I remember very clearly a conversation I had before I left to spend my year in France, living with a homestay family with work experience during the day. I had been given the contact details of the girl who had been in my position the year before, and I had meant to call her earlier, but I'd had a million and one things to do.
I called her the night before I left. Her advice was pretty clear, "don't go!" she said. According to my predecessor, neither the homestay family or the job was what I had hoped for. I was going to spend the year being bored with nothing to do but stay in and watch TV. I came off the phone and cried. Once I stopped crying and panicking, I put things into perspective. It was too late to change my plans. My year was to be spent in a school (or in a lycée to be specific), where I was to help out the English Teachers.
From the moment I arrived at the school, I was the most smiley and out-going person that I could be. I am not a complete misery usually, but I my social-side became much exaggerated! The conversation with my predecessor had done me a huge favour. Some of the students were a similar age to me. I found myself suggesting to a group of girls that maybe I could join them the next time they went out. They invited me to join them the following Saturday night.
We had a few drinks and nibbles at one of the girls' houses and then went to a local nightclub. When I say drinks and nibbles, I mean hot chocolate and biscuits. When I say nightclub, I mean soberly dancing to techno music on a revolving dance floor. This was quite a different experience to my usual student night out. Despite sneaking off once or twice to the bar, I quite enjoyed it! I'd had a night out in France, with French people, and speaking French! Well done me! Maintaining my smiley and out-going persona, I found that my social-life slowly developed. Before long, I had three separate groups of friends.
One evening, I found myself accepting two dinner invitations for the same evening. Firstly, I went to a local crêperie for pancakes with the group of girls. Afterwards, I went to a friend's house for dinner with her parents. I managed the starter and main course quite well, but by the time we got to the cheese and dessert, I was starting to struggle. I was like Geraldine in the Christmas episode of the Vicar of Dibley (when she has to force-feed herself sprouts, having accepted too many Christmas dinner invitations! It would have been quite easy to get through my year by staying in every evening and watching TV. Easy, this may have been, but not as fulfilling. I would have missed out on so many opportunities: trips to Christmas markets, weekends away, coffee on the seafront, local folk evenings, 10 mile cycle rides (in the rain). I was made to feel part of things, and I think that my friends liked to involve me.
Maybe you can learn a lot of language from reading and watching TV. But is this enough? Through socialising, you can learn the hidden gems such as the slang phrases and the local expressions. You can also feel satisfied that you have made the most out of the experience.
The following year, I got a phone call from the girl who was taking my position (being better organised than me, she called two weeks before she was due to leave!) It was a very different conversation to the one that I'd had with my predecessor. I was able to give her the benefit of both experiences...I hope that a year later she did not need to say "don't go!" when she got her phone call.
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Fiona Kitchen is a homeschooling mother of two, interested in sustainable living and doing her bit to save our planet.
Her children enjoy learning five languages and she runs http://www.xilfee.eu for homestay host families and language schools worldwide enabling teachers of languages and students to meet in a safe environment.
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