For Immediate Release

Tuesday, Nov. 13, 2018

Media Contact: Benjamin Paulin
Phone: 781-428-3299
Email: ben@jgpr.net

King Philip High School Hosts French Exchange Students

WRENTHAM —  Superintendent Paul Zinni is pleased to announce that King Philip Regional High School recently hosted a group of French exchange students.

From Oct. 28 to Nov. 8, 19 high school students from Yvelines, France and two of their chaperone teachers visited Massachusetts and lived with host families from KPHS in Wrentham, Norfolk and Plainville.

For 12 days, the French students immersed themselves in U.S. culture while speaking mostly English. The students alternated days between going to classes at KPHS and sightseeing in Boston, Cape Cod and Plymouth. They also got to experience Halloween.

Ellen Dill, KPHS’s French teacher, has organized student trips to France and Quebec for the past five years. This is her first time organizing a student exchange.

“The complete immersion in the language that students receive by living with a host family is an experience like none other,” Dill said. “After the first half of the exchange, we see that we were very successful, as many hugs and ‘bisous’ (kisses) were exchanged and tears were shed as our new friends headed back to their home last week.”

In February, the students whose families hosted the French teens will be traveling to Yvelines to stay with their French counterparts. There, the 20 KPHS students will attend Lycée Saint-Exupéry high school and will travel to Paris, the Palace of Versailles and other destinations in the French countryside.

“I admire our students and their parents for taking the risk, plunging in and both hosting a student from France, and being courageous enough to live in a home where others will only communicate with them in French,” Dill said. “Learning about other cultures and traveling to see how other people live around world is quite eyeopening for these students and helps them recognize and appreciate our similarities and our differences.”

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