The International School of San Antonio celebrated its first French Cultures Festival, on Saturday, March 20. “La Francophonie” has been celebrated on this day since 1970. Our school welcomed our students, their families and visitors for an outdoor event featuring French games, French foods, music and more.
La Francophonie includes 88 member states which comprise the French-speaking world. Our staff and guests represented a variety of different French-speaking countries, including France, Switzerland, Cameroon, Benin and Canada. The French language is the second-most studied language in the world and is spoken by 300 million people spread across all five populated continents. The International School of San Antonio partnered with the French Consulate in Houston to promote this event.
At our event on Saturday, children learned the words “fraise” and “banane” at our crepe station. Hélène Le Gall, member of the ISSA team, ran the diabolo station. She said this station “was a real hit because this fun French drink is not something that can be easily found in the United States.” The pétanque station really brought out the competitive side of some attendees, according to Hélène: “It was great seeing how competitive some of the parents were in the pétanque competition.”
Our Journée de la Francophonie was our first major event of 2021. With our warm Texas spring, we were able to have the event entirely outdoors. With our mask policy still in place, we were able to have an event that was both fun and safe. Vitali, a preschool parent, remarked that it was a “great festival” with “lots of positive energy.”
Families who are interested in French classes, French camps and French immersion preschool, should check out the programs page of our website. If you interetsed in our future events or would like to receive updates, please sign up for our newsletter and follow us on Facebook and Instagram (@issatx).
Author: Mary Field
Published 03/28/2021
