Un Voyage en France
(C) 2011 Steska. (c) 2011 Steska. no parts of this book may be reproduced, copied, or saved by any means other than its original intent without expressed written permission of the author. All illustrations are copyrighted & registered by Steska and may not be used, copied, saved, or altered by any means.
This story is intended to help high school students who will be traveling to France on an educational trip with their teacher and class. Students will encounter situations that are unfamiliar to them, and this story will help them to understand how to interact with people from a culture different from their own. Many students, when they travel to another culture for the first time, are at a loss as to how to cope with the differences. This story will present examples of how to act so to arrive at the students can arrive at the result they are seeking when interacting with other people.
This is Katie. She is in Mme. Stevens' French III class, and is an A student. She is very popular with the others students, and always willing to help out. She is very excited to finally have the opportunity to travel to France and speak the language that she has been studying. A very considerate young woman, Katie is always very respectful of others and tries hard not to offend them.
This is Alex. She is a French II student with Mme. Stevens, and she is a C student, mostly because she chooses to do as little as possible. She wants to go to France to go shopping. She has been told that the trip is an educational trip, not a shopping excursion, but she is primarily interested in shopping, nonetheless. She has not paid a great deal of attention in the pre-trip meetings, when she bothered to show up, so will be caught unaware in some of the situations that she will encounter. She is not one to consider the feelings of others, and is not very popular with many of the other students on the trip.
Et voilà Madame Stevens. She is the French teacher who is taking her students to France. She hopes that they will gain a greater understanding of the culture and improve their French language skills. She has taken students abroad before, and has also lived in France, so she is prepared to address most issues that arise.
At the bottom of each page in the story, you will meet Marie-France, Jean-Michel and Emily, our coaches. Emily asks the reader to look at the actions in the story and consider whether they are appropriate actions in the United States. Marie-France asks the reader to identify the mistakes that the characters make in the story. Jean-Michel provides information about France, the language and the culture.
We are finally in France! Katie is very excited to get off the plane and start sightseeing. There is so much to see! La Tour Eiffel, le Louvre, Notre-Dame! Where will we start?
Alex, on the other hand, was tired and not interested in sight-seeing. She just wanted to go to the hotel and take a nap, even though they would not be able to go to the hotel for some time. She decided that she would rather complain about her sleepiness than focus on the fact that she was in Paris! But, lucky for Alex, next on the agenda is lunch!
Le Dejeuner! Time to eat! Students will order what they want to eat from the server themselves. As they have all studied food vocabulary, Mme. is sure that they will have no trouble!
Alex is hungry and impatient. She snaps her fingers and calls to the server: "Garcon! Garcon!"
Katie is hungry as well, but instead of snapping her fingers and shouting (which hasn't worked for Alex. The server is ignoring her.), she makes eye contact and politely asks. "S'il vous plait?" The waiter approaches to take her order.
Credits
The following websites were very helpful in the creation of this story.
Some pictures were created on toondoo.com