Bringing expert in a French class

Although I am a true French ( with the accent and all), I wanted my students to hear somebody else’s story about their life in France.
I thought that a kiwi living in France would give them another point of view of France that I cannot present. My experience of France is unique as somebody else’s experience of France would be.

After a fast search on Mr Google, I have found Kim Martelli who blogs about her life in France. She is a kiwi and used to go to Katikati College. I wrote her an email explaining that I wanted to bring an expert in class via Skype. Without hesitation she accepted.

This morning, during period 1 (9 am), Kim had a 35 minutes skype conference with my Year 13. The kids were of course shy (and giggly !!!! As you can imagine teenagers dealing with a new situation) and asked questions that came up naturally. The only boy in the class had, of course, to ask if French girls were hot or not !

After the conference, the students carried on their conversation and asked me other questions. It was nice and exciting for me as their teacher to see the experience continue even after the conference. I was very happy to see them thinking.

As I come from Corsica and Kim lives in the center of France, it was also very interesting to listen to her describing her food experiences. She told the kids that it was hard for her at the beginning to get used to the massive amount of butter used in the French cuisine. Her experience is totally different than mine, as we don’t use butter where I come from but olive oil.

Over all it was a very positive experience that I would love to do again