Conversation Café and the French Club’s Next Steps
Jordyn Kelly (’26) uses a spreader to cook crêpes on an electric griddle.
February 9, 2023
On Friday, Jan. 27, the French Club had its first Conversation Café, a place where students can improve their conversational skills in their target language, during Power Hour in Room 144.
“Once you come into that door, you can only speak in French or gesture; no other language is allowed. And we’re going to just have a café [with] snacks, listen to cafe music, have some hot chocolate, possibly coffee, to make it a real café setting,” Ms. Krysta Goodwin, the club sponsor for both the French club and French Honor Society, said.
The idea for the event came from students’ desire to have more practice speaking French, which can be difficult to fit into a 78-minute class period.
Future meetings will have pre-picked topics to make discussions flow more easily, “It’s already pressure enough to talk and listen in French, but now they won’t have the added pressure of trying to come up with something to say to somebody in another language that they might not know super well,” Ms. Goodwin said. “I think that in the long run, it will be helpful.”
Conversation Café is not the only thing the club has on its plate. February is proving to be filled with activities. On Feb. 3, the club celebrated International Crȇpe Day, and learned more about the history behind the holiday during Power Hour and made crȇpes after school.
They’ll also be working with other language classes to celebrate World Language Week in February, making plans to decorate hallways during Power Hour. These plans also coincide with the beginning of Carnival season, a Catholic holiday often observed in various French-speaking countries.
“It’s a period of celebration for a lot of French cultures, but also for Spanish and German cultures. So, that is nice because it does incorporate all of our [school’s] languages,” Ms. Goodwin said.
The Carnival season ends on Feb. 21 ,and is traditionally closed out with Mardi Gras. The French club will have a cafeteria table solely dedicated to festivities, including the tossing of beads, bows, masks, and candy.
But that’s not all. In the coming months, club members will have more to look forward to. They’ll be making macarons in a macaron class, and in April there will be an honor society induction. Following that, there will be an end-of-the-year party. All these activities are currently being prepared.
The French Club and French Honor Society meet on the first Friday of every month. Conversation Café will take place every other Friday, alternating between A Lunch and B Lunch, and students are already eager to come back for the challenge.
