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Strasbourg, France 2024
Strasbourg, France 2024
In April 2024, I participated in an immersive exchange program with Lycée Kléber in Strasbourg, France. For ten days, I lived with a host family, immersing myself fully into la vie quotidienne of a French family.
Prior to the exchange trip, I wasn't entirely sure what exactly to expect. How would "authentic" French compare to "classroom" French? How do French students learn English? What major cultural differences would I see?
Of the classes I attended at Lycée Kléber, my favorite was a French literature class, what felt like the rigorous French equivalent of AP Literature. Soirées after classes, my host and I went to parties, jazz concerts, and cafés, allowing me to live an immersive, authentic, and unfiltered French life for ten days.
I’ve taken French courses for six years: many of my courses—in particular, AP French—employed authentic video in the classroom: videos that were not prepared for educational purposes, but instead for an average French viewer. From watching Lupin on Netflix to Les Marioles Trotters on YouTube, I had felt pre-immersed in modern French culture, past just learning syntax and vocabulary.
My junior year AP French class
This "pre-immersion" better prepared me, in my opinion, to experience “authentic” French, a language inclusive of its slang, references, le verlan, and rich culture. I saw that “learning French” meant to live in French: immersion leads to proficiency, and authentic video media was able to provide this immersion without the need for traveling. And when I did get to travel to France, I felt that I was able to truly make the most of the experience.
In my opinion, this exchange trip with Lycée Kléber most resonated with SDG 17. Two weeks after we visited Kléber, the Kléber students traveled to the United States to experience American living and education. A more ovarching idea, SDG 17 emphasizes the cooperation between different communities to achieve the same overall goals: the AHS-Kléber exchange program exemplifies this partnership on a larger, international scale.
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