French International Language Camps: Parent Interview with ANGUS

Watch our Parent interview with ANGUS to hear firsthand what children experience and how they grow at French International Language Camps.

Transcript of the interview

What was unique about the program at French International Language Camps that made you want to enroll your child there?

I think the most unique thing about French International Language Camps is its bilingual nature. It’s relatively small, and they run it in a hotel in Megève.

My daughter was seven years old when she first went there. She spoke a little bit of French but mostly English, and she shared a room with a girl from Paris who only spoke French and another girl from Italy who only spoke English and Italian. The net result is that they all found a way to converse, and it really lifted their language skills.

I like the way the camp does teaching in the morning, teaching language in both directions, primarily English and French. But in the afternoons, they just get out and have fun, right? They do rafting, wakeboarding, and all the kinds of things you can do in the French Alps in summer, which is really cool.

What would you highlight about the camp’s programming, counselors, or facilities?

One of the highlights of French International Language Camps for me is actually the town, Megève. Megève in France is a ritzy ski resort town, but as people might know, the French Alps are far more fun in summertime than in wintertime. Wintertime is just skiing and snow, but in summertime, you can do everything.

My daughter said she was doing a summer luge, which is this sort of half-pipe all the way down the mountain. My wife was horrified to discover that she was sliding down the mountain on a luge. But everything was there, and so as a result, they could have an incredibly mixed bag of activities that, in most cases, kids have never done before and that here in New York you wouldn’t even think about doing.

Another example is hiking with mountain dogs, which are really twice the size of the kids, right? That’s just something you would never conceive of. So the unique aspects, I think, are the town and what the town then brings to the camp director’s ability to find new and unique things for the kids to actually do.

Pre-COVID, they had a pretty wide selection of nationalities. One of my son’s best friends from the camp is Saudi Arabian, lives in Riyadh, and still communicates with him. One of my daughter’s best friends is Russian, right? She didn’t have a word of English or French, and so they figured out how to converse in some version of Russian and English. So it tends to attract a pretty broad international audience.

How did you know that French International Language Camp was the right fit?

The camp director at the time, Tina Munnings, was incredibly warm and welcoming. The night before, my daughter didn’t say a word for an hour. But then we got there, and the friend from Paris turned up at the same time. They just got chatting and started talking a little bit in French. Then my daughter looked at me and said, “It’s okay, you can go now.” So we were good at that point.

The hotel they ran it in was a typical French Alps hotel, with wood panelling, a fireplace, and all that kind of stuff. As a parent, you’re leaving a seven-year-old girl and then flying to a different continent. But it was quite clear to me that they had this, and she was perfectly safe in their hands, so that was great.

Was there any change or noticeable personal growth that you saw in your children after time at French International Language Camps?

Both my kids started dreaming in French when they first did their camps in France. My son attended French International Language Camps a little bit later on and went there a few years in a row too. I’ve never actually seen that before, and that’s when you know they’ve become genuinely bilingual.

For my daughter in that first year, being forced to find a language with her two roommates, which was some combination of French and English, pushed her out of her comfort zone. When she went back the next year, she was pushed a little bit more, and so on and so forth.

Since then, she has done two or three Outward Bound courses. Her last one was two weeks sailing on an open boat in the North Atlantic with 10 other kids in the rain, wind, and everything else. She was the youngest in that group by a long way, but she had the confidence and the wherewithal to handle the conditions and actually help the other kids.

I bring that all the way back to that first experience with French International Language Camps and being pushed out of her comfort zone a little bit. It’s created a line of personal growth that you can see actually started with French International Language Camps in 2014.

How can parents overcome hesitancy to send their children away for a week or longer?

Megève is a lovely village and a lovely town. There’s zero crime, and everyone who lives and works there knows each other. It’s a very safe place to put your kids.

The camp itself is in a hotel, and everyone is being looked after all the time. The student-counselor ratio is very high on the counselor side.

Most kids need to overcome that fear earlier. We know some kids here in New York who’ve never been away from their siblings or parents for more than a night. Now they’re teenagers—my daughter is now 14, and my son is 16—and it shows. You can tell which kids haven’t been away from their parents.

I think it’s an important, critical part of growth for the kids themselves to overcome that fear earlier.

What would you tell other parents about the overall value of sending kids to French International Language Camps?

I’m very much in favour of sending kids to camps, particularly the ones that are smaller. I just like the fact that a smaller camp gives the kids a lot more scope to interact and be an individual, not just part of a large group.

I’m also very much in favour of education, particularly language education. If you place someone from Russia who speaks Russian into a group full of kids who only speak a different language, they’re going to figure it out relatively soon. They’ll communicate relatively soon, and how they do it is expanding a part of their brain they would otherwise never get to use if they stayed in their own country.

So I’m a big fan of these kinds of camps and a big fan of the language component as well.

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