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  • Writer's pictureMrs. Larance

Parlez-vous français?


The Ardèche river and view of Saint-Maurice-d'Ardèche.

Before I studied abroad in France, everyone teased me that I'd meet a French boy and fall in love. I dismissed this completely, but in the end, it was almost true. I did meet my husband that year, and although he was raised in the U.S., his mom is from France, making him also, sort of, French.

We're based back home in the States now, but I love that I've married into a French family. Speaking French liberates a part of me that, most of the time, lies dormant. After years of studying the language and even earning a college degree in it, I finally have a genuine reason to have done so. French now serves an external purpose, to communicate with people with whom I have real relationships.


My guiding question for my Fulbright exchange is about student motivations in learning English as another language. This will greatly inform my teaching as I think about my own students' motivation. However, I'm not sure I really know why I chose to study French. It just always felt worthwhile to me, that there was a whole community of people using the French language to frame their thinking about the world, and I wanted to unlock that for myself. I hadn't planned to keep taking French courses, but I found I never wanted to stop. Now, every trip to France is like a mini-course in further developing my language skills.


 

National Pride


The stated reason for this trip, the reason my husband started planning it several years ago, was to watch the United States compete in the Women's World Cup. Soccer is one of his passions, so he rounded up a large group of friends and family to bid for tickets to the games and hang out in France. It was such a rush to watch the U.S. women dominate in the final match! To be in France chanting "USA! USA!", with an American flag on my cheek, was liberating. Most of the time I try not to stand out as "un-French" while there, but this time, I screamed my nationality at the top of my lungs. I watched with pride as the team showcased what it means to be a strong, proud, American woman.






Celebrating the 4th of July abroad lends itself to both patriotism and reflection.

 

What can French schools look like?



Former village primary school in Lanas, France. The cement yard in front is where students played at recess. Nowadays, they attend school in a nearby town.



 

Reducing with Descartes, recycling with Shakespeare


This year, due to being located near the UNESCO World Heritage Site of the Grotte de Chauvet (see below), the village of Lanas is participating in a new waste management program. Residents are tasked with sorting all trash at home, composting what they can, and carrying their waste to centralized drop-off points. It's gotten a bit of controversy in the area, but from a personal standpoint, it definitely made me think differently (more carefully) about every scrap of waste I produced. I got very good at flattening water bottles filled with the delicious, locally bottled, naturally sparkling water!



Left (for trash, 30 L max): "I reduce, therefore I am." Right (for paper and cartons): "To sort or not to sort? That is the question."

 

Ancient Artists, Modern Preservation


The Ardèche region, in the south-east of France, is home to the Grotte de Chauvet, one of the most significant archaeological sites in the world. This large cave, discovered in the 1980s, has magnificent paintings from the Upper Paleolithic era, about 36,000 years ago. Far from primitive, the artistic techniques showcase the sophistication of prehistoric humanity. People have been forced to rethink a lot of what they thought they knew about artistic abilities, symbolic thinking, and complexity of society from so long ago. Basically, as travel also reminds us, humans are more alike than we are different. That was true for these biologically modern humans in the Upper Paleolithic as much as it is for diverse cultures today.


Other famous cave art has been severely damaged by the presence of visitors and tourists. The Grotte de Chauvet was fortunate not to have been re-discovered until the 1980s. The experts knew that drastic steps must be taken to preserve the artwork, so a near-perfect replica was created nearby. Taking the tour of the replica cave, you would never know it was a re-creation. It's an incredible example of how to share understanding while limiting damage. As our tour guide emphasized, we can learn a lot from studying the cave (carbon dating, etc.), but we are maintaining it so scholars of the future can use new technologies to discover even more.




The Pont D'Arc, a natural stone bridge near the caves. The artists from the cave would have seen the same stone bridge 36,000 years ago (although the Ice Age vegetation would have looked quite different).

 

Fantastic French Food


It's well-known that French culture values high-quality food and related products. It's one of the best parts of visiting France!



Award-winning charcuterie (meat and sausage) shop.

Macaron bar inside the grocery store.


Fresh garlic for sale at the fruit and vegetable stand.

Lavender fields in Ardèche.

Cheese inside Les Halles (gourmet food market) in Lyon. The flags hanging from the ceiling are in honor of the World Cup.

The text on this price label thanks the local vegetable producer.

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