After the final exams, during the term break, a group of ten students from Grades 5, 6 & 7, went on an educational tour to the Mediterranean Centre for French Studies which is located at the heart of the French Riviera at the border of Monte Carlo. It spreads out over a campus of 3 hectares overlooking the Mediterranean sea and has more than 50 years experience in teaching French and conducting international youth exchange programmes. The children stayed on campus for 10 days and had regular classes. The programme at the Centre was very well organised and all the activities were well spaced out. Each morning, after breakfast, the children had classes with lot of interesting games, role-plays, oral expressions and oral comprehensions.

The afternoons were even more fun with excursions to various tourist locations. We visited Nice which is a lovely city with beautifully paved streets and breathtaking scenery. A visit to the famous city of Cannes where the film festival takes place every year, a visit to the city of Monte-Carlo famous for its casinos, guided visits to a patisserie and a perfume factory, visit to the Picasso museum and the Jean Cocteau museum were some of the main highlights of our programme at the centre. The children were given questionnaires about the history and culture of Nice and Monaco which they had to fill up by asking questions to the local people. The children were also taken to the local shops, the post-office and the local market where they had the opportunity to interact in French with various people.

The children attended a number of workshops which were very enriching. Among them were a linguistic workshop on songs, a workshop on ceramic painting and traditional folk dances of Nice. The children also had the wonderful opportunity of interacting with the Italian and Spanish students who were also staying on campus at the same time. This tour was organised as a global educational concept which allows our students to develop their language skills, make new friends of other nationalities , learn about different cultures and grow through the experience. I am sure that our students who had this once in a lifetime experience would agree that this educational trip proved to be a tremendous success beyond all expectations.

Mrs Thanu Cherian.