Summer of 2018 will hold a new opportunity for high school students from around the state hoping to participate in the Indiana University Honors Program in Foreign Languages (IUHPFL). For more than 55 years, Indiana high school students have been traveling abroad with IUHPFL. This past summer students traveled to eleven sites in Austria, Chile, China, France, Japan, Mexico, and Spain. Now, a new site will be located in Quebec City, Quebec.
Each summer ~250 students from around Indiana spend five to six weeks abroad with host families where they speak only the target language. They attend classes in the mornings, have planned activities in the afternoons, and go on excursions to enhance their cultural awareness. Most sites participate in community engagement and volunteer activities which provide the students with an opportunity to develop broad connections within their host communities that, for many, become like a second home. IUHPFL's combination of intensive academic instruction, a mandatory language commitment to speak only in the target language while abroad, and the full-time integration into a host family allow students to participate in a total immersion experience.
Just as the program's Spanish students can indicate a preference to study in Chile, Mexico, or Spain, French students will now have the option of an immersion experience in either Canada or France. The new program site in Quebec City will provide an equally rich cultural and language immersion experience, while offering a location that is closer to home for Indiana French learners. According to Managing Director, Loni Dishong, "Quebec City was identified as an ideal host city for IUHPFL due to its status as a UNESCO World Heritage site, its beautiful architecture and rolling landscapes, its many summer festivals and family activities, and its ability to offer full immersion in Quebecois language and culture."
IUHPFL will begin accepting registrations via their website in mid-September from Indiana high school students who have completed their sophomore, junior, or senior years, as well as extensive study in Chinese, French, German, Japanese, or Spanish.