Hilary De Joux – Co-ordinator of French

ImmerseMe Games

Recently Emanuel School French language students participated in the first international virtual reality language competition called ImmerseMe Games.

The competition was based around virtual reality language learning software developed by Kiwi company, ImmerseMe.

Competitors were dropped into a series of pre-recorded virtual reality situations in which they had to test their language skills with real native speakers, for example by ordering a baguette in a Parisian boulangerie, checking in to a French hotel, buying crêpes at the crêperie, visiting famous French monuments, chatting to a French native speaker about environmental concerns or describing our hometown and region to a French speaker. Students commented on how much they noticed an improvement in their confidence, their pronunciation improved and they learned a lot of new useful words and phrases. 

We received this lovely comment from ImmerseMe co-founder Scott Cardwell: “Huge congratulations to students at Emanuel for their French efforts in our ImmerseMe Games. We’ve implemented product updates thanks to their direct feedback and creativity. It’s fantastic to see students with a global outlook and working hard to improve their foreign language skills for the future.” 

The competition ran from 21-28 May 2020 and involved all students of French in Years 8-12. The competition was intense, and we congratulate all the competitors for their wonderful efforts and we look forward to even greater success and a podium finish in 2021. The competition may be over but the ImmerseMe program itself is available all year for students of French as they all have their own individual accounts and are free to practise whenever they wish. 

If you’d like to find out more, hop on to the Games website for further details here.  

Pictured above:

Luca Calderon-Havas,  Gold Fluency Award, coming in the top 5% of 47,594 competitors, for earning a staggering 1,389 points!
Ethan Berman, Bronze Independence Award, coming in the top 20% of 47,594 competitors, earning 297 points 
Teoh Bader, Bronze Independence Award, coming in the top 20% of 47,594 competitors, earning 278 points
Tara Linker, Bronze Independence Award, coming in the top 20% of 47,594 competitors, earning 267 points

Madame de Joux also won an Innovative Educator Award for Emanuel School during the Games.

What has been happening in France during this COVID-19 pandemic?  

During the lockdown period there have been some very quirky things happen in France. Did you know that a French cheesemaker has accidentally created a new type of cheese? Just when you thought France had all the cheese it could ever possibly need or wish for.  

Vosges cheesemaker Lionel Vaxelaire, who like so many small businesses suffered a severe lockdown sales decline, put much of his munster cheeses that were ready for delivery into storage and then during isolation he totally forgot about them.

When Lionel eventually returned to the cellar, he found they had developed a green-grey flowery rind. Like any proper fromager, he ate some and discovered it was just delicious! Le Confiné, as it has been named, is described as having notes of camembert, and has sold well enough that another batch is now maturing. 

You’ve probably heard of Eau de Toilette, but have you heard of Eau de Paris?  That is the name of the company managing Parisian water supplies. Since 2010 more and more free mineral water fountains have been added across the city and just to make it more exciting you can now access free sparkling mineral water une fontaine petillante as well.

Paris already had more than 1000 public water fountains, but now the council is adding more and more sparkling water fountains free to the public in an effort to reduce water bottle waste and promote the quality of Parisian water.  

Photo credits:
Cheese photo: Doris Henry, le Parisien
Spring water fountain: Four Square City Guide, Paris Facebook page