exchange visits

I went on exchange visits and had French girls to stay in return. Lots of memories - especialy as we were in puberty and all those French boys were so gorgeous to us!

Can't comment on the children not learning languages as mine have been bilingual since birth and pick up further languages easily.

Ah oui, those French boys!

I went on my first exchange age 14 and every year after that. I ended up doing a degree in French and German, so it must have done some good!

Languages are a difficult option for teenagers these days, other subjects are easier and therefore more popular.

My first kiss from a French boy called Toto ( Henri Pitoi ) in Le Val Andre

Thanks for your interesting replies.
Plus the exchange visits we all did, we also had a lot of PG to stay. One was a very pretty German young lady. At the time some Germans were still being affected by World War 11. Her boyfriend was so angry that she would want to stay with us in England. However, when she returned and heard what a great time we gave the young lady, we heard that he would have liked to have come over with her!

I am still friendly with one of my exchange partners. She too has children the same age as ours, we have attended their weddings, and we are now swapping photos of our grandchildren. We try to see each other every couple of years.

Oh Lillie that's just like me-not an exchange exactly. We were all dished out names and addresses of French students at a Mixed Lycee where our French teacher had been a student-mine was girls grammar school so half of us, including me, got a boy. Lol!
We kept in touch and I went to visit him on my own as a teenager when a church trip I was on passed nearby. There I was with my French O level, grade B-neither use nor ornament! Lol!
The friendship continued; we both married the same year, fortunately my DH and his DW got on well. We had many camping holidays with all our DC down the years and we're now grandparents together having been to many weddings/baptisms together. Sadly DDs and DGC show no interest in language at all

In 1959 I went on a school exchange to Germany. I'd been learning the language for a year at school but it was not my strong point. At 15, I was incredibly home sick and worried the life out of my mother by sending postcards home every other day saying 'only 14 days to go', 'only 12 days to go' and so on. The family I stayed with were extremely nice to me and my pen friend spoke quite good English but the German school children were so much more sophisticated/better looking/better dressed/richer than I was and I was completely out of my depth. I nearly set the bathroom boiler on fire by trying to burn a used sanitary towel in the pilot light because I was too embarrassed to ask how I should dispose of them. I solved the problem by keeping them all until we were on the ferry home and then I chucked them over the side. Auf Wiedersehn, Deutschland!

I was desperate to go to France on an exchange trip as I loved doing languages. But my parents did not let me go, saying science was the thing to study and I was wasting my time with languages. I was terribly upset.

Oh Mrs Mopp how sad.
I had my name down to go on a grammar school trip to Germany but had to withdraw as my parents couldn't afford to pay.

I am still in touch with the German penfriend I was first introduced to when I was 13 (1959).
We both went on to marry in the same year and have children at roughly the same time. Now we are both grandparents! We last met up when we were on holiday in Heidelberg.
I also had a Spanish penfriend and a French-speaking Belgian one but we have lost touch over the years.
I have always loved languages and finally qualified as a Member of the Institute of Linguists in French and Spanish and became a translator - another lifetime ago!

In the 60s I did a French exchange at 14 and a German one at 16. My French came on enormously during those 3 weeks but the trip had its awkward moments. The family had a small square bath which nobody ever seemed to use - it was apparently used for storage, and there was no,lock on the door! I was permanently petrified that Monsieur would barge in in his Y fronts, as he did once when thankfully I was dressed.
We had all been v worried on the boat over that we would have 'bucket and chuck it' loos. Consequently after about 10 days I had a postcard from a friend staying elsewhere that ended, PS, we haven't got Turkish toilets!

German exchange had none of those pitfalls, and again my German came on a lot. But I was also hideously embarrassed after a minor leak in the bed when my period started. The Mutti didn't mention it as such, but later when I wanted a bath she said anxiously, 'KANNST du baden ?' - since she thought it was verboten when you were On, as we used to say. And I well remember her daughter, my exchange, lamenting bitterly that she was not allowed to wash her hair while on. 'Ich kann es nicht mehr leiden!' (I can't bear it any more!). Such expressions still stay with me.

Daughter did both Spanish and German exchange and the German one produced an interesting little snippet. Daughter was wriggling around and trying to explain to German counterpart, 'My pants are up my crack!'
Eventually the penny dropped. 'Ah!' said the girl. 'Meine Unterhose klampft im Arsch!' ?
(mein Gott, the iPad autocorrect is even more annoying when you're trying to type in another lingo!'

That was a shame mrsmopp.
I realize today there are subjects that are more important, but to learn, from a young age, that foreign families live similar lives as us in the Uk gave me more confidence and also learning to take control of what I can or cannot spend from an early age.

Had first German exchange on my own at 14 and still in touch with my friend who is also now a Gran and our children also keep in touch. FIRMLY believe in exchanges especially to Germany due to some people's historical "baggage". Now chairman of local twinning association and we have the youngest German/British exchange in the UK I believe (9 yr olds) who stay in youth hostel due to child protection legislation for minors and spend a week in school together. This is the 10th anniversary and it goes just great-children that age aren't shy if they can't always understand everything at first. Shows what can be done with minimal language skills and the kids keep in touch by mail afterwards we hope. People here are too hung up on lack of language - of course it helps but the thing is to be friends and do your best.

Sadly those fabulous foreing exchanges (of which I've organised so many) are more or less a thing of the past. Just too much responsibility and very hard work to organise and run, risk assessment and the fear of peodophilia, etc, etc. I don't know a single school in the area where I used to teach that still run exchanges.

So much easier- but 1000x less educational- to go on a field or sport's trip staying in a Hôtel or Hostel- as a group, with the teachers. Just pick a trip out of the catalogue or internet- collect the money and go. Very sad I think. Schools here are desperate to do exchanges, but just can't find any schools agreed to do so.

In Leics we had a dedicated team who worked 100% to facilitate and help organise exchanges- all gone now apparently.

Oh I don't know, gj, my daughter still organises them with the same school in France. Always very successful.

That's wonderful to know. As said, I don't know any school that still does.

The French exchange at my last but one school had been running so successfully for over 20 years- with so many families staying in touch, visiting each other, going to weddings, etc- but one year after the 'old team' left- the new HoD used the fact one French kids had smoked a joint when over- to cancel the whole thing and switch to trips with a Holiday company - and all she had to do was collect the money and go! Same with all the other schools around.

That's a shame gj. Sounds a bit like a lazy way out. The accompanying French teachers would have dealt with the joint issue, I'm sure, and it just sounds as tho the new HoD wanted an easier option. Dommage, as the children get a lot out of it. Both of my girls are in Facebook touch with their own exchangees when they were all 13.

Oh witzend you did make me laugh! I hated French at school but was rather taken with Oliver a French boy I met in the local rec when I was about 14, ooh la la!

I went to Sweden when I was 16 in 1969 for a month and my pen friend Gerd came to the UK also for a month. We are still close friends. As a result my son went to a Swedish University for a year and met his Finnish wife they now have three kids. Fantastic links and memories.

I didnt have any school exchage but I enjoyed my "pen pals" experience in my early teenage years. A boy in Italy, a girl in USA and a girl in Malaya. We wrote for years and regretably lost touch when I got married at 20 and my parents moved to Cornwall.

Living in an Indian Ocean island, exchanges were things one read about in magazines and books!
I am bi-lingual in French/English but have been learning Spanish recently. It is atrocious, but I can make myself understood and launch myself into complicated conversations, armed with my little dictionary. It has come in very useful when travelling in S. America [though they thought my accent was very funny/precious as it is Castilian] and on mainland Spain and Portugal. DH is terribly proud of me, for once
It is a shame that the British don't learn other languages or if they do, don't have the confidence to speak it.
DS1 "inhales" languages, DD is a little less fluent, and DS2 being dyslexic is finding English hard enough!

My understanding is that any exchange families have to be CRB checked (or whatever the recent term for it is) which may make it difficult for some schools to get enough families (who are willing to do this.). It is a shame I agree.

To be fair, it can be quite hard as an English speaker, to practise other languages, when just about everywhere you go, so many people do speak English. If you are say Dutch or Swedish, and want to travel abroad, or do business outside your own country, you pretty much have to speak English. Also, if you are going to learn just one foreign language, you don't have to wonder which to choose.

Many years ago when living in Cyprus I made great efforts to learn Greek, but almost every time I tried to speak it, the person would answer in English. It didn't stop me persevering with the language (I can still read and speak it to some extent) but it did bring home to me that I would not have had that problem had my mother tongue been Finnish or Spanish or Japanese.

At the school I attended it was mandatory to take Latin and a modern language. Most opted for French and we were encouraged to have a French penpal but exchange visits were never an option. We were introduced to French language in primary school and continued through to Higher Level (Scottish equivalent to A Level) I still try to communicate in French whenever we holiday there and it's often appreciated by the locals (accompanied by the occasional giggle!)