Affordable French Immersion At Its Best

I had always wanted to participate in a French immersion program. I had always wanted to but didn’t really think it would ever happen. The plane ticket alone to Europe was enough to quell my dreams, not to mention housing, tuition, and miscellaneous living expenses once I arrived there.

And then came Ste. Anne.

Growing up in south Louisiana, where most people have Acadian heritage, I had heard about the summer immersion program at Université Sainte Anne in Nova Scotia; however, I really didn’t know much about the program until the director, Jean-Douglas Comeau, came to my French class one day to make his pitch.

He was a short, sturdy man well into his years, who definitely looked and sounded French. He knew just what to say – the exact words to gain our full attention. Everything he described was what I wanted in an immersion program:

• five weeks of French 24/7
• classes in the morning and activities every afternoon/evening
• possible credit transferred back to your home school (for high school or college students)
• and affordability!

The program requires a $150 deposit to reserve a spot in addition to the $2,300 program fee (paid in increments), but participants can cancel up to just a few weeks before and still receive a FULL refund because there is always another person ready and waiting to take their place. The program fee is all-inclusive: the price for room, board, classes and other activities! In addition, most participants don’t spend more than $200 for miscellaneous expenses during the entire five weeks. AND, a plane ticket from Louisiana to Canada was a lot cheaper than one across the pond.

I left class that day with newly-found hope. This program sounded great and was one I could afford. I immediately called several friends who had done the program themselves or knew others who had. Their words confirmed my desires. “I’d do it again in a heartbeat,” they all said.

Several months later I found myself on a plane from New Orleans to Nova Scotia, excited about my first time setting foot on Canadian soil. I arrived at the Halifax Airport and discovered several other program participants. We chatted in the terminal while waiting for the rest of the group to arrive and then piled into the blue and white school bus the university uses for round-trip service from the Halifax Airport to Church Point (it costs $100 each way and is well worth the price for the ~ 2-3 hour trip).

Arriving At Saint Anne

We arrived at the university in the evening. The setting was beautiful with the campus shrouded in fog. The university lies next to a rocky beach, with a little wooded area and marshland in between. There’s even a lighthouse nearby where evening campfires are held and marshmallows are roasted.

Next door is Sainte Mary‘s Church, the tallest wooden building in North America, which hosts Sunday masses (completely in French of course). We were given our room assignments, rules and other paperwork, and had the rest of the evening and the next day to explore. We took placement tests the next day and spoke with each other as much as possible in English before the welcoming ceremony. This is when all program participants sign a pledge that says they will not speak English for the rest of the program (except in designated areas around campus when calling home)! The first few hours of “complete French” after the ceremony were quite amusing with more than half of the room at a sudden loss for words. But we quickly learned how to get by with synonyms and resorted to over-the-top hand gestures when our vocabularies failed us.

Of the three levels, Beginning, Intermediate, and Advanced, I was placed in Intermediate 1, and attended classes each weekday morning from 8am-12pm. In the middle of each class we went to the light-hearted and much-anticipated “session d’information,” a 20-minute break consisting of hilarious skits, songs and updates about the afternoon and evening activities each week.

After class I joined friends in the cafeteria for lunch and relaxed a bit until it was time to go to “ateliers,” or workshops, around 2pm. Like class, everyone is required to participate in ateliers as it gives you a great chance to increase your vocabulary and practice using your French while doing something fun. I chose Tai Kwon Do, but there were plenty of other options such as music, art, conversation, scrapbooking, gardening, and dancing.

Life On Campus At Sainte Anne

Late afternoons and early evenings were often spent relaxing, attending short afternoon excursions to historical sites around the area, trips to the nearby grocery store or Frenchy’s (similar to a Canadian version of our Goodwill, only better!) On weekends, there were even more activities like canoeing, whale watching, longer sight-seeing trips, and, at night, themed soirees! Everyone really enjoyed getting into costume and heading to “Le Chateau,” the on-campus bar, for Soiree Hawaiian, 50’s, Graphic T-shirt, and Halloween.

In all, my five weeks at l’Universite Sainte Anne were some of the best in my life. I didn’t know anyone before I arrived, yet I left just a few weeks later with life-long friends and a wealth of French knowledge. But the best part about my experience at Sainte Anne was that it taught me not to be afraid of making mistakes and to just speak en français!

Guest post by Ashley Herrick. Check out her wonderful blog, Life In The French Alps, to follow her journey as she prepares for her move from Louisiana to Annecy, France to be an English teaching assistant.

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