Europe Bound: Update on upper-level French and Spanish students’ trip to Europe this summer

In order to provide a well-rounded language education, the Spanish and French departments, led by Spanish teacher Kristina Lind and Spanish and French teacher Gina Halksworth, are finalizing plans for their first study abroad trip since COVID-19. The group will leave for their 10-day trip to London, Paris and Madrid on May 30.

The trip was first introduced to French and Spanish students in levels 3 and above last April, not including freshmen. By bringing back the trip, Halksworth and Lind are hoping to incite a new level of excitement for language in their students.

“[The trip is] going to show real world experience that you can’t duplicate in the classroom,” Halksworth said. “I like [when we] go to Paris and get on the metro and I’ll have some of my French students figure out where we’re going.”

The group will spend three days in each city with plane and train rides in between. Lind and Halksworth planned a full itinerary through Education First Tours — a travel company that Halksworth has used for school trips since 2002.

“I’m actually having the same tour guide that I’ve had three different times, so that’s another level of security that I have,” Halksworth said. “I’ve worked with this company since 2002, and they know who I want to have as a tour guide and they make sure that he’s with me.”

Starting with London, the EF Tours guide has planned numerous sight-seeing locations, such as the Big Ben, the House of Parliament and Buckingham Palace. In Paris, the group will see the Mona Lisa — a crowd favorite, according to Lind — and take a boat at night to see the lit-up Eiffel Tower. Finally, Madrid will be filled with authentic Spanish music and food along with a couple cathedral and synagogue tours.

Along with trying to make the Buckingham Palace guards laugh, Lind and Halksworth will give their students mini “assignments” throughout the trip including ordering meals or translating signs in French or Spanish.

“We’re starting in London, so that’s going to be the place of confidence — everyone can speak English,” Halksworth said. “But then we go to France, where some of the Spanish students are going to be saying, ‘How do I order this?’ and [the French students are] going to feel success. They’re gonna be like, ‘Oh, my gosh, I really know some of this stuff.’”

This success is what Halksworth and Lind are hoping for from their students. In previous trips, Halksworth and Lind have noticed students pick up on native idiosyncrasies, such as learning new slang or native pronunciation techniques.

IB French 5 senior Rowan Divadeenam hopes that while in Paris, she will experience a whole new type of French fluency.

“I feel like I’ll hear more conversational French [in Paris because] in the classroom you just get textbook [grammar],” Divadeenam said.

Though this is only the first trip since the pandemic, Lind and Halksworth have already started planning the next trip. They hope to offer a trip every other year, and make each one different. For example, Lind has mentioned taking her Spanish classes to South America or Halksworth taking her students to Nice, France or Pisa, Italy. Lind and Halksworth are ready to get fully back to normal since COVID-19.

“In 2025, we’d like to have more people,” Lind said. “We’d love to have a different group of people, but even [larger numbers]. Keep your eyes out, and at the end of 2024 we’ll start talking about the next one.”