The French Exchange Finally Happened

[caption id="attachment_395" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Took this at the NRM and thought it was funny!"][/caption]

Many moons ago (so it seems)...well, 3 years, just when I was starting on this adventure into new technologies and discovering the possibilities for MFL teachers, such as myself, in terms of getting pupils using language for real, I was asked by my then Head of Area to find a French school in order to establish a link for exchanges. We already had an extremely successful link with Meppen in Germany and an equally successful link with Cheste in Spain but French was most certainly the poor relation in terms of links and opportunities for exchanges.

I had just discovered eTwinning via Joe Dale's marvellous blog and decided to find out what all of the fuss was about. Having registered with eTwinning, I quickly found a partner and established a project with a view to setting up an exchange the following year. The project "Je blogue, tu blogues...let's blog!" was very successful with pupils from both schools develping frienships and helping one another with their language learning. However unfortunately for many reasons the link didn't develop into an exchange and the hunt was on again.

One of my colleagues in the MFL Department had a link with a teacher in Caussade near Toulouse. I contacted her and things looked positive. We worked together on an eTwinning project (in English only, this time, as there were several schools involved) and my class exchanged letters every half-term or so with a class from her school and set things in motion for an exchange.

There were hurdles to overcome, as with any new link. The biggest hurdle being that our partner school wanted to bring 27 pupils!!! This was unheard of in Ian Ramsey history of exchanges...we are normally over joyed if we get to 20 (as I think most schools would be). Nevertheless, we persevered and, with a plan to house some pupils in a local hotel got plans underway. I was over-joyed when I managed to persuade the final 2 pupils to host French people, meaning that no-one was to stay in a hotel!

The week itself arrived and we had an action-packed programme, hightlights included a visit to Durham, the Angel of the North and the Metro Centre, a whole group trip to York and the National Railway Museum, project work at Teesside CLC and a visit to meet the Mayor of Stockton. The funny thing was, I got stick all week for organising the visit to Mayor and in fact our French friends loved it - telling me to definintely keep in on the programme for the future! As part of their CLC project, pupils started to work on a wiki as a diary of their week, to which I will add their presentations and leaflets about the history of the railways and York tourist leaflets as soon as I can. You can see what has been done so far here (still needs a bit of work!).

What of the future? Well things look very rosy. In 3 weeks time our pupils will return to France. Again, a record of 21 pupils (some of whom were so enthused by the whole event that they asked if they could come eventhough they didn't take part in the home-leg!). In addition we will carry this through to another eTwinning Project specifically aimed at improving Speaking and Writing Skills for GCSEs.

Sadly I'm unable to go on the return leg - I've been off gallavanting around Europe too often already this year, so am indebted to my colleagues, Fiona and Julie for taking the return trip and for their invaluable support during the exchange week itself.