LFCDS Students Return from World Language Immersion Trips with New Perspective

Most students would mention they learn language through pain-staking chalkboard lectures on tenses, gerundive phrases, and noun gender. At LFCDS, the School likes to present language in a more, well, exciting way. Every year, LFCDS eighth-grade students travel on immersion trips in which they are exposed to the native culture of their foreign language of choice and actually put their language skills to practice. Staying consistent with the School’s focus on applicable knowledge and conceptual, creative learning, which fosters interest and interactive participation among students, LFCDS offers three different trips for eighth-graders every year.

 

This year, students taking Spanish traveled with Nan Caldwell to the tropical rainforests of Costa Rica; students learning French traveled with Elisabeth Brunner to the historic city of Quebec; and students learning Mandarin Chinese traveled to authentic Chinatown in San Francisco under the guidance of Diane Neubauer. After five days in an entirely new environment, all eighth-grade students returned from their learning experiences late last Friday.

 

According to Nan Caldwell, whose group did everything from canopy-bridge exploring in the rainforest to spending a half-day with Spanish pen-pals at their native school, these trips are truly an “immersion” in every sense of the word. It is one thing to learn about language in a classroom, mentioned Elisabeth Brunner, but to experience it among the native people and culture is to make the language alive. Therefore, students are encouraged to speak their foreign language of choice for the entirety of the trip. Mrs. Brunner mentioned that her students spoke French ninety-five percent of the time, while Nan Caldwell mentioned that many of her students subconsciously ordered their first meals back in the United States in full, fluent Spanish without even thinking twice. Students in San Francisco visited a temple, conducted a scavanger hunt through Chinatown, and went on a Ghost tour, all while conversing in Mandarin with the aid of Diane Neubauer.

 

Although the trips were certainly fun, exciting, and a fresh experience for all involved, they were also incredibly educational, just not in your conventional way. Mrs. Caldwell remarks that one of the goals of the LFCDS World Language program is to cultivate “global citizens” who are adept at navigating the increasingly international world. What better way to culminate an already rich classroom experience in World Language at LFCDS than having eighth-grade students put their knowledge to practice in the most human way possible: conversation and interaction?

 

Although these eighth-graders only have a couple more months at LFCDS, you can rest-assured that they will leave the School confident in their ability to tackle the next stages of life, wherever they may fall on the globe.