French Exchange 2003

The biennial exchange program with the Externat Sainte-Marie in La Verpillière, France

To provide the students of French with a total immersion in the French culture, this program offers homestays in the villages around La Verpillière, a town 20 minutes to the southeast of Lyon.  Our students are matched with students their age from the Externat. They live with the family of their host students and go to school with them.  The school is a K-12 private establishment, very similar to OES, where there is frequent contact between the faculty and the parents. This is a reassuring fact when it comes to homestays.  Several excursions are part of the program: trips to the neighboring villages and to Lyon, to Avignon and the Baux de Provence, to the medieval villages of Pérouges and Crémieux. Options are sometimes offered, if the time allows, to go to Geneva or to the neighboring and very picturesque Beaujolais region.  The last three or four days are spent in Paris with a visit to the château de Versailles.  In Paris, we stay in a hotel and use the métro for transportation.  In return, the OES students and their families host the French correspondents for a little less than three weeks, during the Easter Break in France.  The French correspondents will be going to classes at OES with their hosts on some days, and on others will be taking day trips around the region. There is a general get together towards the end of their stay. 

Duration: three weeks which include Spring Break and the 6 days immediately preceding Winterim.