The Year 7 – 9 French students have been very lucky to pair with the Canadian High Commission this term, to expand their French cultural a language learning experiences. The contest, entitled ‘Tiguidou’ (A French Canadian word meaning “It’s all good”) was sponsored by the Canadian High Commission to present a challenge to students all across Canberra as part of “La Semaine de la Francophonie” (French language week), which happens every March. French elective students at JPC were inspired by the quebequois culture and created short videos that highlighted aspects of French-Canadian culture.

As part of the promotion, Sean Murphy, an educational entertainer, travelled to our school in Week 5, accompanied by Isabelle Martin, Deputy Head of Mission to the Canadian High Commission and other High Commission staff. The Year 8 and 9 French classes enjoyed Sean’s energetic promotion of Canadian culture and language. The performance was very interactive and left the students dreaming of tasting ‘La vraie poutine’.

Inspired by their brief interaction with Candian culture, a group of Year 9 students Tafara, Moyses, Thomas, Yousif, Matheus, Abhi and Kamil, created a music video that merged aspects of French-Canadian culture. Not only did they write and perform their own rap accompanied by original music and some fabulous video editing skills. For their efforts, the boys won the competition, winning for the entire Year 9/10 French elective class, a private function at the Residence of the Canadian High Commission.

The trip to the Canada high commission was super fun. On the bus, everyone was talking to each other, especially about how excited we were and how we really didn’t know what to expect there. We were met by the high commissioner himself, Mark Glauser, along with his wife Diane. The High Commission, his family and staff, were incredibly welcoming and friendly. Sean Murphy was there again with a slightly different presentation to further expand our language skills. We were guided through several activities that included even more details of less commonly known Canadian culture. An example of one of these activities was guessing whether a movie trailer was from a French or Canadian film. This not only got us to listen to the French accents but look for cultural clues as well. These activities were really fun and to top it all off, the winning team of the Tiguidou contest, (us) received certificates. ­­­­­When all the fun was over, we were all presented with goodie bags containing maple leaf cookies and Canada t-shirts.

We are very thankful to Mrs O’Sullivan and the other French teachers for giving us this incredible opportunity to expand our knowledge of francophone culture outside of France.

By Tafara Moyo and Thomas Kuminek