Trampoline jumping and Carnival with our French guests

French teacher Ulrike Wilmsmeyer sent in a student report on the Marburg-Châlons French exchange:

On Tuesday, February 6, our exchange partners from Châlons-en-Champagne arrived. After a nine-hour train ride to Marburg, we gave them a warm welcome at the train station.

Our extensive program began on Wednesday with a day at school. We showed them around our school, and they observed a German class. In the evening, we got to watch the revue premiere with our exchange students. On Thursday, we went on our first group field trip, which took us to the Chemikum Marburg. There were two different labs there where we were able to conduct many experiments. The dry ice experiment was the most popular.

Afterward, we went to the climbing gym together. There, we had the chance to boulder and climb. After refueling with tarte flambée, we walked to St. Elisabeth Church. Due to the bad weather, we then ended our outing. On Friday, we took the train to Frankfurt to visit the Film Museum. We started with a detailed guided tour of the exhibition, and then we were divided into small groups to shoot our own films. These films were created using still images played back one after another. This is called pixilation.

After a wonderful weekend with our host families, which included individual outings, we drove to Linden on Monday to visit the trampoline park. Afterward, under the theme “bleu-blanc-rouge,” we headed to the carnival parade in Marburg. In the evening, we gathered at the Forum for a closing party. We enjoyed a large buffet and a lovely look back at the past week, as Mme Barrière had put together a great slideshow for us with photos and videos. On Tuesday morning, we took our exchange partners to the train station at nine o’clock and said our goodbyes.

Looking back, we can say that the exchange was a wonderful addition to our regular French classes, as it gave us the chance to experience things firsthand. Our French skills have, of course, improved significantly over the course of this week. Hopefully, this will also be the case during our return visit to Châlons in May.

We are grateful for this opportunity to exchange ideas and hope that future students will have an equally wonderful opportunity and great experiences.

By Lilli Ansorge, Sophie Böhm, Luna-Marie Körner, and Nils Rettig (9th grade)