French

French Staff

Our newly formed team of Nick Ouchtomsky, Elena Balai, Annabel Grigg and Chris Dite is settling in well and working collaboratively to deliver an excellent language program to our students.

Their experience, interesting and varied backgrounds, passion for teaching the French language and enthusiasm is very exciting to see. We hope you take the opportunity to meet them at the 3-Way Conferences which will be held on 7 and 15 September.

Welcome to our Exchange Students

Last week we welcomed eight exchange students from France who have joined our Years 9 & 10 program for five weeks:

Elise (Yr 10), Paris

Inès (Yr 10), Paris

Jean (Yr 10), Versailles (in the Île-de-France region)

Karen (Yr 10), Nantes (upper Brittany region, Western France)

Marina (Yr 9), Paris (this is the second year in a row that Marina has visited us!)

Paul (Yr 10), Beziers (Languedoc-Roussillon region of Southern France)

Tiphaine (Yr 9), Paris

Yanis (Yr 10), Paris

These young people have travelled a long way from home and are confronting challenges outside their familiar support network and comfort zone. They are enjoying practising their English skills and learning more about our culture and the Australian way of life. On arrival each visitor was buddied up with a student from Years 9 or 10 who showed them around the campus and helped them generally get settled. On Friday their Preshil peers will be providing a shared lunch and possibly tempting them with such Aussie delights as lamingtons, chocolate crackles, party pies, Vegemite, etc.

Apart from enriching our language program, hosting exchange students at the School furthers international education and understanding of different cultures and enables us to be part of a changing global community. We do hope you get the opportunity to meet them.

Film Excursion

Students in Years 7 and 8 will head to ACMI in Federation Square on Thursday 4 August to see the French film The New Kid  as part of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) Next Gen.

With English subtitles, this is the feature film debut from actor turned writer/director Rudi Rosenberg, offering a sharply humorous take on the perils and pitfalls of surviving high school and the universal maxim that being cool isn’t as important as being yourself. We are certain students will identify with some of these themes and be thoroughly entertained by this enjoyable film.

French Immersion 

by Annabel Grigg

Our French exchange trip is creeping up, with eight lucky students from Years 9 and 10 (and one very lucky Preshil teacher) excited to immerse themselves in French school and family life. Students will depart Australia at the beginning of our summer holidays, arriving in Rouen to live with French families for six weeks.

Working closely with Joanne at the Centre d'Echanges Internationaux, we have carefully organised a program which we believe perfectly balances students' educational and cultural immersion. Our students will live with host families, spending four weeks in total at schools in Rouen and two weeks in between for Christmas and New Years' holidays with their families. (I'm told this often involves trips to the snow, so the chances of a White Christmas are high!)

While arrangements are well underway for those students who have committed to the trip, there is still a short window of opportunity in which others could sign up. The trip will be hugely beneficial for the French skills and cultural understanding of our students as well as their confidence in using the language, so please do contact me annabel.grigg@preshil.vic.edu.au for any more information if you are interested.

Au Revoir Preshil

Celia Preuhs came to us at the start of the year through the School Language Assistants Program. This was a volunteer position and during the months she was with us Celia ably assisted students across the year levels in the development of their language learning, under the supervision of classroom teachers, as well as contributing to the French program in many other ways.

When Celia left at the end of Term 2 she was joined by family from France and they travelled together around Australia before heading back home. Her message to us before she left: I just wanted to thank you all for the great times I had this semester. I still can't believe it's over …. THANK YOU FOR EVERYTHING!!! I will be back one day, for sure!  If you visit France I hope you actually get to the Alps – if you don’t, this is what you will miss!  Happy holidays, and all the best.

Celia hopes to reunite with our students participating in the French immersion program to Rouen in December this year.

We take this opportunity to publicly thank the Tucker family (Year 8) who graciously opened their home to Celia for the duration of her stay in Melbourne.

Viva la France!