Weston Forum
Weston French students ‘travel’ to France
Middle schoolers plan, take and share a ‘virtual’ trip
Mar 11, 2008

Eighth grade French student Izzy Ditkoff shares the secrets of the delicacies of Brittany and the scrumptious claffouti that she tasted while on a virtual tour of Roscanvel, a tiny town in the most western part of France.

In her eighth grade French classes, Alisa Trachtenberg has designed a unit that ties together the entire year: a five-day virtual trip to France.

Each student must plan a trip to Paris and another town in France. They go online to research plane tickets, accommodations and other details necessary for their trip.

As with any trip, the students have a budget they must stay within. When planning their five-day itinerary, they need to take into account the realities of time lost during intercontinental travel.

The students have gone online to French real estate and vacation sites to research vacation house rentals that meet the needs of their family. They had to pick a house, write a letter to the owner to inquire about availability, and a letter to their parent(s) telling them why they selected the house they did and specifically how it met their families’ needs. In hope of doing a house swap (to save money on the rental), students gave virtual tours of their own houses as well.

Over the past few weeks, students have been discovering the delicacies of France as they share the secrets of some of the scrumptious dishes they “tasted” on their virtual trip in the region outside Paris they visited.

Each student did or will do, a presentation to the class in which they share, in French, information on the town and region they visited, including typical products the region is known for and the secret ingredients of a typical dish from that region.

So far, all the dishes prepared have been a hit. Some of the favorites included chicken and apples from Normandy, salade d’Antibes from the Côte d’Azur, macaroons, a specialty of Saint-Emilion, and kouign amann, a scrumptious buttery Danish from the region of Brittany and made famous in America in the film Amélie.

As the year goes on, students will be tying everything they have learned together in a travel journal in which they will recount their trip day by day: what they are doing, what they did, and what they are planning or hoping to do.

In addition, having become an expert on the region they visited, the students were able to secure a virtual job with the tourist bureau for that town!

As part of their duties, they will be giving a sales pitch to a group of travel agents in France, in which they must tell them a bit about the town, where it is, and what it looks like and then go over the main attractions, regional specialties, and festivals, as well as any other interesting details.


© Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers