Alumni Video Project: IUHPFL Alumni: Honors Program in Foreign Languages: Indiana University Bloomington

Raylen Buckley - Ciudad Real 2022

Jackson Wright - Graz 2022

Olive Rusk – Merida 2015

Noah Roberts – Ciudad Real 2014

Daniel Riggs – Oviedo 2012

Sara Phillips-Bourass - Brest 2001

Description of the video:

00:03

my name is sarah phillips boros and

00:06

i went to brest with the iuh pfl

00:10

in france in 2001 when i was

00:14

a student at terre haute north vigo high

00:17

school

00:18

and um i i knew

00:22

from uh when i first heard about the

00:24

program that i really wanted to do it

00:25

because it just seemed

00:27

so sort of intense and

00:30

i had friends of mine who are older than

00:32

me who had gone

00:34

to spain i think and so i knew that it

00:36

had really

00:38

been a cool experience for them so um

00:42

i never regretted it at all it was

00:44

amazing

00:45

i came back from france and i had

00:49

uh basically like gotten so into french

00:52

from the immersion experience

00:54

that i couldn't speak english anymore

00:57

when we first got off the plane

00:59

um and that was a little shocking i

01:02

remember crying in the car because i

01:03

couldn't talk to my mom

01:05

and i really wanted to tell her all the

01:07

amazing things i'd done and what a great

01:09

experience it was and like every time i

01:10

tried to talk

01:12

in english french would come out and it

01:14

took like a day or two for that to sort

01:16

of wear off

01:17

and of course my english came back so

01:20

don't let that scare you off from it

01:22

but that's just to show how profoundly

01:25

it really impacted

01:26

my use of french my ability to think in

01:29

french i started dreaming in french

01:32

and now i am a high school french

01:34

teacher um

01:35

i never would have gotten serious about

01:38

studying languages

01:39

i think unless i had done the trip to

01:42

france

01:43

i i always recommended the program

01:46

to my students when i was a teacher in

01:49

indiana for eight years i taught at

01:51

signature school in evansville

01:53

and we had a lot of students participate

01:56

in all different languages

01:57

and they always came back so much more

02:01

mature

02:02

and confident and their language skills

02:04

were just

02:06

through the roof and then they really

02:08

helped

02:09

enrich our language program at the

02:11

school

02:12

uh during their senior year when they

02:14

came back and were

02:15

able to help their peers um because they

02:18

had learned so much while they were

02:20

overseas so i can't

02:24

recommend it highly enough i really miss

02:26

having iuhpfl

02:28

as a resource now that i teach in

02:31

florida

02:32

our school where i am now has its own

02:34

exchange program that they're very proud

02:36

of

02:37

and that we encourage students to go on

02:39

um

02:40

but in the back of my mind i'm always

02:42

like but i wish it was a hpfl because

02:45

um our program's only like one week they

02:47

do get to stay with a host family

02:49

they're paired up with

02:51

the correspondent in france but it just

02:53

doesn't

02:54

do the same thing for their language

02:57

skills

02:57

as a full summer of immersion

03:01

and the immersion approach that i

03:02

learned as a student

03:04

and that's impacted me as a teacher

03:07

i've taught and immersion for years i

03:10

still do

03:11

especially my upper levels i still

03:13

insist on speaking french

03:15

all the time and i wouldn't

03:18

have the confidence to teach that way

03:20

and know

03:21

how successful and magical it can be if

03:23

i've ever done it as a student

03:26

so if you're a student watching this i

03:28

really hope you will consider

03:31

going ahead and doing it if you're a

03:34

little nervous

03:36

it's totally worth the sort of what can

03:39

seem a little scary at first

03:41

and i know that you'll look back on it

03:44

and think that was one of the best

03:45

choices that you made as a high school

03:48

student

03:49

so good luck and

03:52

thank you to iehpfl for

03:55

all that you've done for so many

03:57

students throughout the year

Clifford Lee – San Luis Potosi 2001

John Duvall – Saint-Brieuc 1967

Shannon Swann – Saint-Brieuc 1980

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