Rouen November 2007 - Work Experience Abroad

A teacher's point of view

A student's point of view

A Level Work Experience, Rouen, France

Your first day at work is always a nerve-wracking experience. The prospect of meeting new people and not knowing what to say is always truly terrifying. But, imagine the same situation in a foreign country, where you not only have to make friends, but do so in a language that you are not completely fluent in. What do you do? Well, you would have to take the chance and be as proud as we are.

A-level French really is an enjoyable challenge whereby we learn, not only a new language, but about a whole new culture too. However, what you learn in a classroom and what you experience when in another country are, honestly, worlds apart. This is what we discovered from just one week abroad in the beautiful town of Rouen.

Before embarking on our journey, we went through an interview process and a training session so that we would be prepared for our placements. It was also the first time that we met other students within the borough that we would be travelling to Rouen with.

Once in France, we were shown to our placements and left to experience a real working life.  As the week progressed, we all found ourselves becoming more confident speaking in French – to such an extent that we voluntarily spoke the language amongst ourselves! We had so much fun with the rest of the students and the French people themselves that we are all now good friends too!

The week that we spent abroad enabled us to experience French culture first-hand and taught us the value of learning a language. Being able to speak and have conversations in French with French people was one accomplishment that we all appreciated and feel very proud of. We now know that regardless of what we do in the future, we can look back at this experience and take it with us in any field of work we choose to go into.

Pavneet Syan, Navpreet Kundal, Jasmine Bhullar, Jay Bhadrich & Harleen Sandh.