahead of time, so please stay tuned.
•In grades 10 or 11, Banting students can participate in an exchange of 3 months or less and live with a host family in Europe or Québec
•Check out iseontario.on.ca (International Student Exchanges, Ontario)
*a ISE representative comes to our school each year to tell our grade 9 and 10 immersion students about the ISE exchanges
•Students who will be 16 or 17 in the summer should think about applying for the YMCA Summer Work Student Exchange : what could be better than a summer job in Québec and an unforgettable cultural/linguistic experience?
• Click YMCA summer work student exchange for more information
•For information regarding the language bursary program, see myexplore.ca
•The application period starts in late October and ends in February, and spots are assigned using a lottery system
•Certain programs can be done after grade 11 (you have to be 16 years old on the first day of the course), and others are for university students.
•Note that the bursary pays for tuition, food, accommodation and most of the activities. Participants pay their own travel costs, pay a registration fee, and they need to bring some pocket money.
•Some 'Explore' programs offer the possibility of receiving a UNIVERSITY CREDIT, but you need to make sure that you apply specifically for programs that grant credits and also that your home university will accept the credit as part of your particular degree. A great way to earn your first university credit is to do an Explore program the summer after you finish grade 12.
•University students can apply to work as guides at Juno Beach in France
•Click Juno Beach Student Guide Program
•Aside from Juno Beach, many other historic sites, museums, parks and certain summer camps require their staff to be bilingual (Google things like "bilingual summer jobs Ontario/Canada" and see what's out there!)
•After graduating from Banting, you could become a Page at the House of Commons
• Click Page Program Ottawa for more information
•This is a very competitive program, and the application process involves submitting your final marks from grade 11, an essay, and your CV along with the names and contact information for two references
•Students who are selected for the Page Program do their first year of study at one of universities in the National Capital Region and work as Pages on a part-time basis