Report from Middlebury Summer French Immersion Program.

This past summer during July of 2008 a group of 32 young people participated inan unforgettable educative experience on the campus of Menlo College in Atherton: the inaugural year of the Middlebury Monterey French Academy (http://www.mmla.middlebury.edu/), a summer camp offering to junior high and high school students the opportunity to live in community, play, explore, and learn in total immersion in the French language. This summer language learning model has existed since the beginning of the 1900s for university students and professionals on the campus of Middlebury College in Vermont. In brief, each participant signs a contract promising that he or she will communicate only and exclusively the beautiful language of Moliere during the entirety of his or her thirty days in the MMLA French Academy. These young people speak in French, learn French in French, do sports in French, play in French, listen to French music in French, and even end up dreaming in French at night.

One important aspect of this unique experience in the opportunity to take art classes in town in nearby Palo Alto with a Master French painter whose name is Bernard BENEITO in his workshop " La Maison des Artistes " located on Emerson Street. Divided into three groups each with its own dedicated day and time (Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday evenings from 6-8 p.m.), each student of the MMLA French Academy 2008 was able to paint under the auspices of expert teaching in the techniques of oil painting which took place entirely and exclusively in French language thanks to the broad and depthful talents of Mr. Beneito (himself a retired teacher from the French National Department of Education Paris).

These students, all thirty-two of them, loved the experience, even those who didn't think at the beginning that they were at all interested in art in general or in oil painting in particular. Furthermore, they benefited from the experience of four extended sessions not only to paint and learn French but also to appreciate background Jazz, classical music, or the voices of French singers Brel, Brassens, Cabrel, Piaf and others as they explored their own individual talents to approximate and apply exactly the right color in the right places on both palette and canvas. At each moment, Mr. Beneito was there, to ask questions, to give suggestions, to model or show, to encourage, to inspire, or simply to listen and watch the students work--always leaving it up to the student to find his own way, his own satisfaction, and her own success. But all the same there to push each one to express him or herself both through artistic creativity and through French words and phrases aptly selected and applied. Having observed the progression of these sessions over the four weeks, I can state with certainty that these students--all of them--grew personally, culturally, artistically and linguistically.

Thank you Bernard and see you next year!