Rory O'Connor - NSW to France

Fri 20 Jun 2008

Rory O’Connor from Mt Annan High School in NSW is currently on our long program to France. Here is his latest news.

My host family is so welcoming, nice and funny with me. In my French family I have a Mum, a Dad, a sister (Margeaux, 22) and a brother (Louis, 15). We live in a city called Roven (about an hour and a half drive north of Paris) with a population of about 100,000. We live in a two storey house.

My family always has breakfast together, which is really nice. My French parents both work. My Dad is an Engineer for a telephone company. My Mum is an office assistant and my sister works as an office manager in Paris.

My family speaks French to me and only some English when I don’t understand or if it is something important. My French Mum even gives me lessons in my room, because I have a white board so she explains French to me on this.

Every morning Louis, my Dad and myself travel by car to Roven City to go to school and work. My French Dad gets home at around 7pm and my French Mum gets home at midday so she is always home when I get home. I don’t really have any chores, just some guidelines to follow; I make my bead, clean after myself, keep my room tidy and I have to open my windows in the morning for fresh air. So nothing is too hard!

The food is so nice. I love it! I’m trying so many new things in this family. My French Mum cooks and she always worries if it’s going to be nice, which I don’t know why she does because it’s always nice. My favourite would be this special dish she cooks with curry chicken and special tomatoes and rice – it’s soooo nice! Some new things I have tried is Pettie Swiss (a kind of hardish yoghurt with sugar, yum!), Formage blanc (a kind of yoghurt again but creamy and yum!). But I have to say I am in love with the French Baguette which I have every morning fresh (because my French Dad walks to the bakery when it opens at 7am). So it’s still hot and I have this with my hot chocolate and it’s soooo good!

Sometimes on the weekend we will go to the Coast of the North of France and have a family day out, or on the weekend Louis and I will go bike riding in the forest, that is close to our house. My French Mum and Dad will go running during the week or on the weekend. My French Dad also goes swimming twice a week and every Thursday Louis, and a family friend and I play Badminton for two hours, which is fun and you get a lot of exercise.

The French school was such a shock for me, as it starts at 8am and can finish at 5pm or 6pm! So it was very tiring and hard for me to get used to this routine. Although I’d like the idea of having a good canteen where you can sit down and eat a good proper meal with a knife and fork unlike Australia. And you can also leave your school during your breaks which is very good and different for me.

My first impression of the teachers was that they are very strict and very mean. And that they really didn’t care about you. To me they seem like they teach in a negative way. For example, in Australia if a teacher asks a question and the student gets the answer wrong the Australian teacher would say “Um. Not quite. Keep trying” as this is a positive teaching method. But in France, the teacher would say, “No. You’re wrong! It’s incorrect!” Which seems like a negative way. But after a while I suppose I have gotten used to this and now I can see some teachers are nice and can actually care about you.

The classes in France are different to Australia as well. For example, in France you can have 1 ½ hours and even 2 hours of one class. But in Australia you would never have this and if you did this wouldn’t be normal like it is in France. The French also have lots of breaks, with every class you have seven minutes to get to the other class and after two hours you have a 15 minute break. And you have an hour or two to eat! Very unlike Australia!

Sometimes I go with my French Mum to the primary school where you can help the students who have trouble reading or writing. But I go to watch and pick up on some French. Every Sunday my Mum and I go to the market together to buy fruit, cheese and vegetables.

See ya,

Rory