Written by Kayla Maloney and Maria Putnam |
Photo via Wikipedia: Morestel

After receiving videos from 40 students studying English at Lycee Camille Corot in Morestel, France, we watched these videos, learning about the French high school students’ lifestyles. We both found all the students’ videos very unique and interesting. Although each student had his or her own sense of style, fun, interests, and hobbies reflected in his or her video, all together the students  had a lot in common.Watching these videos made it clear that each student had great appreciation for their pets. In almost every student’s video, they introduced their pets: mostly dogs, cats, and even some farm animals! Sylvian on the tour of her house showed us her dog and two turtles, while Estelle gave us a picture of her horse! The general area that the students lived in  appeared very rural and spread out. Compared to the small town of Clinton, Morestel was  farm like, more country than suburban. The houses were spread out; each house seemed to have more land than the average house in Connecticut that usually has a fence blocking off its neighbors. The houses also seemed  simple and relaxed, compared to the busyness in an average house here. It’s almost as if they live with more simplicity and appreciation, which we both found intriguing.

We also found similarities to the hobbies of students at Morgan such as music, video games, and sports. Some of the students actually played music for us in the videos. Robin showed us how he could play the drums along with the electric guitar while other students had music playing in the background of their videos. The music they  listened to was very similar to what is popular here today; one of the students favorite singers is Rihanna. Another similarity was their interest in video games; all of the boys and a majority of the girls mentioned their favorite games,  and most if not all of the games were also very popular here in the U.S.

Overall, the average student at Lycee Camille Corot, is no different than the average student here at Morgan. Their interest in video games to their home life were all typical of teenagers in the U.S. Kayla and I learned a lot about the average lifestyle of these students.  The videos gave these French students the opportunity to practice English.  Journalism students last semester created a video, An Overview of  The Morgan School , for the students in France, and Judy Chicoine wrote an article Take Me To France. This semester the Morgan Pawprint journalism class will be assisting Mrs. Sunny’s French students  who will make videos in French to share with the students at Lycee Camille Corot.